Sometimes at night, I wake up terrified of losing everything - my house, my studio, my ability to be happy, my need to draw and paint and write and look. I feel as if all the decisions I've ever had to make have brought me to a place of ruin and despair.
Then I get up and walk through the studio into the kitchen and drink a glass of water. I stand at the sink in the dark, looking out over an empty parking lot and the alley. It's very quiet for the middle of the city because it's the middle of the night. I hear a gull screech, sleepless like me.
Something in the water washes down the dread. Something in the dark lifts the lid on gloom and then, there in the room with me and the echo of the gull's call, I fall into hope again.
This last year I've had a lot of moments like this.
I've pushed myself harder, demanded change. I've acted on intuition and defied cautionary relatives and well-meaning friends.
I've quite literally walked alone at night, in miraculous foreign places where I could do so. I have found the possible at the edges of fear, my own and others.
And yet, in the comfort of my bed, snug and safe, I wake again and again roused by doom. The more I push myself to do during the day, the more I'm pulled by panic at night.
It's the seesaw I called 2018. And it's followed me into the new year.
Let me be clear here. I would rather this than a sound sleep but retreat from challenge.
I'll take this price for living awake over anything any day, or night. So on into the new year, pig squealing scared and boar bounding brave.
I've left out a water glass by the sink. I'm ready.
Then I get up and walk through the studio into the kitchen and drink a glass of water. I stand at the sink in the dark, looking out over an empty parking lot and the alley. It's very quiet for the middle of the city because it's the middle of the night. I hear a gull screech, sleepless like me.
Something in the water washes down the dread. Something in the dark lifts the lid on gloom and then, there in the room with me and the echo of the gull's call, I fall into hope again.
This last year I've had a lot of moments like this.
I've pushed myself harder, demanded change. I've acted on intuition and defied cautionary relatives and well-meaning friends.
I've quite literally walked alone at night, in miraculous foreign places where I could do so. I have found the possible at the edges of fear, my own and others.
And yet, in the comfort of my bed, snug and safe, I wake again and again roused by doom. The more I push myself to do during the day, the more I'm pulled by panic at night.
It's the seesaw I called 2018. And it's followed me into the new year.
Let me be clear here. I would rather this than a sound sleep but retreat from challenge.
I'll take this price for living awake over anything any day, or night. So on into the new year, pig squealing scared and boar bounding brave.
I've left out a water glass by the sink. I'm ready.
