Flash Memoir Friday: How to Be an Artist, How to Be a Human
Flash Memoir Friday: How to Be an Artist, How to Be a Human
Looking hard and openly; cosmic portals; new offerings at Muse
I write to you from bed on a hot, sunny Friday afternoon here in North Carolina. According to astrologers I follow on Instagram, this week is a doozy. It’s eclipse season and also Mercury went retrograde today. Solar eclipses happen with the new moon, and it’s a time of intense energy, life shifts, and shedding that which no longer serves you. And supposedly, it’s A LOT. I have felt it. I’ve been exhausted and sensitive and the ground beneath me seems to be shifting. The key is to let yourself rest, stay hydrated, and let the shifts happen. It is all very, Hold onto your hats, we’re going through a cosmic portal! energy.
We have new courses and offerings listed at Muse, including a self-guided version of The Call, a course in creative witness I originally ran in 2022, featuring exclusive interviews with poets/essayists Ross Gay, Sean Singer, and Erika Meitner about their recent books and their thoughts on the creative life.
The class opens on May 22nd. Register by May 5th for the early bird price. Grab your spot soon! (Also, paid subscribers can get an additional 10% off with a discount code. Write me for details if you’re a paid subscriber interested in signing up!)
I’ve been thinking about how we keep the thread, both of our humanity and sense of self and of ourselves as artists. What keeps us tethered to this world and to our souls? “Each other” is my first thought. We journey on through alone, but we exist on the earth at the same time as a specific other set of people, caring for each other, challenging each other, always learning. And what else? Gratitude. Noticing. Continually reminding ourselves to be present and aware of what we’ve been given, what we’re working with. “Play the cards you get,” my grandmother once told me. That does seem to be the game. Accept it. Move through it. Help each other along.
So, what does this have to do with being an artist? Everything, I guess. Being an artist is about reporting on what it means to be a person, and both are about deep noticing, deep acceptance, growing your soul. Being a light for yourself and others. That’s what I think, anyway. (And it’s a message I’ve been receiving over and over lately from various sources. This may not be your thing, but I love this conversation between Buddhist psychotherapist Mark Epstein and psychic medium Laura Lynne Jackson, along these lines.)
When preparing to write this newsletter, I decided I’d do some bibliomancy. I picked up How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz, asking, “What do we need to know today?” Here’s what I got:
Allow yourself to be rapt and open in your looking, and in this way you will resist despair. I can get on board with that. I went outside and looked at some irises and small flowers in the grass until I got hot and came back in to get in bed and write this newsletter.
Hold onto your hats, children. Play the cards you’re dealt. We’re putting on a de-doo.
Here’s a writing prompt for you:
Read this vignette by Sonja Livingston from her memoir Ghostbread, in which she describes being in a reverie (being rapt?) while putting sheets on her new bed as a child. Then write about a time you found yourself entranced and half-hypnotized by something in the material world when you were a child (or not a chid!).
