I AM

(victory over death by Colin McCahon)

this weekend i was all stirred up

decisions from the past which were attempts of mine to assert my right to my dreams came back to haunt me

beauty kept bombarding me

mundanity kept ankle tapping me

words flowed

visions flowed

confusion about priorities made the colours i was experiencing muddy and clarity was evading me

so i went for a walk on the beach

winter beach, early morning, thick grey sea and sky, brilliant shafts of sunlight singing through the cloud , them disappearing again reflecting the landscape inside me....

so i called my child self and i called my grandparents....

i told the scared and defensive little girl that it was ok to ask for what she wanted, it was ok to say when enough was enough, it was ok to expect kind treatment...

i asked my grandparents for their thoughts and i was met with warmth and love and acceptance, and under my feet heart shaped rock after heart shaped rock

and it came to me - all the fear i have about inviting big into my life relates back to this time where i chose travel and freedom over my (now) husband - the anguish about the pain i caused still sits inside me - (and him as evidenced by our fight)

I left a trail of devistation when i chose South Africa over him.

i have strived for acceptance and forgiveness and good personhood ever since.

Choosing a creative life felt like facing the same choice - in order to have that was i going to have to jettison the role i have now as completely as i did then?

Will i have to continue to strive to be more than what i am? - a better artist archetype (living alone in some hovel, creating masterworks effortlessly, pleasing all whose eyes fall upon my work)

Will i have to be less than what i am? - (no longer a wife and mother, no longer loved and understood)

and then it came to me - with all the heart shaped rocks and love i felt

I AM

I just am what i am - i no longer have to strive to be better or worse for anyone else.

i no longer have to sacrifice or berate or measure

I AM

i have access to all my resources just as I AM

I have what i need as I AM

it is all possible just as I AM


and my heart went back to Colin McCahon whose work so lights my heart and i honour him here and thank him for the iconography which i see now each time i get scared..


(i am -scared - Colin McCahon)

sometimes what my head says just isn't true

sometimes i hear a lot of crap about myself coming from inside my head...

i mean the sort of crap that really doesn't help me

you are not good enough

you don't deserve

you are a failure

i am blushing as i type this ... it makes me feel so vulnerable to have it out there in cyberspace...but really how much more damage can it do than when i have it rolling around in my head, smashing up against my tender soul, scraping edges off my heart???

and then i thought about today...

i woke up with three people who love me beside me (well not all at once - it is a moderately slow process of children leaving beds, husbands returning in great white hunter style with hard fought for cups of tea, cats finding the best place in the middle of it all, books retrieved and read out loud...)

i got up and went to the park,(with two rubbish bags and a rake) with my youngest and the poodle to collect autumn leaves for the compost heap....

we made piles and jumped in them, then went exploring over the bridge where i fell in - over my head and walked all the way back to the car dripping and staggering with two bags of leaves like a wet woman compost Santa....

home to a long hot shower, emails from good friends, seeing my children work on projects...

out to visit aging parents and share a bit of children and poodle love around ... listening to choices and versions of the world i feel so relieved i make the choice to avoid.....

watching sky divers drifting down the endless blue sky, shags splitting the still harbour water making ripples and changing the reflections into other worlds...

going to the garden shop and buying seedlings to bring joy and food to my family

coming home to my loving husband seeing our sheep and cat coming to greet us...

and all this - my ordinary, non-guinessbook-of-records-nobel-prize-winning-headline-making life

and i see those voices couldn't be further from the truth