April has been amazing. Wild to think that I have just made my 37th spin around this hot plasma orb. Scale and perspective and time are so strange. If and when I can forget the arbitrary human numerology we labor under daily, it feels very refreshing to feel that 37 is a nice collection of moments and cosmically diminutive and certainly not an exhaustive, extensive, rigid history of events - so much more to do and so much more potential energy to channel. Nothing is decided.
The most vocal character driving my ego is just 1/n legitimate voices and has no specific claim to the journey.
Despite the uncertainty, and probably because of it, I am finding traction and peace in this season of my life. Moving to Charleston 3 years ago, there was a lot of the obvious turbulence and shake-up to be expected with post-global-pandemic-leaving-home-after-12-years-becoming-single-solo-van-life-father passing-away-career-pivoting-and-reidentifying-goals-and-priorities; there was a certain amount of expectation to all that in how it was going to feel. But a lot of the stress and existential friction is just the empty, potential space that exists afterward that just stares at you and says “so what guy, who cares?” with everything feeling like life or death but it’s just the same cadence as the rest of life - one SINGLE step at a time.
I feel the need in writing this to have some kind of breakthrough takeaway for anyone who may be reading this; that’s at least the kind of positive energy I’m living in right now. If I had to sum up what it feels like to do so it might be something like: “there are two streams of energy involved in creating growth and finding strength and surety in action and they are counterintuitively collaborative. One stream says follow your instincts, push yourself to your limits and judge based on a personal, intimate and private judge what is working, what is valid, valuable and meaningful and do the hard work that might be misunderstood, mistaken, ignored or otherwise disregarded no matter what. Be relentless, don’t stop, don’t rest, challenge everything in you that says not now, maybe later, I can’t/won’t/shouldn’t/might not/expect not/don’t know how to/want it that bad. The other stream requires validation, recognition, collaboration, mutual respect for ideas and a kind of compromise in vision/letting down your guard, a contemplative and measured calmness and patience to allow new ideas, doorways and new intra + inter personal structures to form These two streams are additive and multiplicative, not counter or opposite.” Or, “find balance,” I guess would be a simpler way to say it. Our efforts - the work that only we can and must do to propel ourselves through our personal choices and decisions ONLY matter as much as they interface with other people.
Let me finish this esoteric rant with some literal things that I just wanted to note for posterity, since there was a lot that happened this month and a lot of it felt very meaningful.
I went foraging with a couple of lovely ladies.
Working on what will be Charleston’s first mural festival in September.
I live-painted at the coolest art space on this side of the country.
I sold original work at a couple events on no terms other than my own skill and desire and it felt great to be received in that way.
Being sought out to do professional work that resonates with my interests and my ability.
See y’all next quarter I suppose…