Doubt

Monday.

In my head. Sorting, planning, brainstorming, grabbing at sensible choices and loosening my grip in an exhausting cycle. I'm unfocused and unproductive, off schedule from a visit with family. I sense that getting art accomplished will set everything else into place. Art work and life have begun to intertwine in my head. This is a good thing, but disorienting. Creativity flows in the studio and I flow along with it, open and awake to whatever is happening. Outside the studio it seems bewildering to allow at all times. I struggle to orient myself, breathless and a little dizzy, fighting against the flow of allowing. Breathless with exhilaration or because there doesn't seem to be solid ground under my feet? I try to trust, and to keep returning to the cool, boundless patience I feel somewhere inside me.


***

Tuesday.


It's a cloudy day and my mind is in shadows. Grandma listens patiently as I describe a bleak landscape of doubt that stretches into every corner of my life. I'm surprised she doesn't get worked up with worry, and this, already, is a comfort. A bit later, washing dishes, it comes to me that I'm only dying to fire some ceramics. Life isn't crumbling around me, I'm just itching for progress, some validating step forward. My new ceramics style brings an energy to each piece and once I've applied glaze, the piece seems to exude a vivid excitement. It's as if each piece is a special child and I'm surrounded by too many children chattering along as I try to work.


***

Wednesday.

I wake up late and the water is churning. Blue choppy waves in the lake turn to brown near the shore, large jumbles of debris on the surface like clothes strewn on the floor of a messy room. I drive away with the rest of my glazed pieces to be fired and I return feeling organized and clear.

Vlad and I finally walk down when it's already very dark and we come across a large carp in the middle of the sand. The waves are more violent than I've ever seen them. I feel far away and safe from the tremendous roar but suddenly the water flows nearly to my feet. The carp doesn't seem so far from the water anymore and I understand how it was fluently tsunami'ed to where we stand. I feel suddenly like an intruder in this wild, watery argument, replete with thrown items and an uncontrolled outpouring of passion.

I'm humbled, as if the lake is a great and vulnerable artist revealing its changing moods. What a lovely opportunity to have a shared sort of experience. I don't mean to personify the lake; actually, it's the other way around. The spinning in my mind and all the worry and doubt I experience are like the moody displays of the lake, cacophonous and messy. I find a wonderful ease in accepting the lake as it unfolds each day. Perhaps I can try to turn that view inward as well.