I’m Still Here…

So…It’s the beginning of May and I haven’t written in this blog since sometime in December.  The longer the time has elapsed the more intimidating it has become to produce something new…just because I think after the last 4 months I should perhaps report back something…say…earth shattering.  However, it’s not really the case.

I’m still here.

But I did take advantage of the summer here and had an extended period of vacations in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil…    

    

      

    

      

And when I came back, I felt great.

And now I also have the new experience of dating someone in Santiago which is making me happy:)

And I am also painting again.  Returning to my art has been great…even if I am not doing it every day.

Of course when I think about being here…I am still pressuring myself over finding a good meaning and purpose and if am I am living up to all that I could do here…not only for myself, but I also spend a lot of time being conscious of my affect on others as a foreigner here.  Probably I’m not, at least living up to all of the expectations I place on myself and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed…in fact I think too much focus on this stops me dead in the tracks of enjoying myself here.

A couple years ago I worked for a mental health institute, as an assistant to train people in the mental health field.  There I learned about a concept in which all people have a “core value.”  It speaks of the person one is at their core beyond what defines them as a worker with skills or even their own personality traits.  The process of learning about your “core value” is through a series of questions which takes place in a group.  It can last for hours as the group discusses and decides what they feel could possibly motivate you as a person.  I remember mine being about curiosity.  It was as simple as that.  I’m a curious person and somehow my curiosity is supposed to work for me in this life.

As I return to how I originally felt about coming here, I think about how I tried something very random and let myself see where I would go with that experience…all for the joy of exploring and traveling.  Each experience building upon another…and here I am.  When I think of the core of me…a person who loves to investigate and experience things….I came here because I was acting on an instinctual desire of something I love to do for my own curiosity.  Maybe it was a little random, but I started something and now I am trying to figure out what it means to me.

Because i’ve been painting again, I’ve realized that my process of painting is very similar…because I have always started my work with some very random marks and no image in mind (all of my work is abstract)…and many layers later it slowly becomes something but not without fighting with it.  The constant struggle is the part I hate and so I always feel like I don’t completely love painting.

For years this has made me think that maybe I am not a “real” painter…because it doesn’t always flow for me.  Actually, it never completely flows for me and sometimes I have no idea what the hell I am working towards because I had no idea in the first place (one would think that by now I would considering making a plan…but I just don’t work that way!!).  Usually the middle point of my paintings look like a freaking mess of small build ups of texture and color that I don’t want to give up, but they don’t quite support the whole of the painting.  Usually it takes me some time to back away and come back and simplify everything after I’ve let it be for a while.  Every painting is the same.  During the process of it all, it’s difficult for me to realize that I need to eliminate those things to find a balance in the painting.  It can make me feel very insecure as a painter.  The only thing that keeps me going is that somehow I have always had this tenacity (coincidentally…very similar to my last name) where I don’t give up until I find some sort of ending that satisfies me.  And I always love the outcome of all my work.

If that is not an analogy of the way I live my life, I don’t know what is.  My creative process pretty much equals the way in which I live my life.  I struggle and try to do so many things that seem to sometimes be going somewhere or that might lead to something temporarily but then go nowhere and something inside me tries to resist so many things that could perhaps be easier until one day I clear away all of the fears and “problems” and find a sudden peaceful resolution.  The thing is…for some reason I have to go through trying all the possibilities until I find that resolution.  I don’t know any other way.  Yet, I always put up the same fight because there are so many times when I hold on so tight to those same “small build ups of texture and color” in my life that I think are going to keep me feeling so “secure,” but are not supporting the real me totally.  And, just as with my art, it makes me also not always completely love myself.

My original intentions of being here were to explore.  It wasn’t until I came here that my purpose began changing and taking different forms and avenues…maybe I need to remind myself of the origin of who I am…that person who loves to “explore and investigate”…who is “curious”…and that it is okay just being that…because I can feel downright insecure considering all of my plans and intentions and whether I am doing all of them the best I can.

Leaving the city for the day yesterday and being in nature, was an affirmation to give space for what I love.  It reminds me of my very first blog entry of when I went hiking in the mountains for the first time here.

Maybe the best purpose I can offer in my life right now is what I feel that my art is supposed to be about until I begin challenging it with all of the expectations of what the outcome should be…its a matter of play…the joy of building and creating and seeing where it takes me.  I perfected this in my childhood and as an adult I hold on.  This is what I need to remember about both painting and my life…to take a little advice from my silly side in which I feel the most free…let go of trying to make it all work, give it some space and accept the absurdity of it all because maybe that is where I sort everything out and it comes together for me.

Stop being your own obstacle!

On Sunday my friend and I attempted a hike up one of the hills here in Santiago.

I had a great idea that we meet no later than 10am.  I was very adamant about this.  Of course, I woke up and changed the time for 11am.  And then she changed the time for 11:30.  We didn’t actually meet until around 12:30 when we both spent the first 15 minutes trying to shamelessly assess which one of us was the more tardy one.  At that point we had about an hour to walk part way up the hill because we had afternoon commitments that we also ended up being late for.  I really wish I could say that part of this was just us adhering to the usually late Chilean time…

Sadly, this was our big attempt to get in shape over the weekend.

For a while now we’ve been a little upset with ourselves because our physical motivation has been on the down low.  Basically this means we can’t seem to get up in the morning before 10 unless it is required for work.  It could be that winter is making me incredibly lazy.  I know it doesn’t snow here and I’m not outside shoveling sidewalks and the days can be quite warm, but the mornings and nights are extremely chilling.  And I have to say it feels more like winter inside my apartment than outside.  I’ve never slept in so many layers.   Wearing hats and scarves and turtlenecks to sleep, I feel like a nesting snowman.  It could also be the air here.  I see people walking around the street covering their faces because of the pollution and I’ve walked to work many times feeling ill from the smog which is worse in the winter (and much, much more intense than anything I experienced in LA).  Basically, I’m not getting enough oxygen.  The only resolution has been yoga, which helps my breathing and gives me energy, but of course, I’ve put a halt on that lately simply because I won’t walk across the river and buy more tickets!  Ridiculous.

So now, I’m putting a post-it on my cell phone that reads “Stop being your own obstacle.”  Doesn’t it sound like the perfect hip bumper sticker?  My cell phone is the very first thing that I look at in the morning.  This is the suggestion of my friend upon telling her how I feel completely lethargic.  The note idea does sound exciting and I am going to do it.  This is exactly what I need to keep reminding myself and I imagine myself four months from now still waking up to this note and jumping out of bed at 6am, cleaning the house, conquering projects, doing yoga, hiking mountains, completely altering my personality and inevitably changing my entire life.

But, I have tried these tactics before.  I made that list of everything I wanted to do in life.   I wrote about it in my journal, thought about it, visualized it.  I put the list under my pillow and slept with it.

I just think what I really need to write on the post-it is:   “Just get your ass out of bed.”   And make sure I add some extra adhesive to it to prevent it from falling off and me finding it sometime in the future under my bed with that gray fuzzy dust and dirt clinging to the once sticky side of it.

I remember finding such dust filled notes when I finally moved out of my loft and cleaned out my room.

I had a room plastered with little affirmations and cute vision boards about what a great artist I was and how I could do anything!   Of course they came down when people came over.  Exposing things like that is just a little  embarrassing.  All of the little negative comments got put in a big jar.  This contained all of the things I wanted to tell just god.  Like, “please help me pay my rent this month, get me out of this relationship, send me a new job…”  All of that finally ended up in the garbage.

For my financial problems, I read about how if I just came up with a specific amount of money that I wanted to be earning each month, and tell myself I am already making this amount at least five times a day, my problems would be solved.  At the end of the month it would surely appear somehow.  So, $4000.  I thought that was reasonable, but maybe god didn’t?  Because I ended up losing money.  How could this have been producing the opposite results?  My next move was discussed over tea with a friend.  She read an article about how what we really needed to do was write checks to ourselves that doubled in amount everyday and then, once we receive the checks from ourselves (again by magically putting it under our pillow to find in the morning) we had to write down all of the ways we would spend it.  “The money manifesting game,” it was called.

It didn’t do a damn thing.

But, I did almost get good at manifesting parking spaces before I left the States and I think that was a major step for me.  Parking in Long Beach anytime after 5pm was a complete nightmare.  My friend tried to start her manifesting with spotting pink flamingos until one day she was like…why?  Do I even want to see them?  And, also, we didn’t live in pink flamingo land.  We lived in the ghetto.   There just wasn’t a big likeliness for it and it just didn’t seem all too realistic to me.

Perhaps I should have been using this level of creativity to actually just create the things I wanted to create instead.  There’s a reason for the slogan “Just do-it.”

So, I am fortunate because being here has separated me from all of the things I used to worry about at home.  I mean, for the first time, I feel like something major has left my life and that major thing is stress.  Recently, I realized, I have no real bills other than my rent that is much more inexpensive compared to what I was paying in the US, I have no car anymore, no relationship to fret about, my cell phone is not ringing constantly with people expecting me to answer at all times, while I take time to prepare for my job, all that it really requires is some conversation in English and some knowledge of grammar.  I haven’t even thought about creating a jar of negativity.  My life has become extremely mellow.  I haven’t felt this space away from all of those things in years…or maybe even ever in my adult life.  I actually have time to think and process things and for a while now I have been feeling so much clarity about what it is I actually want to pursue in life.

And now I want to offer up winter as my new excuse?  Or maybe the lax Chilean lifestyle?  Or the environmental emergency warning we received on Sunday on our way up the hill?  It’s true!  There was some kind of nuclear toxic biochemical thing going on in the air that day.  We received the text from a friend.  Physical activity was NOT recommended after all.   (Perhaps all things do happen for a reason and we weren’t meant to go up that hill?)

I know all these things are my own mind’s excuses (except maybe the last one – I should do a little research on that.)

But, it’s true.  I am being my own obstacle and I always have been.

My move here is accomplished and now I need to just…keep going.  How do I get myself out of the way so my other self can do the very easy and doable things to guarantee that?   I am concluding as usual that I need a lot of energy.  I need to be in shape.  I need sunshine.  I need exercise.  I need fresh air (hopefully teargas and toxin free).  I need to eat well.  Drink a lot of water and get sleep.  And I need to just stay active.  Blah blah blah…  Making lists and notes and plans and playing kid games are a waste of my creative energy.   And how many times is it going to take before I realize that eating the fried crap is going to give me a stomach ache?

I so wish that life was something you could just fix and put back on the shelf.  Or that I could just write something and put it under my pillow and have everything I wanted.  But instead I just have to learn to accept that life is about actively maintaining balance and care in each and everyday.

I am pretty damn sure about what drives me now.  I have been lucky enough to have the space to figure out what I want to do. And I do feel extremely called towards these things….but sometimes and particularly lately, I really don’t want to get out of bed.  But, I am determined not to let these things go and so now I just need to continue to step up and put in the extra effort to protect myself from…agh…myself.