I'm struggling with the issue of being meaningful, again.
It manifests itself in my inability to be happily idle. I'm quite sure that some time spent pushing ink around, staring at some mute thing, would do me the world of good: reconfigure my gauge of my own worth and help me breathe easy.
And yet, it's remarkably something I resist. I had ample time yesterday, for instance, but my little drawing box remains closed. Mind you, I did something else - I worked in the garden.
For the first time since Ellie and I moved in, there is the sense of a garden beginning: I hung up the hanging baskets, planted the wild strawberries, and wove an unlined wire basket with old stockings to keep the soil in. As though to reward me, it has poured with rain all night, and shows no sign of stopping, this morning.
All this activity (mine, not the clouds') was inspired by Lewis's gift, yesterday, of a giant half-barrel from a hardware shop. He knew I'd been wanting one, and left it on my doorstep... another gift in this curious post break-up courtship.
I just can't wait to plant a little tree in it! Something that will grow strong and bring joy.
The best thing is that the garden no longer feels like a chore I must begin, but like a wonderfully fulfilling project I can't wait to continue. Having left my beloved garden at the old house, and then seen it destroyed, I haven't had the spirit to begin afresh, till now.
Dad was less interested in the barrel than the fact that it was a gift from Lewis: "that's like saying it's from Elvis. 'Hey, Dad! Elvis left a half-barrel on my doorstep!' "
He doesn't get the post-separation gift thing. I don't, quite, for that matter. It keeps raising my hopes... but I have the same compulsion to leave gifts on Lewis's doorstep, and the odd little exchange, whatever it's about, is nice.
Dad, himself, rarely drops in without a gift of some kind. I think he feels he needs to provide compensation when he visits his daughters, as though his unexpected visits are an imposition (occasionally, they are!) Last night, in the torrential rain, he arrived under the generous canopy of a black umbrella, carrying a supermarket bag full of bargains he thought would please us: a nest of plastic storage containers and a plastic-wrapped apricot slice. The former was welcomed whole-heartedly. The latter, we later discovered, confessed to containing 'beef fat' and 'animal oil': we made it our contribution to today's street party. Who, even amongst non-vegetarians, wants beef fat in a dessert?
Anyway, back to the greater quandaries in my life... I think the primary obstacle between me and happiness is my inexplicable resistance to getting on with my drawing. It's more than that, I think. I think I might be falling into the trap, again, of identifying so closely with my art practice that I feel invisible or worthless when I haven't been drawing for a while.
A part of me knows that my time in the garden yesterday - and even the social interactions of my weekend - were invaluable, and have already made a positive difference to my state of mind. What, in the scheme of things, does it matter whether I make a drawing or plant a wild strawberry? In purely personal terms - terms of my pleasure - they are equal.
But another part of me places little value on such things. It's probably the part of me that is aware of an audience. Every encounter with people involves an inquiry after my art. People are interested, and mean to be kind, but I feel like a fraud at times like these, when I'm doing so little drawing. Some of my friends, and even some of my students, seem to live and breathe art. They actually want to talk about shows they've been to, new resources they've discovered...
Sometimes I can accept that I am simply different from that sort of person, but am an artist, nonetheless. But sometimes this conspicuous difference makes me question my whole raison d'être.
And I have a bad cold.
