Sept. 22, 2001
I received this email this morning:
Hi Alex, First of all I want to welcome you to our writers’ tribe at Be Real Magazine. We are delighted to have you join us! We intend to include one of your pieces in the Bravery issue, which will be out sometime in November.Thank you again for your contributions – contributing in itself is an act of bravery!
Yay!
all the best,
Julie
Sept. 09, 2001
This website has touched more people than I ever thought possible; I have received so much email from so many that I can’t help but be amazed by each note I receive. There are a lot of people who want to do what I’m doing, and sometimes that makes me feel like I’m not only doing this for myself, but for every other person who just can’t.
That’s been a lot of pressure. Pressure I didn’t know I’d have and I don’t know what to do about it all yet.
Some days I’m feeling really good about my accomplishments thus far. I think for 5 months and no experience I’m doing pretty well; two articles are being published by two different magazines and I run a pretty successful website that seems to be encouraging to others somehow. But then I get some feedback or think some thought that makes me insecure about it all and then I start to think, “Who am I to be a role model? Who am I to talk about living out a dream? Who am I to talk about what success is when I don’t know it?”
I haven’t been paid for the two published, and they’re both for small magazines. I figured I had to start somewhere, and starting small seemed really good. I didn’t want to go big until I had learned more. But the problem is, there is so much to learn and I’m still wrapped up completely in that process. And I fear that because nothing that I’ve written has been bought, that perhaps I haven’t had success yet? Perhaps because I haven’t designed the all-wonderful portfolio that I can’t get real feedback on what I’ve written and I’m somehow hiding from real criticism.
Sometimes being so public is frightening; perceived failure and insecurities seem to be amplified. I hope there’s use to all of this to balance out the doubt I sometimes have.
Sept. 08, 2001
I think the problem I face with writing as my current and only job is that I give myself too much freedom. I think I do this because I have never had freedom in a job. Before I had to be at work by 8am and I had to put in my 8 hours or else. I had to do work each day to keep the job and to get paid for it and earn respect. I had pressures to fulfill my job title. I had a boss. There were rules I had to follow Monday through Friday.
Now, there aren’t any. I’m free now and I think that perhaps I have taken that too far.
I was good, in the beginning. I had my morning routine and it worked. Then I slacked because it was just so easy to do. I was lazy. Then I thought I had gotten back into it only to realise I am still spastic about when I write.
I realised today that what I have to do is show up on the page, everyday.
Whether I want to or not, whether I think I can or not. Whether I have a brilliant idea, or at best a shoddy one, I have to show up each day.
I know it’s going to be hard because the writing I do is based on what I know, feel, see and understand. And some days I kick ass and some days, not so much. And it’s been on the not so much days that I have found it hard to write. That’s when I usually make pathetic attempts or sometimes, none at all. I use the excuse, “it’s just not in me today” and just kind of give up.
What I realise now, however, is that it is in me to write everyday. There is no reason to. Even if it’s not the best, it’s something. It’s using my brain, it’s learning the process, it’s keeping me going, it’s setting me up for when there is something great. It doesn’t matter if every day I write brilliantly or not at this point, what matters is that I show up every day. Every day, regardless.
Writing is my job. If this is going to work, if I am to succeed, it will be only because I worked at it and worked hard – even if I didn’t want to. I think it’s really important for me to get the kind of work ethic I had at a job I didn’t care about, into the job that means more than anything. No one ever made it by sitting on the sidelines or doing half-assed work.
They made it because they showed up, everyday.
Sept. 06, 2001
I was going to just go straight home after the Docent class today, but as I left the class I started to have all these thoughts running through my brain. And I thought by the time I had caught the bus and gotten home and turned on the computer, all the thoughts would have disappeared. So instead of letting that happen, I stopped into a cafe for a latte and a salad so that I could sit down and write it all in the moment.
That step, that stopping to write, was a huge step for me. So huge in fact that my hands trembled as I wrote all that I had to write down.
What was so important to record was the message I received today. A message that I learned over the course of two hours by listening to a dozen or so women speak about their lives and how art fit into it. They shared their stories of how they had adored art as children or teenagers but had given it up to be “practical” or raise families or become attorneys or secretaries. And by listening to all these women who were all older than I, I kept hearing the same message over and over.
The message was:
In your life, don’t waste one moment. Don’t be unconscious. Don’t put anything on hold for later – do it now. If you have a passion, live it. Don’t wait. Live now.
That message came so clear and loud to me today. A lot of these women had waited 20, 30 or 40 years to get “back into art.” They had given up their passion a long time ago, only to claim it so many years later.
I understood where they were coming from since I had put my life on hold when I came to America two years ago. That’s when I decided to be practical and get “into business.” That’s when I lost myself and kept saying, “one day I’ll do X” But instead of living in the moment and pursuing what I really wanted, I just kept living unconsciously, one day to the next, and never did much of anything.
Then five months ago I woke up. All I can say is how lucky am I, at 27, to be conscious and living. How lucky am I that I only wasted two years and not twenty.
Had I heard this message a few months ago, I don’t think the impact would have been as great, because I believed I was living in the now and finally listening to my heart. And for the most part I was. But I think the reason why the message was so emotional and so BIG for me was because I heard it today.
Today had been a string of yesterdays from the previous three weeks when I had fallen off track and became unconscious. I hadn’t written much the past few weeks because there was nothing in me to write. I hadn’t been living, I hadn’t been following my heart. I was silent because I was living another kind of life that made me feel embarrassed, like a failure, and as though I hadn’t been being real.
You see, three weeks ago I took up a part time 3 days a week job as a receptionist. I did it solely for money because I had wanted to take two art classes but had to cancel one because I couldn’t afford it – I had barely enough money to purchase all the supplies for just one class. There were fees and books to buy for the Docent program that I started today and would be partaking in over the next year. And also I had wanted to save up and purchase an Ibook so I could write at any time because my husband was now in school and was using the main computer more and more and my time writing on the computer was getting less and less. And there were just other financial adjustments to make when you go from living on two salaries to just one. So needless to say I felt the economic pressure and I buckled. I took up a small part time job to try to achieve more.
But the only thing I achieved was that of feeling small. I felt like I was living a lie. I was embarrassed to tell anyone that I had taken on a part time job because I thought how dare I keep a website encouraging others to live their dream if I am not making it living mine? All the energy, the happiness, the excitement I had before I took the job wore thinner and thinner each day I had to answer the telephone. I couldn’t separate the reception job from that of my writing job. I thought I could, I really truly believed I could, but I couldn’t. I felt I had gone backwards, betrayed myself, and I felt truly sick about the whole thing. I started to feel trapped again, and I realised I was drifting along once more.
However hearing the women today woke me up and made me realise that I can’t waste one more minute being something I hate. I already did that. I was down that path before and I remember what it did to me. And I am not going to waste one more day not living because I’ve come too far to go back.
Being in the art gallery, talking about my passion in art and writing and feeling terribly amazing from it all, I realised that I can’t be anything but a writer and an artist – that’s what makes me feel alive. Even if sometimes I face a challenge as a writer/artist that feels almost impossible, as least I feel alive and conscious of it and know that I am in control and I am choosing how to live and that somehow, someway, something positive will come of it. And I have to believe that the money will someday follow if I just continue to work hard at this and not give up. Because as Andrea said to me, “authenticity has it’s rewards.”
The trick, I think, is just believing in that.
And I do, now. My experience today just solidified to me who I am and who I want to be. The message reminded me that I am alive now, and how dare I waste that opportunity.
Side note: As I wrote this in the café, a gentleman in his 50′s or 60′s approached me and said, “Are you a writer?” And I looked at him and said, “How did you know?” He said, “The way you’re dressed and the way your eyes light up and come alive when you have that pen on the paper.”
August 31, 2001
I had been keeping in touch with an old colleague of mine and recently when I asked if she wanted to get together after work sometime, she replied, “After work? You don’t have an after work. You can do anything anytime. I’m not sure that our friendship can continue because I just don’t know how to react to you anymore. We’re not on the same wave length anymore. You’ve got freedom, time, no pressure. You’re happy and everything is easy for you. I just don’t know how to relate anymore.”
After reading that I was a little confused. Certainly she wasn’t talking about me, was she? Because that doesn’t describe me at all.
But then I looked at my situation from her perspective and how I saw things from the 9-5 world. It was then I understood; because I am passionate about what I’m currently doing, and because I only offer most of the good news (because for the first time ever, the good news is outweighing the bad) everything I do must seem easy. I suppose that’s a credit to me that I can make it seem that way, because the reality of it, is that it is all still a struggle. Only this time, I’m willing to be in it.
There’s still so much that I have to learn, so much I have to grasp. There’s issues that I tend to struggle every day with – like money. My art classes cost quite a bit, not to mention my supply list. I’ve been putting off buying the supplies because I have no idea how I will afford them when my class starts in October. Chris is starting back to school in September and I can see the power struggle over time for the computer already.
If I was in my 9-5 world, I could buy the Ibook that I want within one paycheque. Now, I have to save and wait. Instead of getting praise everyday for a great report I did or how I helped out, I’m getting rejection letters instead. Instead of taking my regular 9am break with the girls to talk, I work straight through on the computer, alone, until 2 in the afternoon. I have constant pressure to come up with wonderful lines of words for deadlines that have no give. I have insecurities about the quality of my work and my creativity. Sometimes this all seems surreal and I feel like I don’t fit in. Sometimes, it’s just all a little too hard.
But, to me, it’s all worth it. For the first time I feel that I am in an intimate struggle and that it is somehow beautiful and meaningful. I feel I’m finally apart of something rather than trying to distance myself from it. I feel like I have found myself again. I feel younger, happier, and I suppose despite all, more free. I’m excited so much more than I used to be and I finally feel like I have purpose. And I suppose that is why I seem to talk less and less about the struggle and frustrations and more and more about the excitement.
Because I understand you can’t have one without the other.
August 25, 2001
I’m not the kind of soul who generally sits around all day and waits for things to happen but over the past couple of years that’s what I did.
I secretly held the belief that someone would come and rescue me from my creative boredom. Someone would discover my talent and unleash it. Something would magically happen and I’d have all the creativity, passion, and excitement I wanted mysteriously given to me. Even though I had always worked for things and created my life, subconsciously a part of me thought that something would just “happen” without me having to make any effort and that working for a dream seemed almost silly.
I remember after I had met Sark, even though I hadn’t ever thought of her helping me before, afterwards I secretly thought the phone would ring, she’d hook me up with the right people, tell me what I need to do and my life would be taken care of.
I waited around the phone a little for a few days before I realised that only I could make things happen by showing up each day and putting in some effort.
That sounds obvious now. But when you have no direction at first, or when things are overwhelming, sometimes you just want to throw your hands in the air and yell, “Here I am! Come find me!”
That is why I feel extremely proud and happy of everything that’s going on now. It’s all happening is because I went out looking for it and I created it. Nothing was handed to me. No one told me about all this or helped me realise things. I showed up. I put the effort in.
That’s big a great lesson for me, and also a sneaky one. Because before I never realised that I was waiting because I thought I was a take charge person. But I see now that I was, even if it was just a little.
But not anymore.
August 23, 2001
I have decided, rather forcefully, to take back my mornings. Or rather, my writing.
Over the past two weeks, I have to admit to doing almost no writing. No writing on this website really, no writing for magazines, no writing on postcards even.
My mind has just been absorbing all the changes, I’ve been finally getting everything together, I’ve been making so many discoveries and I’ve been busy.
And I don’t look at the above as excuses, because they’re not. I think what has kept me busy and occupied the past two weeks have been extremely important. Because I am more than just writing, and I’m finally expressing all that I am.
However, I have missed writing. I have missed my rituals that I did. My mornings of breakfast, yoga, dancing and writing had been replaced with haphazard awakenings met with scrambling for busses here and there to this place and that, for this art interview or that class or trying to deal with everything at once. I haven’t spent much time at home.
But I woke up at 8am this morning, refreshed and ready to go. I moved myself into the den, shut the door, opened the window and put the blinds up, and sat myself in front of the computer. Now I’m ready to take on the morning – even if it’s Sunday.
For me, I need to have the ritual of writing, a time set aside. Even when all I was doing was writing it was important for me to have just the mornings set aside for writing. This was especially odd to me since I had always been a night owl. But the mornings always seemed undisturbed, fresh, relaxed, and it just seemed the perfect quiet time for just me to write.
I think now, it’s especially vital that I carve out time for writing because of all the art classes & programs I’m in – not to mention time with Chris that is important as well. And if I don’t keep the mornings to myself, the writing could easily disappear. The afternoons and evenings always have plans and the end of the day I’m tired and uncreative. But the mornings, their mine, all mine. There’s no excuse not to get up, sit down, and write.
And since writing is so important to me, I have to make the time to do it. If I don’t, then nothing happens, and I feel like I’ve come too far to just let it all go.
August 21, 2001
It’s not just about the writing anymore.
I interviewed for the Docent Program at the Art Museum today. During the interview one of the two women looked at my application and said to me, “I see that you’re a freelance writer, tell us a little about that.”
I told them how I had left Corporate America in April because filing, stapling and collating were not my passions. I told them how now I get to write all day and actually become excited when I wake up in the morning. I told them
I no longer hate Mondays. I told them that my philosophy on writing is to make the ordinary, extraordinary. I told them I was finally happy and felt that I had conquered a huge fear and that I was ready to conquer more.
They were very impressed. They said to me that I spoke with passion. One of the women said, “Listening to you makes me feel like picking up a pen again.”
Then they asked me why I wanted to be in the program. I told them it was because when I began to write I felt at peace and I also felt amazing but asked myself, “Why stop there?” I discovered that I wanted to learn art as well but then I asked myself, “Why stop there?” And that’s when I decided I wanted a career in art and found out about the program at the Museum. I told them that I felt the program was perfect for me because I am so eager to learn and share my excitement and passion for art. I told them how I felt I had always pushed aside my creativity for the greater good of Corporate America but now was my time to learn and indulge. I told them that that this program seemed like it would give me guidance, show me different paths of art and careers in it. It would let me explore, learn and play. I told them that’s exactly what I wanted.
They accepted me on the spot.
Things are coming together and I am starting to form some kind of wonderful beginning. I’m writing every day, I’m being published by two magazines in September and October, I’ve sent out specs to several others and am working with them on being published. I’ve enrolled in two art classes & I’m now in the Docent Program at the Art Gallery.
This would not have been possible several months ago. My mind had different priorities then. Before, I had to worry about keeping my co-workers happy, looking after the office, stapling, how much money I was making and was I being paid fairly. I had to worry about commuting, about buying clothes that were “appropriate” for the office and I had to worry about what my image was and what people thought of me when I told them my title. I had to worry about how tired I’d be when I got home. I worried that I had lost myself and the life I wanted would never begin.
By realising that I am a writer and creative person has changed my perspective so completely. I now realise how much I can do and want to do. I know that going in a new direction isn’t such a crazy and useless idea and that what ever I want to be I can be – even if others don’t see it or believe it.
I realised how listening to my heart and forgetting everything else, makes me feel complete.
August 19, 2001
I’ve been thinking a lot about intent lately. I’m the sort that always believed it was the end result that mattered; it didn’t mean anything if you intended to write an article but you didn’t. But I’m starting to believe that intention matters just a little – at least true intention. Not the kind where you were just plain cruel to someone and then when you realise how much you’ve hurt them you use the excuse, “Well, it was just my intention to give you some feedback.” True intention is sometimes harder to realise.
I think about what my intention for this site was: to get a simply message out. That message being that an ordinary girl, who has no degree, no special education or training, can become something she wants to be, even if it’s completely different than something she ever was. She could be anything as long as she wanted it, and she tried.
I never made this site with the intention of becoming famous, or showing off. I never made it with the intention to have a platform on which to bitch and moan without purpose. I just wanted to show people that dreams aren’t something for other people to have. And although this site is being written about a lot, and I garner some attention once in awhile, the intention of this site is living loudly and clearly and making its mark. To me, that’s perfect.
I’ve had more emails than I can count from people of various ages, backgrounds, sexes, and countries, telling me how this site has helped them. Not one person ever wanted to emulate me or be me. They never wanted to do exactly what I’m doing. What this site did, was give them strength to be them.
The end result followed the intention. And that’s what success is, I think.
Elsewhere