Growth: (verb) the act of using art to change the world.

It's been an incredible week.
Sure, there've still been those moments when I'm aggravated and wishing for change, but then again that's just growing.  A tree bends and shapes itself towards the sun, and that's what I'm trying to do.
And art - that is my sun; my source of life, that which allows me to photosynthesize and recreate myself into the person I want to become.

And this has been a successful week.

For one, I've started writing a play that I actually really love.  I've been working on it before and after work, which actually has given a sense of accomplishment to my day.  I'm often too exhausted to do anything at all after my nine hour shifts....but knowing that I've worked on creating a world...it's much more satisfying than then watching something on Netflix until I fall asleep.

Speaking of writing, this week I also read aloud some of my poetry.  It was on a stage and everything, and I don't even want to acknowledge how long isn't been since I've stood on one.  It was very assuring.  My friend invited me to a Galentine's Day event, with face-painting, arts and crafts, friendship bracelets, snacks and art; a.k.a. it was dream.

There was a lot of stand up, one incredible conceptual art piece presentation revolving around Tinder and musical performance, and me.  The day of I still didn't know what to read.  I realized I'd forgotten a notebook with most of my writing at a friend's place.   I considered reading something from this blog, but most of my posts are a tactful organization of my stream of consciousness; my poetry is different.  More vulnerable.

And then I remembered something I started back in October: I have a daily planner but instead of deadlines and appointments, my agenda is a poem.

Back in high school, an incredible teacher taught us to see art through the scope of "Creator vs. Interpreter": to put it simply, to do a play I made is creator.  To do Chekhov, a friend's work, or something made by literally anyone else, is interpreter.
And the goal of my planner was to hold myself accountable for doing both each day.
It's like an artist's version inhaling and exhaling.

Thus I sifted through some of my exhalations from the last four and a half months, and chose four poems which I read in three chunks and called it Love in Three Parts.  Don't worry, they're at the bottom of this post.

And loves, it was incredible.  I was in a room full of strangers with the exception of the one friend who invited me.  And I get insecure in big groups.  I know those of you who know me don't believe this, but I do; especially when they all know one another.  It's not noticeable to them, but part of me retreats.  So to go from that, to someone speaking my truths, I felt the room change.  The way they saw me, the way they saw themselves; like the heat coming on after the streak of a cold breeze.

It was a moment I don't think I will forget.

And to seal off the powerful week, last night I saw my friend's production.  He directed an original play called Subverted, which was so powerful and appropriate that it was haunting.  It's the type of show I want high-schoolers dragged to, not realizing how much this will shape the person they decide to become.  I heard the audience struggle to suppress their "mmm"s of empathy as we collectively fought tears.  It was exemplary of what theatre is meant to be, and the power that art has to change the world for the better.

I am inspired.  I am motivated for the first time in awhile, feeling finally that art isn't taking a backseat to survival (and seeing as I make art to survive, it's been a vicious cycle when it's not at my forefront).   It's reviving to know that my day has consequences, that I'm not just repeating the same things over and over for paycheck...that I'm part of helping the world grow.  It means there is light again.  The sun was obstructed and I was withering.
Now I must regain my strength, and blossom.

Part I

Part II

Part III

To Build A Home

And at last I stood on the outskirts of my struggle, staring at what had become my home.  From a distance I saw my once supportive beams, now fallen, splintered and harmful. I recalled how that roof over my head had become toxic, and how climbing out from under it had left me bruised and exhausted.

I was still sore, still sick and still on my own.

I finally realized that here I was, stuck in a pit of my own creation and my own demise. 

To fill it and rebuild sounded like more effort than it was worth.  I had fought so hard, and what had it been for?

This empty pit. This lot of nothing, a painful reminder of my efforts at construction that quaked into a wasted year.  I had already discovered this spot as turbulent and sterile, so why was I still trying to make it my home?

It took me a lot of time to see this clarity. It was as if I needed to escape the pit and wait for the dust to settle to finally see. And as soon as I did, I booked a flight and went back to my old loves. 

I wanted to look at my old home.  Though I did worry how much of its stability was rested upon the ex; was he the reason it hadn't collapsed?  And now without him, would it still be the stable home that I needed?

And the answer is yes. My friends, those coworkers turned to loves, are my beams of support and light, even helping me find more people to keep building up my life. 

Perhaps he was my windows, my guide to the outside world, but with the warmth of those I adore, my house is well heated enough not to need his glass panes. (And who really wants to rely so heavily upon something so fragile?)

Even as a visitor, I feel more at home here than I've felt in months.  Some had said well I only had a year to build that western home and yet I had the same time here. And between an empty pit and a cozy and warm cabin, there's only one choice:

Happiness. 

This is the city where I fell in love. With my love at the time, with my coworkers-turned-to-family, with my jobs, this city, my life and myself. 

So considering that in under a week a rediscovered more happiness than I found in a year, no, I don't want to go back to that pit.  

I didn't waste my time, as I learned there that no path is worth permanently leaving behind a home where you are happy..... I just wish I could have learned that without the constant struggle of this last year.  

So I'll see what it is like to go back to the pit.  And if it doesn't seem worth it, I know where my little cabin is, with loves waiting to adventure with me.