gulp

Hana said this winter: oh, you've already made the decision to be an artist. That is what you're doing, Rachel. you don't have a choice' Okay, okay, I guess you're right. Hana. Mom. Dan. Laura. Alison. people I respect deeply in every part of my life, and who I desperately want to be right.

But what does that even mean? With what time and space? With whose permission, and towards what goals? I know I don't have the answers, but I've just begun the first step of allowing myself to want.

I struggle with any cinematic narrative of what happens to me, much as, like anyone, I relish in sharing them. Stories about stumbling in to love and heart wrenching break-ups, about going far away to realize how much I love my home.

This is the one I am struggling with right now: that I have no choice but to call myself an artist. gulp. I did it. everything is better, everything, when at the end of the day I say 'lets go to the studio' and all my crap is there, even if all I do is make beautiful little drawings. Or if I do nothing. And despite the fact that it's still hard to get myself to work.

I guess I failed to channel my sense of self away from the things I make, I haven't had any authentic desire to try really be a teacher or a farmer or a student or a citizen in the same way as I, self consciously say, I am (gulp) an artist. I can do lots of other things but I am committing to wrestle with this label first.

And right before I left for the farm that turned out so awfully, my parents said I should use this room off the garage as a studio. I had actually forgot it existed, until they cleared it out this year and kerry commented on how beautiful it was. And it is -so- perfect and beautiful. you spoiled brat...of course a better thing than you would have thought to dream of was waiting there in your back yard.

My own contract for this position. Moore flow charts. Beautiful drawings. Hats to sell. Recycled notebook pamphlets. Birthday, graduation, anniversary presents. Curriculums for summer. Jobs for the fall. New Big Dreams. There is so much to make.