KC's 1988 journal excerpts on her Art, Jesus, Roles in Life

Perhaps going to the toy store felt good precisely because it gave me a chance to express the child within me.  Perhaps I should let my art do that more often, too.  Art that is strictly business always strikes me as boring.  Primitive art is appealing because it is close to the child. 

     Last week we went to the Arizona Inn, part of a conference Peter was attending.  As usual my attention was divided between the pleasure of taking a vacation from Phoenix, and my usual set of fears.  Were we spending too much money, was I having too much fun?  Certainly the Arizona Inn encourages relaxation.  It's the kind of place where you can sit outside your room, on your own sizable private patio, while you sip margaritas and soak up the sun.  

      Meanwhile, inside my head, bees buzzed about.  I'm angry at my own inability to relax, angry at my anger.  So I drove all over Tucson with Miles, buying toys.  It was fun to be careless, to splurge a little.  The bees kept humming inside my head, little questions.  My life would be different without Miles, I find it hard to relax around him.

      When Miles got bored – less and less frequently as he gets older — I'd say, "Want to go out?" and he'd always say yes.  So we drove around Tucson in my aging Buick, exploring. 

      I suppose I've used Miles' short attention span as an excuse to indulge my own short attention span.  A friend of mine, a mother of four, complained to me once about her continual sense of restlessness, a feeling she'd had since her teens, she told me.  I knew what she meant. 

      To me it's the feeling that my reverie is constantly interrupted.  Perhaps it's the inner child demanding attention, demanding to be fed.  And one says, "I'm a grown-up now, I'm supposed to be doing grown-up things, not indulging that child."  I couldn't wait to get out of my parents' house, couldn't wait to take on the trappings of adulthood.  I joined the conspiracy of neglect in the process.  I've been imposing adult styles of behaviors onto that needy child, refusing to give it expression, except sometimes in my art. 

      Perhaps going to the toy store felt good precisely because it gave me a chance to express the child within me.  Perhaps I should let my art do that more often, too.  Art that is strictly business always strikes me as boring.  Primitive art is appealing because it is close to the child. 

      Miles is such a loving son.  Very giving, though he does have the artistic temperament.  Saw the cat just now stalking a bird.  Slammed this journal shut bang! just as the cat pounced.  Cat jumped three feet in the air.  Sick of finding bird carcasses on the back porch.  Tried to catch the damn cat to take it to the pound but it got wise to us. 

      I love art and I love philosophy.  I want to study, but I don't want to be an academic.  I can't sustain the necessary posing.  Well, maybe I should just be myself and not worry about it. 

      When we first came back from the trip I noticed that our house looks both interesting and shabby.  I guess if I wanted "perfect" we would have gotten a new place in a development.  As it is, we enjoy bringing out the character in the place, slowly but surely.  The creative process is slow and messy, something the average person is trained to feel uncomfortably about.  We have a consumer culture that derives a great deal of weight from the cleanliness cult.  The goal is to be as perfect as possible.  No allowance is made for accidents or mess. 

      I painted a design over the side-door, Mexican-style.  These are the weeks of living dangerously - I just figured out how much money we have left to last the next week-and-a-half. 

      Peter used to say I set my standards too high.  Relating to what?  Compared to the average?  Or is it that the things I care about are different from other people's – maybe it's what, rather than how much. 

      Quality of life matters to me — I'm an artist.  The way things look, smell, sound — that all means a great deal to me. 

This is precisely where I need God's help.  That sense of playfulness is one of the things I want to show in my work – it's always been missing before.  How could such a central part of my personality be missing in my work?

      I could fritter my life away on things that have no return – the very thing Christ warned against.  How do I make my life more productive than it presently is?  How do I learn to focus on the tasks at hand and not let my attention get diverted by the never-ending demands of narcissism?  And how do I retain a clear sense of who I am – how do I maintain room for play, for goofing-off — for having fun, which I never had as a kid?  How do I bring all these different aspects into balance? 

      This is precisely where I need God's help. 

      That sense of playfulness is one of the things I want to show in my work – it's always been missing before.  How could such a central part of my personality be missing in my work? 

      But of course, the art I did as a kid was censored by my parents.  I didn't really paint to please myself.  Can I give myself permission to paint for me at this late date? 

So how do I learn to love myself – reward myself?  As in, love others as you love yourself?   How do I take care of myself, become responsible for myself?  How can I learn to paint for me, because I want to?  How do I deal with the fatigue of trying to pursue my art and take care of the family and the house?   How do I juggle all these things?   Where do I begin? 

      I think I stopped painting because I used to do it to earn my parents love.  Once it sunk in that I was wasting my time, I stopped trying.  And when the type of work I did got rejected by my teachers, not just once, but over and over, I felt convinced that there was no reward, no positive feedback.  I had narrow vision in a time of narrow vision.  The early Seventies was a time of withdrawal, in which people retreated into their own worlds.  I retreated, too, but I wasn't happy about it. 

      There's nothing wrong with wanting to be loved.  What's wrong is wanting to be loved on one's own terms.  As long as I insisted on getting my parents love – or some projection of them –I was doomed.  They were the type of people who define others according to a narrow ideology.  So were the liberals I encountered at school.  The last thing in the world I needed or wanted was to be defined by someone else, someone egotistical enough to think they have the right to do so. 

      So how do I learn to love myself – reward myself?  As in, love others as you love yourself?  How do I take care of myself, become responsible for myself? 

      How can I learn to paint for me, because I want to? 

      What about the drudgery that accompanies creative efforts — how do I inspire myself to plough through that?  Do I hold out visions of good pay, prestige, satisfaction with achievement?  This begins to sound like "Wealth: your divine right." 

      What about the pleasure of problem-solving?  Every time I start a picture, I think, how am I going to get on paper what I picture so easily in my minds eye?  That, for me, seems to be where the real excitement lines. 

      How do I deal with the fatigue of trying to pursue my art and take care of the family and the house?  The money worries and the parental responsibility?  How do I juggle all these things?  Where do I begin?  Or do I just plunge in? 

      Perhaps I feel guilty about my love of problem-solving.  My family wasn't big on that type of thing.  That would be putting on airs. 

      The practical problems aren't going to go away, but if that's all I live to solve, I won't feel as if I'm living at all.

      Maybe that's the point — we're defined by the types of problems we address, or seek to solve. 

Here I am now, 34, trying to make a fresh start.  Trying to deal with the past at the same time I'm trying to create a present.

      I know that my parents saw us kids as extensions of themselves.  Therefore, our only purpose was to solve their problems.   Daughters weren't of much use, so my father raised me and my sister as substitute males.  He didn't do this out of any early feminist leanings — he was the most chauvinistic man I've ever met — but out of a refusal to accept our femininity. 

      I know I would have been an artist anyway — he only confused me about what type of artist I would be. 

      Here I am now, 34, trying to make a fresh start.  Trying to deal with the past at the same time I'm trying to create a present. 

      For the last couple of days I've been working on a pencil sketch — today it started to come to life.  Slow, hard work.  I notice I get frustrated fairly easily, still, after all these years.  I have to be more patient, let the picture come to itself in its own good time.  I think this sketch might make a good painting.  Oils?  I don't know. 

      I need an easel and some paints.  It's been a long time since I did oils.  And I've thought of using tempura, too.  I don't know.

      Can I stick with this — and the other paintings I'd like to do?  I hope so, I really want to make this work. 

      More work on the pencil drawing.  So far, so good.  I'm thinking of calling it "Thief", but that may be too melodramatic.  On the other hand, the picture quite frankly seeks a dramatic moment. 

    I feel depressed.  And for the last couple of days it's been uncharacteristically rainy and gray.  Is it that simple? 

      Anyway, as far as the picture I'm working on goes, it's coming along great.  Better than I expected.  I have to keep telling myself to be patient as I work on it.  I've worked every day this week, going a little bit at a time, patiently building up the details.  What I wonder now is, when did I lose the ability to work that way?  I suppose when I went into my teen years' Grand Awakening.  It feels so good to work the way I do best, patiently.  But that patience has to come from an interior place of balance.  Trying to keep up with all my parents' expectations really laid the stress on thick and toppled over my fragile self-esteem. 

      I guess when I started to do well this activated expectations in them that must have always been there, like a sleeping dragon. 

      What made it worse was the way they couldn't make up their minds.  They didn't really want me to do too well, surpass them too much.  They wanted my success under their control.   It was very wrong and it screwed me up for years.   I was foolishly anxious to please, but of course I got more and more irritable as this whole scenario played itself out. 

      I don't like people crowding me.  I go into a deep freeze when someone makes unreasonable demands on me. 

     Now maybe I'm finding a better way of dealing with unreasonable demands.  People make those all the time.  I'd end up in a state of suspended animation if I reacted to every demand that way.  I've got to learn how to say, No, something my parents never allowed. 

I think that if you believe Jesus is with you, you don't ever have to be really lonely.  And that's the lesson I learned (none too willingly) as a child.  To be totally alone is rare, but it's something we all fear.  During the years after my brother's death I felt pretty close to being totally alone, but I survived by clinging to my belief that Jesus was with me.  So I was never totally alone. 

      Perhaps this is an important turning point in my life.  But here are no fanfares, no parades. 

      Perhaps the image I have for myself is inadequate – and that's the point.  God wants — and knows — what's best for me.  It would feel like a tremendous relief to turn my cares over to God.  Too often I mix up worries and responsibilities.  I think that when I'm worrying I'm being responsible. 

      The fact is, I will lose everything eventually — perhaps not so eventually – so why should I try to control every aspect of my life? 

       Everything I do is a contribution to this image I have of myself.  What is that image?  Does it come from God or is it a false idol? 

      For a long time my self-image was a product of my parents' self-image.  Their expectations and projections created my ideas about what I should aspire to.  Then there was also the genetic factor.  I inherited a look, a set of talents and weaknesses, and a temperament.  With all these givens I was still very much an individualist.  But in reacting against them on some issues I was letting them determine the flow of thought and deed. 

      I think that if you believe Jesus is with you, you don't ever have to be really lonely.  And that's the lesson I learned (none too willingly) as a child.  To be totally alone is rare, but it's something we all fear.  During the years after my brother's death I felt pretty close to being totally alone, but I survived by clinging to my belief that Jesus was with me.  So I was never totally alone. 

      Ideally I see myself as someone created to serve God – I think we all are.

      What do you want me to be, God?  How do I find out?  Am I in the ballpark now or way out in left field?  If you want something radically different from what I've been doing, will you give me the courage and the patience to change? 

      If I've made too many wrong turns will you give me hope so that I don't despair out of frustration when I have to retrace my tracks? 

      Do you want me to be a part of the system or do you want me to observe it?  Or change it? 

      What I hear from Jesus doesn't lead me to want to buy into the system's philosophy.  But if I openly resist it, I know I might get hurt, perhaps destroyed. 

      It seems like no sooner do I get an identity of my own that you ask me to hand it over to you, God.  I keep hoping that I'll get to do some humble little job, something where you won't pay too much attention to me or make unreasonable demands on me.  I want to go running in the opposite direction, away from you and your plans for me. 

      But then I think, who in the world would I trust to tell me who to be?  I could borrow from this model and that model, but I don't want to be a clone of anyone else. 

      And if I follow Jesus' lead?  How would that change my present choices? 

Learn to do the small things well first, Jesus said.  I've gotten pretty good at the wife and mother thing but the artist thing needs work.  The artist thing is closer to the soul.  Art can be an expression of the soul – to some extent it always is, even commercial art.  Art can bring soul into the marketplace where otherwise it wouldn't exist.

      Who am I then, in your eyes?

      1.  I'm a mother.  A biological fact. My son is seven.  I take care of the needs he can't meet and in addition I provide guidance with love. 

      2.  I'm a wife.  A sacramental and legal fact.  I'm my husband's partner in life and love.  We share responsibilities and joys. 

      3.  I'm an artist.  A fact of talent and performance.  A fact of personality. 

      But there's something else.  God gave me other gifts, less easily definable, more mystical, I suppose — or more psychological.  Gifts of the soul.  Here is where society has nothing to tell me.  Here is where God tells me what my responsibilities are.  I've used those gifts to make myself a better wife and mother – and I hope, artist. Is that enough in God's eyes? Enough at this point? 

      Learn to do the small things well first, Jesus said.  I've gotten pretty good at the wife and mother thing but the artist thing needs work.  The artist thing is closer to the soul.  Art can be an expression of the soul – to some extent it always is, even commercial art.  Art can bring soul into the marketplace where otherwise it wouldn't exist. 

      Isn't it my ego that want's something grand – wants to be a hero in your eyes, God?   The grand gesture, the noble hero? 

      But then should I settle for too little?   No.  I 'm clear on that.   In my previous jobs I settled for too little. 

      The religious education I had taught me to be uncomfortable with the marketplace.  But the marketplace is our society's arena for action.  To sit outside the marketplace as a means to be "holy" means being a hermit.  Or a Saint Francis of Assisi. 

      I can't pretend I feel totally comfortable in the marketplace. 

      What if St. Francis had decided to create beautiful fabric designs for rich customers of his father? 

      Boy, in society's eyes, I know I'm way out in left field.

      And maybe in God's, too.  One can't be a hermit and remained married.   Or be a mother.   The hermit thing is out at this point in my life.  I don't get to be simon-pure. 

      Back to the marketplace then. 

      Maybe I blew it in terms of what you ideally wanted from me, God.   Or maybe not.   Maybe my ideas of the ideal are my own inflated projections.  After all, I believe you brought Peter and me together to love one another and help one another.

      Art can make the marketplace a more humane place.  Working would help me pay for Miles' education in later years and help Peter with the burden of financial responsibility.  In later years I may get to be a hermit, anyway, when I'm a lot older. 

      Perhaps in these years I can improve my skills, learn to be more courageous.  I doubt God wants cowardly hermits. 

The more I write the more I sound to my own ears to be neurotic on this whole subject. I suspect I ought to keep working, keep studying. Stop worrying. Trust God.

      I don't believe that God calls me to be irresponsible towards my family. 

      I have this image of myself working at home in obscurity, turning out little masterpieces that get discovered (by whom I've no idea) after my death.  That sounds pretty crazy to me. 

      The system of specialization.  The lessening of personal responsibility.  The codependents nightmare.  The world is falling apart and I have to save it – control it. 

      The rules are changing.  Responsible.  Able to respond.  The dictionary says, Responsible implies holding a formal organizational role, duty, or trust.  Another synonym besides answerable is trustworthy. 

      I'm answerable for my decision to be a wife and mother.  I'm answerable for the use of my talents. 

      My art always sprung from my relationship with God.  It seems like something sacred to me.  Maybe I'm confusing skill with expression.  The skill can be used for stained-glass windows or ads and telephone books.  The skill can be used badly or well.  The self-expression can be a minimal or major factor in the work.  

      Perhaps what troubles me is the loss of the sacred in our society.  The values of the marketplace don't belong in the temple?  But Jesus hung out with the members of the marketplace rather than the members of the temple for the most part. 

      Perhaps what I most admire in Renaissance art is the smooth blending of sacred and secular. 

      The more I write the more I sound to my own ears to be neurotic on this whole subject.  I suspect I ought to keep working, keep studying.  Stop worrying.  Trust God.

      There is no Church to be my patron.  I needed a father, a good father.  Someone to lead me into the world.  Because I never had that successfully I'm left adrift. 

      I believe in the goodness of life.  I believe that even [in] the midst of chaos God can draw forth our creativity.  In fact, without the conflict, life would be flat, un-alive.  Jesus represents creative chaos. 

      Part of me wants a cozy safe spot where can I huddle against the storm.  Part of me is a risk taker, ready to take the plunge. 

       Did a watercolor today in the midst of a fairly deep depression. 

      The watercolor is of Peter and Miles at the carnival.  Peter looks jovial in the picture, Miles wistful.  The perspective is faked, but the overall mood I intended comes across. 

      I should do more watercolors.  I'm not slick with the medium but I handle it pretty well, well enough to sell some.  

      I think I've changed more radically than I realized.  Painting is becoming a steady, regular part of my life.  I've started saving money.  I work even when I'm depressed.  All significant changes. 

      A heavy, damp blanket rests on the city today. 

      I feel a small sense of gladness, something that burns in the heart like a votive candle.  How strange it is!  This emotion comes unbidden, flickers but feels hot, an undulating warmth. 

      It sounds melodramatic to say it, but I feel as if I'm moving toward my destiny after many false starts.  Not that I have any clear idea as to where I'm headed, just more certain that this is the right direction.  Certainly to work steadily on my art is right, even in the face of great doubts.  Which I've always had and suspect I always will. 

      The generalist in our society occupies a difficult position.  As soon as one steps outside of one's specialty, one's on dangerous ground in terms of responsibility.  I've been confused on this subject for as long as I can remember.

      Some of it is that I have a horror of narrowing my vision – the thought of being rustled into some specialty has always given me the creeps.  It would be as if someone had clipped my wings.

      I've had to spend much of my life analyzing constantly — analysis has been my diving bell slowly rising, protection against the emotional bends. 

      I've reached a point where I feel like I can cope more freely with life — faith has its place, after all.  You couldn't possibly begin to analyze every eventuality.  Was it lack of faith that led me to intellectualize endlessly in the past?  Perhaps.  I had no accurate model of love to lead me into life with trust.  Now that I've learned love and believe in imperfect love being better than nothing, I want to put analyzing capacity into more useful pursuits.  Which means a narrowing of focus, something I feel frightened by. 

      I don't know where to begin – the choice of what to analyze first is an act of faith. 

      To focus means withdrawal from a multitude of scenes, to lose one's sense of infinite possibility within oneself. 

      Why is this so hard to do?  Is there a godlike self-image that must be forfeited in order to accomplish anything in this life?  Are the series of seemingly useless, purposeless mortalities precisely the point about human life?  Particularity over possibility?  Something gets extracted out of chaos after all? 

      The most pressing question behind my experience of my brother's early death was what was the point of his life?  I wanted to discover the meaning behind limits. 

      As an artist I love the structure of making definitions.  But as I got into adolescence I felt overwhelmed by a sense of wasted effort.  Why bother?  Why define this way rather than that?  Perhaps I was just picking up on the atmosphere of relativism that had settled over the academic world.  By parents, with their prejudices, seemed too certain of their rightness.  My teachers seemed certain that they were right, too.  How could everybody be right?  I drifted into reality, marriage, work, child.  Talk about getting down to basics, the realm of common sense.  All the polemics in the world couldn't make a marriage work or put food on the table or comfort a child.  I wanted my analyzing serve these humble needs.  I feel a sense of confidence – give myself an A for the results. 

      So am I ready to graduate onto more challenging matters?  I guess that's where I'm at now.  And why do I feel such a strong sense of fresh beginnings?  Perhaps because I laid a foundation for the rest of my life with the analyzing I've done so far.  For awhile I got onto the wrong track, extending the scope of my analyzing beyond the immediate parameters of the family – to Peter's brother, my sister, my friends.  I went through those mazes only to come to a dead end. 

      What sort of problem-solving is appropriate then?  Where am I most needed — and most useful?  I might have as much as fifty or more years ahead of me.  I want to put those years to good use.  Maybe I should start with the basics of science and history, see where I feel most drawn.  Or should I trust myself to art alone?  But what is art for art's sake?  Somehow that seems like such an empty exercise. 

      The idea of service dominates my thinking.  Perhaps that is where my analysis should begin.  Jesus said He called us to be friends, not servants.  A friend occupies a position of trust, of creativity. 

      I feel that I may be wrong in my attitude about art.  But to do something good out of intellectual fealty to the idea of goodness is a far cry from true engagement of the heart. 

      So my art has to struggle up through layers of intellectualizing.  My feelings count — as a friend's do – but they are unknown to me.  No wonder I feel this oppressive sense of not knowing what I want.  No, what I want is not the issue — I may well not be able to have what I want – but I would at least like to know what I feel.  That seems so repressed, so lost to me right now. 

      I know I do good work, so what's the problem?  There's a picture I want to do, but I feel on the edge of hysteria because I can't find anything.  Am I on the verge of a nervous breakdown or is this just more of the usual frustration?  Maybe I should calm down and take things one step at a time.  I need the photos I took down in Tucson, which seem to have disappeared, as has the film I bought this weekend.  I remember putting away everything but the film.  Why do I set myself up this way? 

      I'm really having trouble getting organized.  What with finishing my degree this summer and all the consequent paperwork, I've been letting things slip in other areas of my life.  I'm too dammed impatient, for one thing.  And always prepared to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

      Why don't I like myself as I am?   Why can't I accept who I am?  Why am I so full of bitterness and anger?  Why do I have so little faith in myself?

      After a childhood of having good and bad spelled out so clearly, am I still looking for someone to define life for me as easily as my parents did? 

      I guess I want someone to tell me that I'm good as forcefully as they told me I'm bad. 

      What is faith, if not choosing to walk in a certain direction, the one direction that seems most appealing. 

      I need to believe that I'm worthy of love.  But I have to accept working to win it, too. 

      I think if I'm going to paint nature, I'm going to have to go out of the city to do it. 

      I'd like to join the local art league, be involved with art on that level.  I'd like to study philosophy and computer science, be a professional.  I don't want to be famous; I'd like to be respected.  I put a high value on privacy and space. 

      If I go to school I should take it semester by semester.  I can take art as recreation, study languages, philosophy, and blend in computer science.  I've got the whole rest of my life ahead of me. 

There is a saying, the kind that ends up on bumper stickers, that "he who dies with the most toys, wins".  Wins what, I've wondered.  But it's one of those facile expressions of a facile philosophy that was much in evidence when we lived in California. 

      Yesterday we drove to Wickenburg and on to Peeple’s [Peeples] Valley.  I could feel the frustration and tension drop off as the day went on and we saw a beautiful landscapes, one after another.  It was a quiet day, so quiet after the city.  And the air is so clean.

      I've been reading a book called "The measure of Man" by Joseph Wood Krutch.  He talks about the influence of determinism on the thinking of public planners.  The idea being that you could condition people out of poverty and crime and towards a modern Utopia.  The book was written in 1953 and since then 35 years pass during which most of the conditioning programs have failed miserably, if the attempt was to create Paradise on earth.  Socialist models of cooperation never have sustained force – especially when it's a small, elite group dictating who is going to cooperate and how they're going to do it.  You're far more likely to get cooperation among people who are lonely and seeking companionship.  Or people who are frightened by a common enemy.  To get cooperation on the basis of reason alone is highly unlikely.

      To quote Krutch, "… few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational.  The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional forms and ceremonies." 

      Krutch also talks about survival as the measure of successful living – and mentions that Christ did not place survival as the determining factor in His own life.  I've often wondered about that, since it always struck me that Christ could have hidden – He didn't have to go back to the city where capture was certain. 

      There is a saying, the kind that ends up on bumper stickers, that "he who dies with the most toys, wins".  Wins what, I've wondered.  But it's one of those facile expressions of a facile philosophy that was much in evidence when we lived in California. 

      Survival of the fittest among humans becomes an endorsement of materialism.  Not everyone thinks that the most rich are the most fit, but that's certainly a human tendency that goes back through history – the very attitude Christ and other great thinkers have cautioned against still prevails. 

      Peter is gone on a business trip the next several days.  He took a cab to the airport.  Of course I worry about him, but I'm proud of him, too.  Miles is complaining of an earache this morning.  What a way to start the day.  It's supposed to be 105° by the end of the week. 

Later 

      I like the picture I did yesterday.  For once I used a style that felt like it came from myself – bold, bright colors, strong use of line and pattern.  This is me.  People can like it or leave it.  I want to paint what I feel, not engage in some abstract intellectual exercise. 

If ever there was a time to pay attention to our dreams and to our philosophy, this is it.  Bad thinking shapes the destiny of millions in ways God could not intend.  But shrill polemics convince no hearts towards God's kingdom.  We must become gentle people led by the Spirit.  We need a consensus based on love, not power.

      My mind is always ready to soar, while my poor lumpy body protests, what about me?  Which tells me I'm out of balance.  One changes one's life gradually, working daily at the transformation of one's self.  The mind is always prepared to create extensive engagements on the battle-front, which the body is unprepared to meet.  The mind is always ready to be a hero, the body is less easily persuaded.

      Which means that I am divided against myself.  By now I know I must be patient and less arrogant about my possibilities.  Still, without dreams the world would never change.  Working against entropy our dreams lead us onward, our dreams are part of evolution now. 

      If ever there was a time to pay attention to our dreams and to our philosophy, this is it.  Bad thinking shapes the destiny of millions in ways God could not intend.  But shrill polemics convince no hearts towards God's kingdom.  We must become gentle people led by the Spirit.  We need a consensus based on love, not power. 

      We live in a country dominated by the quest for survival and consequent materialism.  How much can a person possibly need, especially how much can they reasonably take care of themselves?

      We have within our means the leisure to sit at the feet of the Master, Who is with us only a little time.  We can run about, full of our own self-importance, or we can stop our restless activity and gather ourselves before God. 

      I think this is very difficult, this whole subject.  How and where and when do we surrender ourselves to God?  I think that is why Christ said He could send the Spirit to guide us.  No amount of scheming can replace the Spirit.  The tyranny of rationalization seeks one grand design to impose on the individual human Spirit.  "If we just knew this, then all else would fall into place" goes the thinking.  If this were to prove true, into whose hands would we put such power?

      But there is so much here I don't know yet, so much to learn still. 

      Neither of my parents took much pleasure in managing what they had.  They were always paralyzed into waiting for some better moment – and they threw away many good years in the process.  The present moment seemed burdened by cares and woes, all associated with the presence of us kids, it seems to me now.

      I want to avoid that pitfall, but I think I've been in danger of falling for such bad thinking.  This time now has its problems and there are things I want to change about myself before I take on bigger problems.  Maybe I've mistakenly thought I could win people's love by trying to present myself as their friend or helper. 

      Although I want to wear the clothing of everybody's friend, the fact is I'm sorely in need of resolving a lot of unfinished business in my own life first.  I hate being judged by others who find me wanting, deficient in looks or achievement.  I want to rise above all that, put on a superior act.  But sustaining that act costs me too much and doesn't solve the empty feeling I still have sometimes.  People will judge me and find me wanting and that doesn't change anything, really.  That's their problem.  If they were to judge me a success would that really make me a success?  Not in my own eyes.  Oh, temporarily it'd give me a boost but I'd always suspect them of liking me for my party tricks, not for my real self.  I want to earn love because I do things of substance – the kind of things that perhaps only God and very close friends will know about. 

      The people who judge are the people arrogant enough to think they have the right to do so.  Arrogant people are often drawn to those positions in society which most determine the fate of others.  We have the arrogance of politicians, priests, and educators, all willing to judge us and judge for us.  Meantime life slips away from us as we anxiously try to win the approval of those who have no right to dispense it.  Instead of putting our trust in a Higher Power we assert our right to give our lives away to bullies.

We celebrate the individual in the group.  Group cohesiveness should be based on love, not dominance.  Children are the most precious resource of any group.  The stability of children's lives must be affirmed.

      It's funny, when I was a kid my favorite book was Robin Hood.

      I took this model of anti-authoritarianism very seriously.  The model of Christ as rebel also appealed to me.

      I spent most of my life fighting the entanglements of my dictatorial, ultra-conservative father.  The ongoing political arguments about women's place have been the backdrop of all these private struggles.  When I had Miles I dropped out of the public world, became a private citizen, and used that time to redefine myself.  Now I see my public and private persona as evolving artist.  This, to my mind, is a big improvement over the old public persona, Career Girl, aka Clerk. 

      We women have to conduct guerrilla warfare against the patriarchal system.  Anyone who tries to fight directly might as well fall on her own sword.  Guerrilla fighters don't follow the rules of gentleman's agreement.  They use subversive tactics to undermine the entrenched powers. 

      Our goal is not to become the new power but to live and work in peace.

      We celebrate the individual in the group.  Group cohesiveness should be based on love, not dominance.  Children are the most precious resource of any group.  The stability of children's lives must be affirmed. 

      Off the soapbox and back to reality.  I'm going down to ASU this morning to register for my summer classes.  If I paid for both semesters today, it'd cost me 800 smackers.  Which would leave us with 300 in the bank.  Here's what we currently owe: about 4,000 in taxes.  And we need to get the Buick fixed.  It never ends, the continuing litany of financial pressures. 

      It's a hazy sky today, clouds scattered across a blanket of robin's egg blue.  There's enough of a breeze to keep the heat from being oppressive.  Already most of the spring visitors are gone from the city.  By mid-summer the streets will be almost deserted on the weekends. 

      We still don't have decent flooring, bare concrete in places.  The roof leaks all over, many of the windows need curtains.  Boy, did we overpay for this place.  But I really like this house, it has such a good feel to it.  And it's just the right size — although an upstairs would allow us to have the kids over more easily and give us more breathing space as Miles gets older. 

      I found a lovely old "waterfall" style dresser and matching vanity with the mirror intact.  Great find for 200 bucks.  Now my room looks like a room. 

      I'm feeling obsessive these days, the result of stress.  I'm extremely nervous about school, don't know why I should be, but I am.  And Miles is starting to grow up early, it seems.  Translated: all the sullen mannerisms of the adolescent. 

      I ought to slow down, take my life is it is, and enjoy it the best I can instead of pointless worrying.

      It's roasting in the house but we're faced with heavy air-conditioning bills this summer.  Between that and Miles' summer camp we're always broke in the summer.

      I'd love to lose some weight.  I really packed it on the last few years.  I'm not sure why.  Oh, I know I get less exercise here.  Thousand Oaks was a much nicer place to go for walks and that was my only form of entertainment for a long time. 

      And I got sloppy about food.  This is a resort area and the food is wonderful.  Perhaps I wanted to reward myself for the stress of having a kid and being unemployed.  Whatever it was, I ate too much once we moved to Phoenix.  I've probably gained twenty, thirty pounds in the last three years. 

      This is an area of tremendous anxiety for me since my parents were always extremely critical of my appearance.

      Now I'm more inclined to trust my own instincts.  I refused to "punish" myself for gaining weight by becoming a fanatic exerciser or by going on a starvation diet.  Neither of those options would fit my life.  But I have been going to Safeway and buying fruits and vegetables a lot more.  If I can replace the starches with produce from nature we'll all be healthier.  It's a question of acquiring a new habit.  There's no greater incentive than the full-length mirror I put in my bedroom, the mirror that comes with the vanity.  Hah!  Well it's not just vanity but common sense that tells me it's time to change our diet. 

      Today I should get some more celery, strawberries, and other good stuff.  This morning I had melon balls for breakfast.  Along with some other items.  Well, I do like a big breakfast.  I've got to go for the stomach filler early in the day and the visual feast at supper.  A nice arrangement of fruits and vegetables can mask the paltry serving of meat and starches that will have to become a way of life.

Through most of high school I made little attempt to be "cute" — I wasn't the cute type.  I was typed as the freaky artist instead. 

      I think that so far my greatest achievement has been to find my individuality through the constructive process of loving my husband and child and friends — by friends I mean those who have come into our lives and shared our lives with us for a while and then moved on again.  I don't know anyone other than Peter that I'd count on as an ally.  The unique thing about marriage when it works is that two do become one.  Peter has given me a positive example of masculinity, which otherwise I might never have had.  And over the years has softened the corners somewhat.  Long acquaintance and sharing reveals so much. 

      I'm no longer attractive the way I was ten years ago.  

      As for my art, the only reason I have the means to do it is because of Peter's support.  True, it's my talent and my effort over years and years that makes it a worthwhile investment for him.  But I doubt I could so easily win support from others.

      Maybe that's one of the reasons I want to go back to school, to see what others think of me now.  Deep down I still want approval, want to be accepted, appreciated for what I can do.  I'm not handicapped the way I was when I was my father's daughter. 

      As for my needing my man to help me, I won't apologize.  Many women I've met who are victorious without the support of a male have the support of family instead — a fact which they conveniently minimize in order to inflate their own heroic proportions.  The point is, no one acts alone.  If a woman has a woman lover, like the poet I met last year, the support is as real as the support Peter gives me.  Feminism encouraged this model of the woman going it alone.  We've grown disillusioned with this model — it's the same old one in new clothing.  Women have been going it alone —giving birth alone, cleaning alone, worrying alone right in the middle of marriage as it was defined.  Going it alone without pretense, bringing it out in the open probably seemed like a relief at first to a lot of women.  But women continued to fall in love, continued to marry and have children — women never really wanted to be alone.  It may have been heroic to give up the illusions of companionship if the marriage was bad — I used to wish my mother was that heroic — but we still crave companionship. 

      I was friends with the woman for awhile who was upset about my weight.  Since my looks certainly provided no competition for her, what was the real problem?  I know her husband admired my intellectualism though he certainly never encourage it in my friend.  I made her uncomfortable by refusing to conform.  I set up a paradox — the cute woman vs. the brainy woman.  This one's been around for a while, hasn't it?  Through most of high school I made little attempt to be "cute" — I wasn't the cute type.  I was typed as the freaky artist instead. 

      To be a companion to my husband I wanted to be "brainy" ... and cute.  I spent most of my marriage working at this.  Nature dictates that time of my life is pretty much over.  I look like a woman who had an 11½ pound baby boy.  And the family genetic pattern of weight gain in middle-age caught up with me.  So now I get to concentrate on braininess and artistic freakiness.  I wonder sometimes if this is enough to put into the equation, is my husband smart enough to take this as a good deal?  I've heard plenty of cautionary tales from women whose husbands left them for younger women.  Looks always seem to be the issue. 

I found myself questioning everything.  Only the most elemental drives carried me along, but slowly.  I married, waited seven years, during which I worked and went to school, then had a child.  Then I stayed home, became a full-time mother.  I had lots of time to ponder my situation.

      As an artist and as a person I've never liked the cheap and easy.  In our instant gratification society my attitude has often been misunderstood.  No wonder I was so taken with those thinkers who extol the value of process.  What could be more appealing to someone with my temperament than a philosophy of patient trial and error, of carefully earned gains, of wisdom learned through doing? 

      Yet all around us a different wisdom prevails.  "Buy now, pay later" thinking is written all over America.

      From my childhood experiences I was used to judging the outer world to see how it suited me.  As an adult I had trouble falling into some natural role for someone of my background and talents.  I found myself questioning everything.  Only the most elemental drives carried me along, but slowly.  I married, waited seven years, during which I worked and went to school, then had a child.  Then I stayed home, became a full-time mother.  I had lots of time to ponder my situation.  Because the pressure to be superwoman was still in its heyday, I continued to feel very alienated from the society around me. 

      Slowly, gradually I started to accept the freedom that comes with having no clearly defined place in society.  I would create my own place, a job that appeals to the artist in me.  Perhaps from the start I was bound to do this. 

      The definition of artist as socially acceptable neurotic — the court jester – is too narrow for me.  Artists should be able to be more effective than that.  To poke sly fun at the authorities may be subversive but it's not an activity designed to ensure change.  To tackle authorities head-on is much riskier, much more difficult.  To attack for the sake of attack is meaningless.  An artist has to be educated enough to understand what is going on around her.  She has to have mature judgments of her own based on a life lived, not calculated. 

      There's so much I haven't really understood about myself, this despite all my efforts at self-definition. 

      This morning I got up early in anticipation of Peter's flight to Washington and read the biography of Picasso excerpted in the "Atlantic".  It doesn't surprise me, I always reacted to Picasso as if I were allergic to him.  What healthy woman wouldn't resist those tortured women he painted?  Sentimentally they were imagined to represent his sympathy for their suffering while they were more likely an advertisement for sadism.  But many men in the art world have hated women.  An intelligent woman like Giolot shows how a woman can be betrayed into betraying herself.  I heard her on the radio one day talking about her work as if she had triumphed over this weakness and perhaps she has.  I meant to go see her work at the museum but didn't have time.  Now I'm sorry. 

      Doughnuts and coffee for breakfast this morning.  Peter is already gone, dressed like a tourist or Hollywood agent in Hawaiian shirt and pleated rayon pants.  This week I have midterms so I will be too busy to be frantic about him being away but I will miss him.  His love has shown me that it is possible for a man to love. 

      I find myself mystified by what's going on with me, the inner changes.  I can't keep up.  I decided to stay home today, ostensibly to gather all notes for biology to get ready for Friday's test, but really because I feel overloaded.  It's not just the schoolwork.  I'm feeling adrift because I don't have a clue as to what I should do once I get my degree.  I keep thinking I should do something with my talents for painting and writing. 

Aren't I a little young to feel like the end of somebody's cookout, like Fourth of July is over and those pretty blue balloons with the white stars have sailed off into the cloudless sky where they will drift higher and higher until they pop? 

      I could be an artist, a teacher, a scientist, a writer.  What to do?  I'm faced with an embarrassment of choices.  There are an amazing number of people in my classes from Missouri or their families hale from Missouri.  They have red, simple faces that look really good when they smile.  You can tell they have good hearts. 

      I'm not so sure about myself.  I look in the mirror in the ladies room on campus– by the time classes are over I have to go — and I think, not bad, but do I trust her?  She has trouble meeting the straightforward gaze of the Missouri people sometimes.  Not always, but when she's had a bad day, like the other day when she had a migraine.  She could feel the weight of her fatigue pulling her eyes deep into their sockets.  These Missouri people look tired, too, but in that weather-beaten farmer way, not like some sickly urban dweller with a pasty face and blue rings under her eyes. 

      It's overcast today, dropping the temperature a good five degrees, I'll bet.  So, am I going to be an artist?  There was a time in my life when I had the fare.  Aren't I a little young to feel like the end of somebody's cookout, like Fourth of July is over and those pretty blue balloons with the white stars have sailed off into the cloudless sky where they will drift higher and higher until they pop? 

      On top of that I feel like I'm on the rag all the time.  Sometimes when I'm talking to Peter I'll be in the middle of a sentence and my voice will crack and I'll start to blink back tears.  It just happens. 

      One of the guys in the ecology class told about this one class he was supposed to take where he'd have to operate on a rabbit, a live rabbit, and keep it alive for three weeks and keep operating on it.  And he said, how'm I going to tell my kids, at Easter that I'm doing this to the Easter bunny? 

      This guy got up and did his presentation, it was very technical and he went on and on and people started shuffling their papers and putting their books away because class had ended fifteen minutes ago. 

      He was wearing a Canyon de Chelly t-shirt.  I know you pronounce that "shay".  It had some kind of Indian motif design on it, something circular that might be useful to have around when you're in labor and you need something to focus on.  This is a nice guy, I'm thinking, he's embarrassed about going on too long with his presentation but not all that embarrassed because nothing tops the time his two-year-old son puked up in the grocery store, at the checkout, right on the Cheerios and ground beef, while everybody in line, this is the 10 items or less line, cash only, they all are looking on horrified and pleased. 

      So, I was too tired to do a presentation.  I wrote a paper instead.  I wrote about the wilderness lands in Arizona.  There's blood on every page, I told the teacher when I handed the paper in.  I was very, very tired when I was writing that paper and Peter took it into work to type it on his word processor and he ended up working on it for hours and he got very, very tired, too.  And now it's Friday afternoon and heading toward evening and it's time to pick up Miles.  This week we ate at a coffee shop we found nearby, probably about five or six times in a row because we were so tired. 

      I'm tired, I have a cold, and I'm not even halfway through the second semester.  I'm grouchy and confused and I hate it when I can't breathe through my nose.  Miles hums incessantly, which gets on my nerves, Peter seems to be sitting on a heap of emotions and resentments of his own.  I'm guilty, but I want desperately to have some peace, translated, time away from everybody.  I'm always afraid to admit that to myself, I guess.   Since I started back to school I've been able to express myself with others, which I enjoy, but I got used to having eight hours a day totally by myself before I resumed school.  Guess I can't have it both ways.  Being raised Catholic tends to exacerbate the neurotic search for perfection.  I have to question all that, take life as it is, take myself as I am. 

      I see people all around me who are motivated by I do not know what.  Maybe being in the academic venue brings out a sense of aimlessness in people, or maybe I'm just picking up on the youth factor.  Young people are so unsure about what lies ahead.  The rewards of materialism are supposedly the lure that leads them into adult life.  I'm probably just tired.  I lose a certain perspective that I had before I returned to school, in order to exchange it for another. 

      Actually, I think young people often have very defined notions of what they hope lies ahead, largely from their families. 

I wanted a good marriage, I wanted a child, I wanted to understand the source and nature of my family's deep unhappiness.  And by and large I've succeeded at all those goals.  

      As usual our financial situation is precarious and the heat is unrelenting.  I've had very little time to write other than classwork.  I've done well so far, putting the full force of my energy into my studies for the first time in twenty years.  Why this detour, I keep asking myself?  I love learning, what horrible paralysis beset me after I married Peter?  I spent most of my life in one state of misery or another, it seems. 

      And where exactly am I now?  I'm full of such questions these days.  I suppose school tends to do that, provoke questions. 

      I decided to apply my intelligence to real life, I tell myself.  I wanted a good marriage, I wanted a child, I wanted to understand the source and nature of my family's deep unhappiness.  And by and large I've succeeded at all those goals.  In the process I learned a great deal about myself, about life, about others.  I made some mistakes along the way, but then, I still do that, and probably always will. 

      What I feel most now is the need to detach, to learn a more critical, analytical sort of knowing than what I practice now.  I feel as if I'm really just beginning at this point, as if now I were being born and introduced to my true family. 

      It is painful to fail at life.  When all life is is the earning of credentials, as we are encouraged in this country to believe, it is very easy to fail life.  I see that with those I know, like Peter's brother, and others I've met over the years, who end up at this point unable to find love, having once had it, and lost it, and not knowing how to regain it. 

      But then I suffer from all sorts of foolishness, imagining myself to [be] much wiser than I am in fact.  I have simply been a lucky fool.  I've always sought ways to make things better at a low cost.  Well, that's a bit harsh, but I've always been extremely cautious. 

My life has been so full of false starts that I don't know whether what I'm doing now makes much sense.  Somehow I have to blend my creative work with other responsibilities.  Nothing new there except now I want to share the results with others — I didn't use to feel that way. 

      Can it really be so long since I last had time to write?  I've finally completed the course work for my degree — only 18 years.  I feel such a tremendous sense of relief. 

      I don't know whether it's the heat or the time of month or what, but I feel extremely irritable.  It's as if all the fatigue I put off for two months has suddenly caught up with me.  I keep talking and Peter keeps having this pained look on his face.  This morning I noticed silver hairs all over his head that I swear weren't there yesterday.  He asked me this afternoon if I'd noticed and I said, yes.  The truth is, I fear desperately that he'll age faster than me and leave me alone.  What a thing to worry about!  I admit I'm childish that way.  I want him to be happy and live a long full life. 

      I've grown much closer to him over the years than I would have thought possible.  Those early years were so difficult.  But now I wouldn't know how to live without him. 

      Today I did what I usually do when I'm depressed — went to see a movie and went shopping, with Miles, of course.  Bought myself some silly barrettes and felt like a kid — this is the kind of thing I never did as a kid, though.  Standing in line to buy my ticket I realized that in a couple of years Miles won't go to movies with his Mom anymore. 

      Much of the source of my energy to do well in school stems from my realization that I am not getting any younger. 

      Miles is still home and somehow I managed to do a picture today.  I felt pretty happy with the results.  Miles was very helpful, cleaning up after me.  Maybe that's the best way to learn, just hanging around and helping out. 

      My life has been so full of false starts that I don't know whether what I'm doing now makes much sense.  Somehow I have to blend my creative work with other responsibilities.  Nothing new there except now I want to share the results with others — I didn't use to feel that way. 

      It just occurred to me, I'd better transfer those credits up to CSUN or I won't get any degree. 

      I liked the pace this summer, even though it was very tiring in the end.  I also felt an increasing sense of conflict between the family and a sense of my professional self. 

      Jesus never said Blessed are the rulemakers.  I guess this state of ambiguity is healthy as long as I keep pushing on.  Whatever comes, it'll be the result of my best efforts, I'm sure of that. 

      I suppose I feel that if I were to pursue a full time career the family and the marriage would suffer.  There’s plenty of evidence to suggest this happens often enough.

      But what precisely does duty imply?  Simply that one owes some obligation to another — and that doesn’t stand alone by itself.  One reneges on a debt one doesn't feel one really owes.  Duty can be a mode of relationship, I think.  One stands in relationship to another via duty.  It doesn't suggest warmth or familiarity… Duty to higher or lower… A father's duty to his son and a son's duty to his father are two very different types of relationship.  To be human is to be caught in a network of such relationships.  The emotions pass along this network. 

      Yesterday we drove up to Flagstaff, then down to Pinewood, Cornville, Jerome, and Prescott.  We got back around 9 listening to Texas blues and Tracy Chapman singing “Fast Car” on the radio. 

      This morning I woke up with my period, which explains the horrible mood I  kept falling into off and on all weekend. 

      Today I was in a confused state over school — a terrible time to make decisions for me, right now, but the deadline for ASU is Friday. 

      Peter can’t help — I keep trying to explain to him what I’m after, but he seems bewildered.  Maybe he’s confused by my confusion. 

      Maybe there's some painful realization here that I don't want to face.  Maybe I feel guilty at wanting something more challenging in life.  I feel guilty because I'm bored and I see bright lights out there.  It doesn't help if some of Peter’s bright lights are dimming just as mine start to glow.  I don't know if that's true — and I also don't know if maybe that's actually a good thing, if he can grow in new ways of his own. 

      On the ride home from dropping Peter off at work Miles said to me, “You know, Mom, I really think you should lose a little weight."  I cried all the way home.  I suddenly realized that all my life I've been surrounded by people who felt obligated to change me.  The easiest area for them to pick on was my weight. 

      Once I went back East when I had starved myself into genuine thinness and afterwards the gossip got relayed to me: I was dressing badly.  So I couldn't win. 

      To hear my own son add to the chorus hurt deeply.  The only one who has accepted me as I am has been Peter.  And of course I've always doubted whether he really loved me.  Love was expressed via people picking on me, not people being tolerant. 

      In recent years I've gone on diets and gotten deathly ill as a result.  I quit smoking and gained 20 pounds almost overnight.  One of the reasons I started smoking in the first place was because it helped me to take off weight.  It was as if people were saying to me, “Why aren't you more willing to kill yourself for us?"  Why indeed? 

      I've always wanted to be loved for myself and yet when Peter did I hardly knew what to do with it.  I’ve put him through a lot over the years with my inability to accept that he simply loved me, overweight and all. 

      But I was right in my insistence that he should want me to grow — I didn't want passive love, the kind that puts you on a pedestal, to let you gather dust. 

     The trick is to live a balanced life.  I have to believe in love and God's care for me.  I have to care about myself enough to want to grow as a human being.  Our mechanistic society militates against personal growth.  The dead-end jobs, the assembly line mentality, the intense discipline — none of these things encourage a person to grow in unconventional ways.  In many ways it's the hardest time in history to truly be a Christian.  The safe little box we’re told to sit in has nothing to do with the Cross.  Lots of people see acceptance of the box as religious duty, but I don't think so — it's too passive, too easy.  Go along to get along.  Go with the herd. 

      I've got college catalogs spread out all over the table.  Originally I planned to get my degree this summer and then coast awhile, indefinitely.  But then I did very well and found myself burning with the wish to continue on.  After reviewing the local community college catalogs I see a number of courses I could take before investing in ASU or U of A.  I think it would help build my confidence.  I got the most encouragement at ASU from my sociology professor, and it was the subject that interested me the most.  However, everything interests me.  Maybe some courses will help me get my bearings. 

      I came across the expression, “random abstract” recently, which describes a style of learning in which one follows a non-linear survey of the material to be covered, as opposed to “concrete situational”. 

      I know from past experience that I often get a very uncomfortable feeling when I venture into new territory — getting the big picture first helps me to deal with that fear. 

      In the catalog, biology was described as the only subject that never got boring.  I have to admit, my greatest fear is of getting stuck in some specialized aspect of some narrow field. 

      From everything I can see I'd be best off taking every math course Phoenix College offers.  The multitude of community college courses look good, but I guess I don't know if I want to get bogged down in them.  On the other hand, it may well be premature to get right on the Sociology track.  I just don't know. 

      One of the areas recommended alongside sociology is journalism, and I know I write very well.  I found a lot in sociology that prompted ideas for stories, so maybe it's a good way to go and I shouldn't waste a lot of time with biology and physics, etc. 

      The question is, how far back down the ladder do I want to go?  Or is it really, I'm at the bottom right now, anyway, so why not take the courses I'm interested in... Maybe when I did so well this summer I felt as if I was further along than I realized.  What bugs me is the idea that I’d avoid more scientific courses, for whatever reason. 

      I finished a picture this morning and feel pretty good about it.  I seem to be starting to convey a sense of volume and depth that was always missing in my work before.  This morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw the moon floating above the tops of the oleanders.  I have to try to capture the effect that scene had on me. 

      This summer I proved to myself that I could be a good student.  I'm still torn between wanting to pursue further education and wanting to go further with my painting.  When I was younger I was too easily influenced by every other artist. Now I have a strong sense of what I want to paint. 

      As I've written before, making choices means accepting limits.  Just as Miles has trouble accepting limits at his level of development so do I at mine.  I sympathize with his fury and frustration, except that being older, I don't waste too much time on those emotions anymore.  What troubles me revolves around the question of responsibility.  If I dedicate myself to my art I have to resign myself to the possibility of being unable to make a living with my work. 

Early on I acquired the technical skills but I couldn't settle on any point-of-view.  Nihilism, relativism, existentialism — not one of these philosophies would lead me to paint the way my love for God and nature led me to paint. ...

Now I realize that I can't see myself as anything other than a Catholic artist.

      It really is stressful when Peter's not around.  He called late last night around midnight.  I had a fitful sleep after that and now I feel a bit hazy.  Miles and I walked to school — If I keep this up I'll get in a half-hour brisk walk everyday.  Can't hurt.  I have to get focused on other issues as well.  Translate: should I keep painting?  Should I go back to school? 

      I have to take practical considerations seriously.  But on the other hand, should I just forget about developing my talent?  I suppose it would be easier for me if I didn't have a choice to make — I'm lucky to be able to make a choice.  Do I somehow squeeze in art into a full-time career in a more scientific, technical field?  If all I do is one or the other, paint or study, I get restless. 

      Diego Rivera said that all art was propaganda.  But whose propaganda?  That of the artist?  Some social position he/she aligns himself/herself with? 

      Is that part of my problem as an artist?  Early on I acquired the technical skills but I couldn't settle on any point-of-view.  Nihilism, relativism, existentialism — not one of these philosophies would lead me to paint the way my love for God and nature led me to paint. 

      Of course, on the Coasts everyone was propagating some fashionable, nouvelle statement of the moment.   I despaired of ever finding an audience.  I went to shows and visited galleries and saw a constantly changing river of images, some appealing in a sterile sort of way, many just plain ugly. 

      I keep thinking about what [Étienne] Gilson said, about the failing of Catholics to be proud of their faith.  I know my family was not proud of being Catholic.  They love to present the image of themselves as “just plain folks”.  

      Now I realize that I can't see myself as anything other than a Catholic artist.  Church art is generally abominable these days, so I'm not sure what a Catholic artist is. 

      However, down here in the Southwest the Indians have kept alive the spiritual element in art.  There is also the Hispanic love of symbolism and rich spirituality.  It's easier to feel free to capture the eternal in the temporal.  That is what great art should do, shouldn't it? 

Now that I have learned the value of detachment I know that one shouldn't look to use people or things for any sort of selfish reason.  The assumption that we act best out of self-interest may rest on one's definition of "self".  To me, it was my, is my soul — that part of me that exists in relationship to God, the Eternal one.

      When you do creative work you inevitably are dependent on patrons.  That dependency is also something that I dread.  Yet isn't that simply a fact of life?  Who isn't dependent in one way or another? 

      When Jesus said to give up everything and follow Him I wonder if He also meant these fears? 

      They provide excuses for living a lesser life.  Jesus stuck with His vision of what He had to do, a most personal conviction of what He felt in His heart that He must do.  He knew his time had come and He acted accordingly. 

      It seems the world is intransigent, that one must act according to the rule of fear.  Narrow vision of the possibilities confuses those most gifted.  Even Jesus dealt with a blurring of His vision.  There's no sin in that — the sin lies in failing to believe even when one doesn't see.  Because one most truly sees with one's heart.  Everything one does one should do well — but what direction to head for?  Which way to go?  Jesus heard God speaking to Him, telling Him, and He responded. 

      Meanwhile I kept trying to understand what was wrong with me from an intellectual perspective.  The conclusions I reach these days are the results of years of struggle to think my way to well-being.  My definition of health was based on my faith in Jesus and the Gospels.  There was always my inner voice to guide me. 

      Now that I have learned the value of detachment I know that one shouldn't look to use people or things for any sort of selfish reason.  The assumption that we act best out of self-interest may rest on one's definition of "self".  To me, it was my, is my soul — that part of me that exists in relationship to God, the Eternal one.  That sounds grand and perhaps it is.  But I sensed that any humanity defined by anything finite would simply depict the same dryness I’d grown up with — my parents’ relativism.  One way the wind would blow this way, the next day, another.  I would end up less than human if I did not define myself by my soul. 

      Tormented by doubts every step of the way I clung to my need for God.  There were years, year upon year, where I lived in the driest of spiritual deserts.  I felt absolutely nothing.  I existed before God but was blind to Him.  I was no more than a stone.  I waited, silently mostly, reproachfully then, and gradually I called out and when I could do do that, I was on the path to well-being. 

      Growing up as I did I had little faith that I would be heard.  This lack of faith in love gave me no foundation for life.  I knew I desperately needed love, and needed to love.  Where was that foundation going to come from?  It seemed as if in those dry years I emptied myself out of all the poison that had flowed within me.  No one told me what to do.  I followed my inner voice, which I didn’t even hear, but some part of me knew how to listen, even as they say people in a coma can hear. 

      That emptying was essential.  It is also the most painful suffering that exists in life.  To renounce one’s every demand, to bend one’s spirit to God’s will, to feel nothing except this steadily blowing furnace blast of one’s hunger — to recognize, to face the enormity of one’s hunger and accept it — there is nothing more difficult. 

      That was when I first began to get a glimpse of myself as an individual, though I was unaware of it at the time.  For a person who reacts to everything, to place oneself in a vacuum like that is to get the first vague sense of one’s own needs. 

      Of course, at this time I was home with Miles.  Learning to care for him in the midst of my pain was never easy, but it proved to be right for me.  It is true that in order to get love you must give it.  No one wants to believe that, of course.  How can one give out of nothingness?  I don’t know, except to say that is the miracle of creativity.  One finds within oneself the needed resources.  It didn’t have to be Miles, it could have been anyone or anything that really needed me — the answer to my misery lay not in my neediness, but in being needed. 

      The very thing I’d fled from in my family!  The stuff of cliche’s!  But there it was, a sense of meaning, of legitimacy.  Playing the parent to my parents was not legitimate — but playing the parent to my own child was not to play at all, but to actually live an appropriate role, for once. 

The question before me now is simple, Do I really believe in the God of love?  Can I shed the guilt consciousness by believing in God's forgiveness?  A sense of God’s overwhelming love has periodically burst into my consciousness, throughout my life, but I have remained defined by my family’s punishing God.  Who we worship tells us everything about ourselves. 

     The bottom line is, I suffered from low self-esteem. I still do.  I grew up in a Catholic environment that emphasized guilt and punishment.  One sin at the end of one’s life and all previous deeds were wasted — one simply went straight to hell.  God was forbidding, not a God of love.  God's love was more like God’s forbearance.  God “put up” with us.  With me. 

      I'm smart enough to know that anything I do in the hopes of earning love will result in disappointment.  If I don't believe I'm lovable just as I am, nothing I can add onto myself will make any difference. 

      The question before me now is simple, Do I really believe in the God of love?  Can I shed the guilt consciousness by believing in God's forgiveness?  A sense of God’s overwhelming love has periodically burst into my consciousness, throughout my life, but I have remained defined by my family’s punishing God.  Who we worship tells us everything about ourselves. 

      I do believe I have weaknesses to overcome, but those weaknesses all center around my basic lack of faith in myself.  How can I really believe God loves me when I don't love myself?  Love the Lord your God with your whole mind, heart, and soul.  Love your neighbor as yourself. This is Jesus' command, but it's not the one emphasized in the environment I grew up in. 

      I've chosen a path in life that allows me to consider these questions but how do I get the answers?  The answers are somewhere within me.  I know that.  No one, not God nor man, can accept for me, love for me, choose for me. 

      If I live by what I understand Jesus to say, if I persist despite my doubts, if I go by what my sense tells me must be true, that the law of love is the highest, truest law, then the task before [me] is simplified. 

      First off, it seems to me, I have to give up the habit of low self-esteem, with the attendant habits of compensation. 

      If I approach my education as a way of compensating for defects in my soul, I'm going to have to be very careful how I go about my business.  Do I need to improve myself?  Of course I do. Do I need to earn my parents’ love — meet their needs?  No. 

      Whom do I really owe if not God? 

      I will have to pray daily for the strength not to slip back into old bad habits.  I need daily, small miracles in my life. 

      I have to give up my habit of constant worry.  Maybe I should practice “worry management”; fix a date every week to worry and refuse to worry the rest of the time. 

      I need to stop being so hard on myself.  It spills out onto others, gives me migraines, makes my life a misery. 

      Being one's own harshest critic is a way of controlling one's pain.  No one will hurt me more than I hurt myself, it's a form of slow suicide. 

          Some do’s and don'ts: 

          1. Stand up tall 

          2. Smile 

          3. Believe in God's love. Act as if I believe totally in God’s mercy. Commit. 

          4. Stop compensating for imagined defects. 

          5. Corollary to above: Do not let myself be judged by people who hardly 

          know me. 

          6. Work at my real weaknesses.  E.g. I want to learn math and science 

          skills.  I need to learn patience and persistence. 

          7. Slow down. Nothing worthwhile is accomplished in haste. 

          8. Believe that effort counts. 

          9. Listen for God's voice. Pray regularly, not just in times of trouble. 

          10. Recognize that the quality of one's life is characterized by the quality 

          of one’s faith.  Those who live by love choose the best path.