mariannes_bird
Originally uploaded by FunCupcake.
On my semi-blogging vacation, I thought about why I have this website. And what I get out of it. I thought I would take a break from publishing for a while, feeling like I needed some privacy, wanting to avoid feeling exposed for the time being. But alas, here I am! I couldn’t stay away for long!
While on blog-vacation, I found myself seeing or experiencing things and really wanting to share them. I would think “here I am seeing or hearing this, and it’s like in one ear out the other if nobody is near by at the moment to share it with me.” When I thought about capturing the moment or the feeling, I enjoyed the experience more, retained more, but most importantly, felt it more. And I realized that this is why I maintain this site. My experiences are heightened when I take it all in knowing I have somewhere to let it all out. I was a columnist for the Desert Sun (in Palm Springs) for several years, and I remember how good it felt to just publish the thing after agonzing for two weeks over it. It felt great to get it done and even better when readers wrote in to the editor or stopped me to tell me in person their reaction to what I had written. Being a young writer, most people were complimentary and gentle, but I had a few honest critics in my group who helped me see things I couldn’t on my own, told me things that helped me grow and evolve in my writing or better yet, helped me edit! Something I struggle with! Sue Tracy, do you want to be my editor?
It has always been hard to write from the heart when the heart is hardened by tough times in life. Recently I have been feeling like this little window into my life has led to a decrease in meaningful exchanges with the people close to me. And I started to resent the blog for being such a neutral forum for show and be seen. These past few months of adjusting to this new life have left me feeling rawwwww. And I suppose feeling in need of a bit of a transfusion. The idea of capturing and sharing started to become exhausting. I didn’t feel like telling you of the turbulations. And the idea of being judged or monitored by either strangers or friends & family made me feel akward. I think I feel stronger now, sometimes all it takes to feel settled is to just make it to Grand Central Station in the morning a few days in a row without getting lost or being late or missing your train. Everything I have been doing is new and foreign, and it’s taken every ounce of me to kick start my new life. I don’t wish for things to be easy, I know sometimes they have to be hard, and sometimes, you just have to suffer through feeling tapped-out.
I spend less than a 1/2 an hour a week maintaining the website. Uploading photos and blogging directly from flickr, it’s really not much time. The site is a template; I don’t have to write code or do graphics. It’s actually easier to maintain my website than it is to use ebay!! But regardless of the time committment, what motivates me? I’ve concluded that my motivation to share is directly linked to my desire to engage with other people. Relating to others motivates everything I do. I try to be an open-minded person because I think that there is always another way to live life and certainly I don’t have all the answers. I love art, design, food, travel, diverse experiences with diverse and familiar people but also the simplest everyday things that keep us grounded. Like small animals, plants, baked-goods, and 2-minute conversations with complete strangers while riding the subway. Even if they are somewhat forced.. like when your bag gets stuck in the subway door and you have to ride for two stops with it hanging out the other side, just stuck there. Stuck to the door cuz your bag is stuck in the door! Stuck next to a French family! This is a human experience and it is funny and it reminds us we’re all the same. I love to have fun, to socialize and to understand things. Above all, I love to relate to other people, and I believe there is always an opportunity to connect with absolutely anybody if you are willing to meet them wherever they are at.
When I see or experience something that makes me feel, really really feel (whether good or bad or strange or excited) I want to share it! Is my ego inflated? Do I need attention? Am I simply trying to offer others a window into my adventures in hopes they will relate? I ask myself these questions and settle on this; New York is a foreign land to me. I feel disassociated many days. But I love the contrast to my mostly calm, familiar 29-year West Coast existence. I want this experience, but I haven’t figured any of it out yet.
For the past 10 years or so I have focused on dreaming, designing and producing visual art. Creating art became very important to me; so much so that I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to spend 10 years in college studying, or the next 30 years paying off. The process of artmaking, the indivdual interaction with an idea translated into a visual form, is amazing and like no other activity I have ever participated in. For me, it’s powers are only second to being in Love. But it’s a two-sided street. It’s amazing to create it, and I find now more than ever, neccesary to publish or show it. When you set art free and let it fly into the world, you never know what you are going to get back, and mostly, that’s exciting because you realize interacting with the world is a dynamic experience. You can’t control how people will be affected by it, what it might bring out in them, or what it will mean to them. You can almost always count on their response being different than you imagined. And after you’ve spent some intimate time with your idea and piece (sometimes without taking much risk) you owe it to yourself and your work to go through Phase Two and… set it free! It’s like the digestion part of eating. You enjoy the sensual part of the taste, but eventually it needs to go somewhere and that part isn’t always easy or pretty or tasty! But digesting food and showing art makes it real for you. When your art, or your writing, your photography or your experience really has the chance to evolve is when something you think in your head, or make with your hands, or capture in a personal composition, or just feel, interacts with the energy of everyone and everything else out there. People often create and then it dies with them alone. They don’t go through Phase two and share maybe because the idea of being judged is so painful. The idea of being misunderstood so lonely and scary. The thought of being unliked or unpopular, so devestating.
Moving to NY, changing careers, having a new status in life and being on my own has caused me to tap into a deep source of energy just to maintain, not even to excel. And I admit it has felt a little scary to show the vulnerable side of life in the dead of a cold, NYC winter. But alas I am here. So let me share my taste of life with you. Because my experiences just won’t be complete without you.
This is why I do what I do!
