Teresa R. Funke's Blog: Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life, page 32

The Art of Loneliness

I’ve been feeling lonely lately, ever since I got back from six weeks in Ireland with my husband. Not that kind of lonely. I have plenty of friends and a family that loves me and lots to do. This is a different kind of lonely, and it took me a while to put a finger on it. This is the loneliness of the artist, the person who is supposed to revel in sitting in solitude in his/her studio or office...

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It Just Feels Right

I’ve spent the past three weeks spinning my wheels. There were three projects I wanted to start. Each of them felt equally important and ambitious. It seemed crazy to start all three at once. Current thinking tells us that multitasking isn’t effective. Plus, there is the business side to consider: the sooner I complete a project the sooner I can earn from it. So round and round I went trying to...

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How Do You Identify?

Recently, I heard a new author speak about his book. He casually mentioned he was a Black/Latino writer. As he continued his story, I pieced together that his father was Puerto Rican and his mother was black. I asked him afterward if he identified as black or Latino. He said both. He said as a writer, he’d stayed away from those terms, though, until someone told him he might as well claim them if...

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Go Beyond Yourself

I was listening to an On Being podcast in which poet David Whyte was recalling a story of a dinner with his writer friend John O’Donohue. He mentioned he was thinking of giving his father money and said the amount, and John said, “Oh David, go beyond yourself. Give twice that much.” David Whyte’s larger point was that we should always be more generous than we are first inclined to be, and he...

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Why Not?

The other day, a friend told a story of a mentor who once said to her “Why not?” when she doubted she could do something. Two simple words, and yet where do we go from there? Well, typically we launch into a laundry list of excuses. All the reasons why not. And sometimes we can hear as we are saying them how lame they really are. And sometimes they feel very real and very big and we can’t imagine...

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Magic in the Mess

Back-to-school ads brought a childhood memory to mind. In eighth grade, I was disappointed to get a certain English teacher. He had a reputation for being boring and dismissive and not too bright (although I’m sure 8th graders had harsher terms for him). And he proved to be all of those things. But halfway through the year, he gave us an assignment that excited me. He told us to write down the lyrics to a song that meant something to us and then break down the song in an essay and explain why we loved it.

I chose “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers. (I know, odd choice, right? But I was an odd kid). I put a lot of thought into every line of the song, analyzing it in writing to the best of my ability. I think I talked about how sometimes the answers come from the most unexpected places, and how you had to know when to stand your ground and when to quit, and how the Gambler spoke these amazing words of wisdom as his last act on earth. He passed on his wisdom, then he passed away. I was terribly clever and mature and worldly, I thought. And I turned it in fully expecting an A and a comment from my teacher about how insightful I was, and how he’d never hear that song again without being touched by my analysis.

When I got the paper back, there was a big red B at the top. I’d gotten an automatic grade decrease, he said, because I had neglected to put the title of the song in the upper left-hand corner of the page as instructed. I was furious. Such an arbitrary rule had cost me my A. Such a meaningless thing to grade me down for in the face of such a thoughtful essay. Life and all its silly little rules were stupid. Why couldn’t people ever see the bigger picture?

As an adult, I still wonder that sometimes. You put out a piece of writing that you hope will inspire and impress everyone who reads it, then you get an e-mail that says simply, “There’s a typo in your second paragraph.”  Or you mount this amazing photograph that took you three years to finally capture, and someone comments on the nick in the frame. You work hard at your art, you put your heart and soul into it, you feed it with your genius, and all people see is what’s missing. It’s frustrating. School was often frustrating because the administrators so often seemed to care more about whether you raised your hand before you shouted out your brilliant observation than they did about the observation. And teachers so often asked for our opinions just so they could tell us we were wrong.

Of course, rules are important. And structure is important. And guidelines are important. But creating is often messy and it doesn’t follow the rules and it doesn’t push the chair back in place when it’s done.

So now that I’m a supposedly much wiser adult, what do I do? Sometimes I allow myself to create with abandon. The rules, the expectations, the judgments, go out the window. When I’m done, I happily roll around in the mess I made. Then I take a deep breath and go back. I make sure I’ve crossed my Ts and dotted my Is and I reread the rules for submissions. I make sure everything is in order. I confess it’s not always possible to just feel free. After 26 years in this business, the rules are ingrained. But it sure feels good to once and a while stray from the path and just go exploring.

And always when I put something out in the world, I trust. I trust that though I’ve wrapped my package up in a neat and tidy bow, when readers open it, the magic in the mess will come spilling out.

P.S. Don’t stop telling me when you see a typo. I do appreciate the chance to fix them.

All Good Things Must Come to an End, or Must They?

When I was a little girl, I was struggling with the concept of forever. I’d heard it mentioned in church that morning. The priest had said, if you were in good standing with God, you’d live forever. I couldn’t grasp this idea of forever, so I thought I’d test it out. I sat on the back step of our house and recited“forever, forever, forever” over and over again. But eventually, I had to stop. Eventually, forever has to stop. It just has to, right? I pondered that for days.

Other times, I’d hear grown-ups sigh and say, “All good things must come to an end.” They either sounded sad when they said it or matter-of-fact. Either way, I resented that comment. Why must all good things come to an end? Surely, if you wanted something badly enough, you could make it last. If there could be such a thing as forever, there could be such a thing as holding onto something for as long as you wanted. After all, forever is so expansive, what harm would it be to extend something you love a little longer? There was plenty of time for it to end.

I keep coming back to those old musings now, as I’m freshly returned from an idyllic six-week vacation in Ireland. After so long away, I should have felt some pining for home. Typically, at the end of a trip, even a great one, people will say, “I’m glad I went, but I was ready to come home.”  I didn’t feel that way. I don’t feel that way now, six days after we returned.

I vowed when I left Ireland, I would hold onto the peace and happiness I felt while there. I vowed I would live in the moment, as we had done in our little cottage, and as I’d never done before in my life. I wouldn’t come home and immediately get sucked back into the busyness of life, the long work hours, the running list of household to-dos, the worries about the future and the regrets about the past. I wouldn’t go back to questioning my decisions or judging my actions. I wouldn’t let another day go by without noticing the beautiful. But oh, how easy it’s been to do just that. After all, we’d been gone six weeks. There was plenty to do just to get caught up.

Part of me knows it isn’t living in the moment to be wishing I were still there. Part of me wants to just be satisfied with being where I am, and grateful, and happy no matter what. And part of me wants to hold onto the dissatisfaction with going back to the same-old, same-old so that maybe I’ll make some changes that will reinvigorate my life and work.

What it comes down to really is that travel stimulates the senses. It makes you more aware, more observant, more vulnerable, and more grateful. And if we’re going to live creative lives, we need all of those things.

But we can’t travel all the time. It’s up to us to figure out how to achieve those things at home despite all the chores and responsibilities. So maybe I need to take a mini-vacation each day. Stop in the middle of the work day and read a book for an hour, go for a walk, take my lunch to the nearby park. Maybe vacation can’t be all day every day, but it could be a more regular interruption, an allowed break. After all, the work that needs to get done will get done. And it might get done better if I give myself space more often to vacation in my own backyard.

Sounds so easy, but I know it’s going to take effort. I’m hoping if I learned anything from six weeks away, it’s that life is what you make it. And if playtime is what I really need, it’s up to me to create it.

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Six Images a Day

I haven’t written much poetry since high school. I would never have described myself as a poet, nor did I think I’d ever want to. But recently I wrote a poem that sort of came gushing out, mostly because it was something I’d been wanting to write about for years, but the topic was too big for a short story or an essay, it had to be a poem. Sometimes the larger world can only be expressed in the fewest words. 

So I was intrigued when my poet friend mentioned she keeps an “image journal.” In it, she records six images she sees every day. No explanation or set up, just the image. Like: cat lying on back, blue flower in vase, red apple on a table. Then she just holds onto it for a while. Maybe in time, several join together to form a poem. Or maybe one image inspires its own verse. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it’s a lovely way to record time and space, and more importantly, heart and soul.

So I thought this might be a good experiment while spending some time on the magical island of Ireland. Here were my images from today: 

Painters’ light on the hilltops

Clouds in the water

White-winged birds skimming the bay

A red broken dock

Tiny white daisies in the emerald green grass

A wooden rowboat 

Those are the first images that came to mind, but they will forever remind me of a very special evening when that magical Irish light pulled us out of our cottage and down to the water. They will remind me that I’m blessed and that nature brings a calm like no other. They will remind me that in this land of beauty and music and passing smiles, there has also been so much suffering and sadness. And they will remind me that creativity is heightened when we slow down, sit still, and just notice.

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You Make it Look Easy – Revisited

Beginner’s luck is defined as “unexpected success for someone who has taken up a new pursuit,” and we have all experienced it. For example, the first article I wrote after quitting my job to become a freelance writer was picked up immediately. The second article landed on the front page, and was quickly acquired for reprint by a regional magazine. Hey, this is easy, I thought. And I was hooked.

The same thing happened again with my first short story. It was picked up, despite being poorly written. Granted, I had sent it to a little-known magazine probably desperate for submissions, but that didn’t matter. I was convinced I must be a good short story writer. The next four stories I wrote, though, remain unpublished to this day, and for good reason. They were even worse than the first.

Beginner’s luck even applies to the business side of art. Say you decide to sell your paintings in galleries. Maybe the first owner takes one eagerly. This is easy, you think. But the next several galleries turn you down. Are you truly a good painter, or was your sale just beginner’s luck? You go to ten more galleries to find out.

Here’s what I think . . . I think this particular phenomenon is the universe’s way of coaxing us into trying something new. It provides us an opportunity to gain just enough confidence to believe we could really do this. It offers a taste of the high that comes with success in order to get us hooked. It puts the right people in our path to say exactly the right things to make us believe. And once we believe, we are captivated. This is suddenly all we want to do.

And that little taste of success lingers. It continues to tempt us no matter how many disappointments we encounter. We long to recreate our initial triumph. We ache to feel once again that we are worthy.

And that’s all good, because that longing pulls us forward. Ideally it spurs us to learn more, to try harder, and to work with more care and diligence. And it tests our willingness to stick with something. If we never experience beginner’s luck, we are more likely to quit too soon.

So take a chance, and if you succeed wildly, don’t just write it off as beginner’s luck and move on. Consider that maybe that early fortune is leading you toward what you are meant to do.

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Is the Grass Really Greener in Ireland?

I’ve had the pleasure of counting many makers, artists, creatives, and writers as my friends. And every week, I meet more. Today, I met a woman from New Zealand who is currently living in Ireland and working as a woodturner. She sells the Christmas ornaments, bowls, candlesticks, and vases she makes, and I assume she gets by. 

I mentioned I was an author and she told me that in Ireland, writers and visual artists are not required to pay taxes. I did a little research and found that also applies to composers and sculptors. Anyone working in those mediums—if the works meet the criteria of “artistic or cultural merit” as defined by the law—can apply for exemption from some taxes. There’s a bit more to it, but you get the gist. 

This wonderful lady, though, told me this bit of information with a hint of resentment in her voice. Why shouldn’t she, who is also creating art, be exempt, especially if the art is related to Ireland? That’s a good question. And here we go again . . . we artists and creatives can’t help but compare who has it harder or who has it worse. Some would say that since she can turn out and sell numerous pieces a year, whereas it takes me more than a year to create a single book, she is in better standing. And some might argue if my book takes off, and I sell a million copies, that is far more than she will ever sell of her unique pieces. And each of us acknowledged that we have expenses the general public knows nothing about, not to mention the high commissions taken by our vendors. 

My point is, all creatives have their challenges, and we are far more alike than we are different. A theater owner has the pressure of filling seats, a writer must produce a book people want to read, a painter has to sell a certain number of paintings to make a profit, etc. We all have the headaches of marketing and the heartaches of dealing with critics. But we are all, I hope, doing what we love, what we feel we were put on this earth to do. 

So we may be sitting on different swings, but we are pumping our legs equally hard, trying to get as high as we can. And once in a while, we can look over and see our fellow artists swinging in unison. If we choose to, we can reach out, grab hands, and soar together.

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