Falling Back

"Something to fall back on" - in the past years, I have been spending the majority of my time falling back. Instead of trying to do what it is that is important to my mental and physical well being (making), I have been skirting around it with fallback jobs.

These have included work in:

• Gift shops
• Clothing store
• Accessory store
• Fabric store
  
• Restaurants
• Museums/Galleries
  
• Various offices (from seed packaging factory to one of the world's biggest consumer electronics giants)
• An embassy
• Advertising sales
  
• Language schools
• Community ed
• University

Each has opened up new worlds for me and exposed me to people and lifestyles I would not have known otherwise. Yet, I can't help wondering what my path would be had I believed in myself at an earlier age.

Artist Dates

For years, Julia Cameron has been telling me to go on what she calls "Artist Dates" in order to juice up my creativity. The idea is simple - spend some time alone doing something that gets you inspired. What have I done so far?

• taken up nordic walking, an incredibly dorky looking sport that actually feels quite effective. Nordic walking takes me all over the neighborhood and is helping me lose some of the pounds that probably scare away weightist employers ("lazy fat girl" is not the look they want in their offices)
• sewn, sometimes well and sometimes quite badly. Some of the results are at dawanda.com for the whole world to marvel at
• slowly begun painting again - trite, decorative, aphoristic pieces in a very girly style
• made homemade jam. Lots of jam.

The biggest killer of Artist Date time is my friend and my nemesis, the internet. I can surf for hours, looking at how other people are managing to be creative and pay their bills without selling their souls. Off to surf some more, thank you very much.

What do I mean . . .

. . . when I write that I am recovering?

After over ten years working primarily for security instead of creativity, I'm feeling like a convalescent. It as if I have just gotten over a long, dehabilitating illness. I miss making. I seem to have lost my path - an artistic version of a midlife crisis. Since I am a thirtysomething female, I don't feel the need (or have the money) to go out and buy a red sports car in order to recover my lost youth. What I need to do is akin to spoonfeeding myself nourishing vegetable soup in order to get over the flu. I need to dose myself on being creative.

I can't tell you how many times in the past few years that I have felt like this. Usually, it results in me reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way halfway through. Then, I get caught up in business trips, meetings, keeping the damn house clean and my husband and son sane.

Google tells me that I am not alone in this feeling. The term "recovering creative" brings over 2 million hits and lots of solidarity. While the majority deal with other kinds of recovery, mostly from addiction, there are a number of artistic and spiritual references. Somewhere along the line, so many people stray from their passions in search of security. Pablo Picasso said, "every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." Growing up - paying the mortgage, emptying the dishwasher, shoveling the sidewalk, playing the game at work, taking care of loved ones - distracts from the process of making.

Starting

Being laid off seemed at first to be a window opening - finally giving me the chance to get back to what it was that I "really wanted to do" in life. Finally, I had a sound reason for giving up the corporate halflife that I never really fit into.

But.

What is it that I really want to do? Finally having time to stop and breathe (and think), I'm still in shock at how far I got from what it is I thought I "really wanted to do." Just bumbling through my unemployed day and dabbling in various projects doesn't seem to provide the enlightenment I need. Maybe writing things down will help. Hello, Blogworld. Yes, please welcome your next clichéed unemployed, recovering creative to your ranks! (But look how clever I am, I figured out where the damn accent went in the French word goes - that is worth something, isn't it?).

And - the 64 thousand dollar question - how exactly do you earn money from things one "really wants to do in life"?