The Blessed State of Being - A Memoir

I became an aspiring writer because I loved to read. I was driven to create most often when art surrounded me. Yet, as both student and creator, there were those nagging, foggy, grey moments of realization that nothing I created was truly novel.

When I was in my twenties and in the thick of my art career, I got to a point where I decided to not study anything about art. I disengaged from the work and activity of other artists and to disregard any rules and principles I learned about art. I wished to create like an inventor. All else felt contrived... You know the saying... It felt like recycled art.

It was an exciting time and my choreography, sculptures, paintings, and prose were inventive, wild, described as “beyond my time”. To this day, I rarely share the art of those days ... Those who see it are only those with whom I am intimately connected.

Back then were the loneliest times of my life. Not only was I alone while attempting to create new ideas and art but also my audience grew slim and my followers were as odd as I was. I was called both a visionary and an outlier. It makes sense that those years coincided with the times when my mind was flying between mania and depression... both feeding into my art in a manner that was gluttonous. It felt good to create from that vantage point, but it felt more like self pleasure than anything.

At the brink of “madness,” I lived out experiences that I have told only to a rare few. The place of madness can be very lonely and wonderful. My life changed when I came to a precipice. I had to decide whether I would stay “insane” and near brilliance or draw closer to being better understood and accepted by others, i.e. medicated and more “normal,” what most would say is acceptable.

I saw clearly that connecting only with the pleasure that came from a wild mind was the very thing that kept me away from humanity. You cannot love and relate if you are only in your own head, feeding off of insatiable self-interest and passion. My deciding factor to opt for treatment was that I wanted to give, relate, love, support, and share life and its experiences with other people. To marry madness is to be selfish.

Soon after being medicated, I felt the numbness, the flat lining of much of who I thought was me, especially my creativity and intelligence. I did, however, rejoin with family and friends and the community. Nowadays, while on my meds, I too often fumble to find my words, fall short of clarity, and have less ability to be witty and engaging. I accept it all so that I am not devoid of the “we” of life.

Now, there is a new form to my creating. My art celebrates and welcomes the communal interchange of ideas. It is okay that others heavily inspire my words, form, and ideas and that I sometimes rely on the work of others. I accept I am the sum of what came before, what surrounds me now, and what I seek for in the future. Now able to relate to others, I am an instrument who interprets and modifies what moves through me — connected all the while to my universe and my community with more reverence.