Lake Mirage — Okanagan
Notice that light, and the mirage of clouds in water. Which is the sky, the lake? Notice also those heavy clouds looming – will the sun burst through or will they darken and spew out rain? Only this moment, all swirling together. Only time will tell.
Recently, a friend asked me to prepare a talk for her creative writing class on “how I became a writer.” A seemingly simple question with so many complex layers. At first, I was thrown back into my childhood – what first evoked the creative in me? Long before it became trendy or cool, we made something out of nothing, everyday. We had to – our lives depended on it – “organic” gardening and “repurposing” long before either had a sexy label or identity.
My seven-year-old hands pulled scraps of insulated blue and red cloth from a garbage bag, leftovers given to us from my grandmother’s sewing factory. I would search for a large enough piece to pin my pattern to – imagining my knee-high, colourful elf slippers I would soon sew. Another time, my mother and I kneeled on our kitchen floor to measure and cut the beige paisley plastic cloth to hang like curtains to fit our cupboard doors. Then, we’d cut a few slits to easily reach in and grab our plates or a glass. My whole family would plant seeds, weed and water – harvest onions and potatoes to store in our damp root cellar. It was this early creative living of my family that began to nurture the creative in me.
As I look back on those years, I can also see that something much deeper was stirring inside. I hung posters on my barren, spotted walls – my father plastered over the nails but never quite got to the paint. Always some striking image of nature with an embedded lyrical and inspiration phrase (similar to the broadsides I enjoy creating today). Perched under a Catalpa, my wee-biceps grew weary as I sanded hard, and harder to refurbish a tattered guitar – dreaming of the day I would strum, I would sing. The deep pull of those poetic phrases, that song. I have come to see we never stray too far from our most natural and instinctive self. Could this possibly be our genius? What we have to offer the world?
I cannot say I am comfortable applying this word genius, to myself. Nothing I do ever feels quite that extraordinary or grand. When I look it up in the thesaurus, I see “talented” or “gifted.” Now, I can live with that. If we tune in closely, feel our way into our life, we will often notice this internal tug, signalling the way to our unique and spirited selves. In my early adult years, I also noticed this magnetism towards bold women writers – Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich, Hildegard of Bingen. When they (or their work) stood in front of me, I was mesmerized – their words like thunder swirling into a dance – shimmering with both darkness and the light.
During my undergrad degree, I took my first public speaking course – terrified and determined to walk in the direction of that pull. I’d get sick the night before, then stand trembling, energy surging – my voice both thunder and the rain. I took a Journalism course, then Creative Writing, then a class I always think of as “artist as leader and visionary in the world.” In those years, always insecure, so unsure of myself. And yet, when I finally wrote or gave a speech – I managed to burst forth with a passion and clarity in my voice and ideas. My talents, gifts – yes, maybe even genius. But also, those dark heavy clouds never too far away. I was on my way to being a writer, but not without facing my demons inside.
Poet Kim Addonizio claims we cannot have our genius without our demons.* Our pull towards our one true self also makes us face internal blocks, challenges that threaten to choke or strangle our life. A woman who feels challenged in her body may be drawn to becoming a yoga instructor. A man who longs to be a nurse may have to cleanse himself from the machismo of his growing up years. In my case, I longed to be that bold woman writer, but not without facing my deep insecurities surrounding my writing, my voice. Like too man women: Who am I to speak? What do I have to say, anyway? Who will ever listen? By writing into and through these destructive demon voices, I became freer, began to heal.
In the middle of all of this, we must listen, feel our way into – dig and chisel, excavate – what is our one (or two or three) true geniuses that are ours alone to offer the world? Once we know what they are, and tilt towards them, don’t be surprised when a dark demon’s head pokes out from that light. It is the bargain we make for following that tug – to have the courage to say yes, over and over again, even as we tremble and shake. Then maybe, on one clear day, you will stand boldly in the center of your own true self. Whether this is an awesome mother of three, an architect dreaming and drawing a new curvy structure, or any other form of the beauty that we are, that we have yet to become.
* Reference to Kim Addonizio’s chapter entitled “your genius, your demons” in her book, Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.