Day Four: Facing the Fear

Daily Word Count: 3,747
Cumulative Words Written: 8,136
Words Discarded: 1,500
Total Chapters Drafted: Three
Time Spent Writing Today: 6 hours

Artists of all stripes deal with fear. Fear of rejection. Criticism. Poverty. Banality. Very often, creative types fear success, because many understand it comes at the price of sacrificing their own artistic vision.

I’ve been following Julia Cameron’s advice from her powerful book “The Artist’s Way.”

Each morning, I write free-form in my journal until I’m spent. (About three pages before my hand cramps. How did people ever write books with pen, ink, and paper?!?) Anyway, I don’t edit or filter. Whatever flows from the tip of my pen. However messy and incoherent and raw.

This morning, I journaled about fear.

I don’t have a lot of pretty pictures today, because I sat in my studio, stared at my screen, and forced myself to face my fear. Hints of honesty pepper my published work, but they’re always oblique, incomplete. At my age, I really need to stop being afraid.

Before I stopped posting on my personal Facebook profile, I wrote a lengthy missive about fear.

We occupy a world with two types of people: Those who embrace life and those who fear it. And we see those qualities play out in the firehose of daily headlines. Leaders of all stripes use fear to motivate their followers to stay in line.

Plenty of folks are happy with this arrangement, either because they aren’t curious about the world, resent others who make them feel stupid, believe they shouldn’t be part of the world because it’s evil, or fear they’re too far behind to catch up.

For the first thirty years of my life, I was one of those fearful people.

I condemned those who were different from me. Questioned other faiths. Laughed at racist jokes. Said when bad things happened to people, it was because they were sinful and not right with God. Condemned those brave souls who live their truth, even if it means they love the same sex or know they were born in the wrong body. Believed a woman should submit to a man enough to almost let two controlling men wreck my life.

I didn’t understand so much back then. I was simply afraid of everything.

In my early thirties, I stopped being afraid.

Timid at first, I forced myself to leave my southern bubble and fly across the country three days after the 9/11 terror attacks. I was one of three passengers on a plane to California, where I saw San Francisco’s supposed depravity for what it was: Normal people expressing themselves and living their lives. I saw Napa wine country completely void of humanity at harvest time. A few short years before, I would’ve passed on that ‘sinful’ experience. An Italian man thanked me for dining at his Carmel restaurant, and I was the glutton who asked for seconds. I even wandered into a gallery and bought my very first piece of art. Across the street, I got a crochet dress and had the nerve to wear the top without a bra. Multiple times. Because I finally understood that if men can’t control their urges, that’s their problem, not mine.

Since that magical California foray, I’ve gone on to visit thirty countries.

And I am never afraid.

Know why? Because that person you’re making fun of because he’s expressing his effeminate glory? HIS SOUL LOOKS JUST LIKE YOURS. When you pine for the time with the n-word was completely okay, THEIR SOULS ARE THE SAME COLOR AS YOURS. When you adjudicate the state of another soul, YOU ARE REALLY SPEAKING ABOUT YOURS. And when you reject people who doesn’t speak your language, THEIR SOULS SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE AS YOURS.

This glorious, mixed-up planet is populated by souls who look identical on the inside. Instead, we let fear-mongering, power-hungry people wield the wedge of our differences. Rather than reach across lines, we discard our humanity and hurl insults across the divide.

I haven’t always been a good soul. I’m still a work-in-progress and will be until I die. BUT I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE DIFFERENT OR THE DOWNTRODDEN.

During this residency, I’m writing for them.

To follow my residency at Buinho Creative Hub from the beginning, CLICK HERE and read forward.