“If you want to know
where your heart is, look where your mind goes when it wanders.”
My heart must be in very many things... for my mind wanders
sometimes to pleasant visions of a triumph over vagueness for a precise phrase,
sometimes to painful (and abandoned) attempts to attain my filmic voice, sometimes
to dreams of my own home and the children I don’t have (would I make a good
mother?), sometimes to my memories and sometimes merely to visions of a toned
down body – face to feet.
I should’ve attained all but the weight loss bit by now, since
I’m in my 30s :-)
Not that I’ve not gone after the complete list. I have. But with
20/20 hindsight, I see my attempts were not as sustained and tenacious as they should have
been. What I cared about most deeply I chased more than the rest – writing regularly
(and reading a lot of critical theory) studying photography (after doing
directing, screen-writing and editing at film school)…. As a female auteur with
no money, there came a point where I needed guidance and assistance. In any society you’d need much networking and risk-taking to be productively creative.
But my background being very non-artistic and religious I was pointed in the
direction of the Almighty Himself.
Was it better this way? Should I have turned instead to
people – teachers, “friends”, former colleagues, perhaps gotten an influential boyfriend? But I feared outside voices and directions would serve only to drown my fledgling
inner voice.
I chose to believe the following verse – And thine ears shall
hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn
to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. How wonderful it sounded… I followed
where it led.
And where has it led? Brokenness, simplicity, self-knowledge,
a bit of certitude. That’s it I guess… though now that I write it I realise it’s
quite a bit.
My family say I’ve had my feet in two separate boats and that’s why I’ve got nowhere. They quote the book of James: “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways" and say I’ve chased art and Heaven (without realising it) at the same time.
My family say I’ve had my feet in two separate boats and that’s why I’ve got nowhere. They quote the book of James: “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways" and say I’ve chased art and Heaven (without realising it) at the same time.
Perhaps they are right. I’m beginning to
reconcile my desire to make a living as a creative with my aspiration for
Heaven. Let’s see what lies ahead.
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