One of the (many) things I am realizing through the process of losing my friend Robert is that it is okay to feel, to have whatever feelings you have. When I was sixteen, my uncle Harold died. He had lived with us for a while. I was very fond of him. I loved him. He gave me a royal blue cashmere sweater for my sixteenth birthday. He taught me to play chess; he took me out to dinner; he was a loving uncle. He served in China during World War II and it seemed to have broken his spirit. He was only thirty-seven when he died of a heart attack. My parents didn’t tell my sister. She was at University and they didn’t want to upset her. I learned early that grief was “upsetting.” It was not okay.
I was interested in the books Tamar is reading to Damian, the one’s that describe life as it really is, with all the difficulties, the darder side of human nature, laid out along with the beauty of human enterprise. I had to be an hour late today (it was planned because of a previously made appointment) to a painting class I teach to a small group of adults. Apparently they had had trouble getting started without me there giving directions. I had told them to set up their own project to paint. When I walked in, they said how hard it was, they were missing something. “The motivating factor,” I said. I also said that’s what it’s all about, the rest of your artistic life, making decisions about what to do. In painting, as in life, so much of the time the experience is groundless, open to so many possibilities. Being tuned in (and not holding on too tight) to what is actually happening with each brush stroke, letting them happen, that’s what it is all about. My Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche used to say it is like walking a tight rope holding a spoonful of water.
Posted by leya at December 14, 2005 08:19 PM