* this FB memory: tap, tap... thhhWACK! picture. See me in this picture? It’s a visual reinforcer about a “something else” kind of life. And there I am, peeking through.
Thinky Thoughts after the dust has settled: Maybe the Wednesday news is the Universe finally kicking me out of the academic nest by way of a gentle tapping to the shoulder, followed by a 2x4 to the side of my head (last Weds), and then this amazing FB memory, a photo from a writing workshop with Lidia Yuknavitch, Jen Pastiloff, and a bunch of badass goddesses that turned me inside-out in the best of ways. But even then, I’m peeking through, not knowing how to even advocate for myself. It’s not a character flaw. It doesn’t mean I want it any less. It means I that I don’t have the “business of doing it know-how” or the connections or... some combination of the two.
I guess I like where I am teaching right now—my misfit soul having found BOTH community and a place I feel respected—but if the planets aren’t aligned for that, I might just quit teaching for good. At least the traditional classroom kind of teaching. Traditional teaching, for me, is that “almost but not quite” kind of feeling of true source, my life’s work... almost. I can’t rightly explain it. Maybe the Foreword I wrote to the Beyond The Frontier (just published!) was my eulogy to academia.
Could there not be a creative midwifery* service? Please? Because... some of us have been stuck in the transition phase and need help. We’re already pregnant with the projects. And sometimes it feels I might be one of those statistics: “Oh, Piper? You didn’t hear? She died in art-birth.”
Art Credit: "Blacksalmon" via Getty Images
Is that even a thing? A creative arts midwife? If so, here’s my art-plan: I want to write and host writing workshops. Help others channel the weirdness that is this lifesoup. I don’t want to be a random crouton.
Each of us needs to find a place where we feel welcomed and valued, a place to feel at home in our own skin (human or the radiant and sparkly ectoplasmic universe goo just underneath).
And if we don’t find that place, then it’s our task to make it. I just don’t know how. Any builders out there? Jungle path clearers?
*Note: If there IS such a thing as creative arts midwifery, please let me know.