Tuesday, July 21, 2020

courage -- or as the French say, COURAGE

all photos © the awesome Patrick Betbeder
Woops! I didn't mean to abandon you for six months like that. I was right in the midst of a really important project, and I was planning to tell you all about it, and then everything veered off in a totally nother direction and I was swept away, and pressed pause on the writing in order to address a couple of practical and existential crises. 

I know you know what I mean. 

And though I also know I’m not saving the world through this blog, it’s so good to be back. 

After all this time, it was hard to know where to begin again. It’s so overwhelming, all of it. But then, three things happened, and that was all the illumination I needed. And as we all know, even just a little light these days can be such a welcome thing. 

The first was that I rolled some dice. Tossed coins, actually. 

A teacher of mine suggested it: when you don’t know quite what to do or focus on, give chance a chance. Gather all the info you can, and then — eff it, and follow your intuition. 

I had just spent several weeks with her, gathering lots of objective information — marketing, branding, income, resources, opportunities — and we were winding up our journey. 

She gave us students a game board of sorts. We picked up five coins of different sizes, to represent importance, and tossed them on the little chart to see where they landed, letting fate determine what was asking for our attention. 


Thank you MATS !

All my coins landed in a heap right in the middle. My first reaction was that I must have tossed them wrong (revelatory in and of itself). But then I thought, wait a sec, open up here, kid. I looked closer and noticed that all of them, aside from a couple who crossed over into “Clean Out Your Workspace”, was “Meditate to Feel More Confident”. Hm. 

We’ll call that Thing One. 

Then, Thing Two arrived. I’m not sure why — maybe because her TED Talk about the pandemic was getting lots of traction and I watched part of it — I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s brilliant Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and began to reread it. 

The first chapter is called Courage, and I was like: coincidence? 



Gilbert talks about how fear — which I refer to as my Inner Critic, or The Voice, when it manifests as deflating self-doubt and blanket-statement bossiness — is this thing we don’t ever fully rid ourselves of. It’s an unavoidable companion along the creative journey. 

Meditate for Confidence. Courage. The two began to percolate. 
Thing Three was a torturous incident with a photographer, which ultimately resulted in a showdown with my Inner Critic. 

In a strange and swift confluence of events, I ended up, one weekday afternoon, in a gallery I’ve been wanting to visit with people I’ve been wanting to work with. After reading about an artists’ rally happening the following week, not fully clear on its purpose but a little desperate for connection after weeks inside, on impulse I signed myself up. 

At the heart of the event was a photographer, Patrick Betbeder, whom I’ve come to know a little and admire a lot, for his work and his warmth. He had taken on the task of photographing each of the event participants in his particular, inimitable, style. 


all photos © the generous Patrick Betbeder

Photos of me are not my thing. I like them only under certain limited circumstances and a good stretch of time after they’re taken. I can find beauty in everyone else; yet pictures of me slice right into the deep doubts I have about my appearance, which somehow inextricably tied to my actual worth, and being seen. Not exactly emotionally sophisticated, but there you go. 

Anyway, the idea was to go to the gallery, which was organizing the event, and to have our portraits taken by Patrick. So rather than call, I decided to drop by one day when he said he’d be there prepping the space, to arrange an appointment. 

I'm feeling a bit tired, and I leave the house having vaguely attended to my hair, not much more. I dismount my bike a bit windblown and disheveled, as per usual. Patrick greets me and says, rubbing his hands together, Great, why don’t we just do your photo today, since you’re here? 

I step back and I’m like, Whoa, hold up there. What’s the rush? 

I’m not ready today. 

Can I just come back later? When I’m really ready? Like maybe … (looks at watch) … when I'm sixty? 

But Later didn’t seem to be an option, and of course Now made the most sense. 
Patrick’s in the process of taking a test photo with a young woman, and the two gallery owners are there too. It seems like it’s their daughter or a niece or something. She’s younger than I by a couple decades easy, and looks nonchalant with her red lipstick, her fluent French (damn them!). 

As I watch my friend and his process with great interest, I’m noticing a growing anxiety, as I try to mentally prepare for my own photo. Fears and doubts bubble to the surface: measuring up, to what standards I don’t know; being in a spotlight. 

They ooh and aah over the photo of the young woman, her facial structure; even its asymmetry is charming. My Inner Critic sees a window of opportunity to pipe in, uninvited as per usual. Also as usual, she is both patronizing, subtly insulting, and faux-kind all at once. 
It’s nice you’re here, dear. But you’re not really very pretty, are you? Plain is a better word. Don’t expect people to notice you. You don't really have what it takes. Try not to stand out. And wipe that funny lipstick off your face — you look like a clown. 
My turn comes. I do my best to be present, even as the IC’s drumming is getting louder. I attend to my posture, my breath. What I really want is to run away, to hide. 

We look at it the photo together, briefly. It’s like I’m high, paranoid that everyone is thinking the same thing. Sighing and rolling their eyes: This one isn’t worth fussing over; let’s just move on. 
In essence, fear, or the Inner Critic is saying STOP. It shows up at moments when the outcome is uncertain. When I’m doing something risky, attempting to play even just a bit bigger. 

And, in this case, it works: I do stop, for a little while. I get sidetracked as my IC takes over, and like a bad but deep dream it’s hard to shake. At first, I don't even realize I’m dreaming. 

My Inner Critic has a heyday. Because appearance is seemingly unrelated to creative pursuits, it’s particularly sinister and effective when she wants me to halt any and all emotionally risky activity. Ugly is my IC’s ace in the hole: She starts with some pretty good arguments to get me on her side, and then she finishes off with that final jab — and besides, look at you! 

That’s how mean The Voice gets. I know I'm not alone here. 

But I’ve seen this before, this feeling of depletion and deflation. It seems I can barely open my eyes and I’m kneeling, as Geneen Roth says, at the altar of The Voice. Everything is all or nothing, black/white, bad/good. I’m no good, and I never was. 

So, in a teeny-tiny parting of the clouds, it dawned on me, for just a brief moment, that perhaps this was fear manifest, simple as that. I thought back to Ms. Gilbert. I’m close to a goal, doing something I don’t ordinarily do, and then this fear arises, in spades. Coincidence? Maybe, just maybe, this was the Inner Critic, butting in unasked, to sabotage my growth. What if I’m mistaking her for truth? Perhaps my Inner Critic is reasoning, in her warped way: If I concentrate on this un-knowable un-quantifiable outwardly-dictated notion of beauty and appearance, I won’t feel the fear and the risk and the vulnerability. 

Perhaps, rather than containing anything logical, it may actually indicate that I’m going in the right direction. 

As Gilbert advises, if I am to continue on this path, then I have to figure out a way to recognize this voice of fear when it arises and know that it’s a) not me, b) not in charge, and c) not wise. It’s along for the creative journey. I don’t have to let it steer the bus. It definitely SHOULD NOT steer the bus. 
If you can’t learn to comfortably travel alongside your fear, then you’ll never be able to go anywhere interesting or do anything interesting. 
The content of my Inner Critic's arguments is beside the point, cunningly persuasive as she may be. And I do have tools to manage her. 

I’m still thinking about going back and re-doing the photo shoot, in the hope of turning up on a better hair day, better-rested, steeled and ready for any potential impact of offhand comments. But instead I’m meditating for confidence and thinking about Gilbert, deciding that if she wants creativity in her life she’ll have to make space for fear, too. 


all photos © the talented Patrick Betbeder

It really is good to be back. But I’d better get going — it’s way past Bastille Day already, and as my English student Gérard said recently during our midday Zoom call (when the asparagus he was cooking was ready), “The ring is belling”. 

Artistiquement votre, 

Una

Thanks to Tara Mohr and Playing Big for the language and understanding of the Inner Critic.