Seems like it took me over thirty days to actually post ... I was somehow leery of crossing the threshold into posting. Besides, every post I envisioned had me kvetching for far too long on the pitfalls of procreation (namely, the side effects -- children). Of course, the maternal part of me loves my child but the 'writer' in me finds him to be a serious hazard. Interesting about reworking the MFA thesis from a novel form to a collection of short stories ... my thesis advisors thought I should rework my collection into a novel.
The other day I was sort of jolted by a supercool 72 year old client, a sculptor and maker of tools for astrophysists, who recounted a sort of cliche story about an artist who came to speak to his students at Berkeley and said, "when you embark on your careers as waiters/waitresses, taxi drivers, social workers, just remember that you're always artists first -- the danger comes when you flip your identity around to taxi driver/artist".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
As cliche as the artist at Berkeley was, the point can indeed be jolting. I was on a small panel last year kvetching about my full-time job, having forgotten that the other two women on the panel were new mothers (and with teaching jobs). I was abashed afterward for having gone on about the mundaneness(es) in my life, especially compared to women caring for a whole other human being, when we were there to talk about positive things, about writing in New York, about opportunities that abound.
Crossing the threshold...flipping identities or projects around... The only way to do it is to just do it. Shall we?
Post a Comment