Life Becoming an Artist

Sometimes I wonder, how? How am I supposed to be an artist (capital-A-exclamation-point Artist!) when the dishes need doing and the dogs need walking and the kids are screaming and my husband is chattering about meat temperatures? How am I to be an artist—like a truly legitimate-crazy-respected-and-repudiated art-eest with words and pages and other tangible creative productions to show for myself—when I have literal shit to clean up and carpools to drive and errands to run and laundry to do? How? Did Emily or Dorothy or Gertrude have to deal with any of this shit? No. Granted, they each had their own share of night to bear, but I can’t help but wonder if they received less rope with which to hang themselves while swirling around the burdens of their very own lost generations.

And yet. This life. My life. This beautiful, wonderful life of benefit born of burden. This is the fertile ground for my artistry. This is the source of my evolution. This suck-your-very-soul-out-while-also-nourishing-its-existence, this is what my art and success will be made of. Its hardship will facilitate my growth. Its satisfaction will feed my soul. And my acceptance and interpretation of it will make me … an Artist!