Drink Me

The fear of failure gets to me, you know. There are days (and often weeks) when I worry that I'll end up in all the rubble, on top of a heap of misshapen aspirations, a mouth full of soot from the fire of failure. I fear what I create will fall short of my own expectations and also, (maybe more so) how it will be received by others. In another gem from Suzan, it reads, "Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art is dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be and what you fear you might be."

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It didn't seem that big from the outside, but once I stepped in, back and back it went; and up and down. The doors grew upward, towards the large white expanse that is the ceiling, making me feel ever-smaller and smaller. We stood in the foyer as fear fetched all self-esteem and shoved it into the flames, and I could smell the burning. She was waiting. Waiting for me to respond. To spew forth ideas. But I had nothing. I had landed in a world of utmost vulnerability where fear extended its long, spindly fingers and snatched all my creativity, drawing it in towards itself. My vision raced ahead of execution and suddenly I was in a Wonderland, where everything around me was chattering and busy busy busy and late late late. I turned the path only to discover I arrived at the tea party with nothing to offer. I had taken the proverbial bottle off the table and done what the tag instructed: "Drink Me." With the last swallow, there I was, only I wasn't quite sure where there was, or who I was.

* * *

In the Cheshire Cat moments when we don't know which path to take, or when the Caterpillar is lethargically blowing smoke circles in our face while repeating, "Who. Are. You?" where do we turn to muster the creative courage to get ourselves back where we came from; the birthplace of our creativity? A childhood art class, a college lecture, an experience with a masterpiece on a museum wall. In these moments (or days or weeks) when inadequacy takes charge, when the capriciousness of creativity gets the better of us and we fear our own art -- the very thing we've been put on this earth to do, what are we to do?