The art of living

The other day at the post office a lady asked me if I was an artist. Oh no I said. But I am a creative. I have a dance degree. And I make stuff. She said she could tell because my hair color matched my outfit.

Well I am an artist. She said. She was there mailing off some of her work to a patron. I could tell from her outfit too, the way she dressed was individual, unique, color balanced. She clearly made stuff.

I’m not sure why maker feels like an easier thing to say. I make stuff makes sense to me. I’m an artist implies that what I make is art. And I never felt included in that group.

The people I knew in the now shuttered and overgrown art department made it very clear that what I made is arts and crafts, not art. My beads and flowers weren’t important like their paint and clay. I was only making stuff. They were making art.

They don’t even really include dance in their definition of real art. Sure they came to the shows when they had nothing better to do, and they said it was good, but they didn’t respect it. For them art left something behind. Dance didn’t matter, not to them.

I guess I ingested their prejudice and somehow made it my own. The separation between stuff you make and art. I can’t call myself an artist because then I’d be like them. Elitist. Gatekeeping. Discriminatory. Overvalued. Sold out.

I’d rather say I make stuff and just leave the judgement of whether it’s good or not to. Well I was going to say someone else. But that’s not really true. It’s more about expressing it than it is about consuming it. It has inherent value just because it exists. Like me.

Anyways it’s my birthday and I am awake and thinking about stuff like who can I respect and what is important. I am remembering how I got here and looking at the choices and impulses that make me who I am and what I value and what I want to do with my one wild and precious self while I still have time.

It’s not so much a bucket list as a reason. I’m not looking to check off the boxes or complete the set. I’m seeking a deeper meaning, and watching the clouds roll by. I want to see what’s really there, and no matter how many times I’m told to have a better filter I’ll spend my time polishing the viewing lens. How to perceive a constantly shifting world with less illusions and more fascination.

Show up. Do your best. Tell the truth. That’s the basic point of all of it. At least that’s what they told me. My daughter says it’s treat others as you would like to be treated. We said I go by kindergarten rules but when we said what those rules are out loud they were not the same. Which explains a lot.

What if no one ever treated you the way you wanted to be treated so you don’t know how? That all sounds super confusing to me. It assumes a lot. That would work if people all treated each other well. That hasn’t been my experience, but if you know how then I guess do that. I tend to mirror what I see.

I reflect back what’s being shown. Oddly lots of people react badly to being treated the way they treat me. They don’t seem to like it at all. Which is confusing because if they are treating others the way they want to be treated then this should work. It does not. So probably I’ll just keep doing the first thing. Show up. Do your best. Tell the truth. At least that is something I can understand and get behind as a concept.

I do see how it doesn’t sound like you’re necessarily going to be nice about it. That’s probably what the other thing is trying to say. Be nice to people. But that just makes me suspicious. Like what do they want, no one is that nice. They are up to something. This is probably not the point of treat others as you would want to be treated, you’re meant to assume everyone would rather you pretend but I’d rather know the truth.

So if I treated others the way I want to be treated I think it wouldn’t work out. Maybe that’s what I’m doing but they’re not like me and so they don’t like it. I’m pretty literal. Brutally honest without trying. Candid if you will. Most people don’t want any of all of that. They want polite niceties. Neither of those sayings will produce that effect for me.

If there’s a catchy phrase that will get me to act like they want me to I don’t know what it is. I wish I did. I’d be willing to try.