spirit (life within).

22 Dec 2010 16 Comments

by mary kathryn tyson in encouragement for the journey Tags: therapy

remember that time i told you there are some days in the month when i just shouldn’t write anything?

(and would really be doing myself and everyone i know a favor by remaining quarantined anywhere from 48-97 hours?)

welcome back to one of those days.

and so, instead i take you back to something i wrote many years ago. an experience i had, rather.

i have been considering sharing this with you for a while, an assignment karen gave to me at our very first appointment. and then our second. and then our third, at which point i finally did do it. (the night/morning of the day it was due.) the ‘assignment’ culminated at an appointment which happened to fall on my birthday which, at the end, i tied to a bouquet of balloons things in my life i was letting go of at the time.

this is the story of what happened as i created, written immediately after i created it.

because it was after midnight when i finally did it.

* * * * * * * * * *

september 15, 2004.

When Karen first gave me this assignment, I was excited to do it.  To “draw my spirit”. It took a few days, but soon I had in mind exactly what I wanted to do.  I knew exactly how I would frame it and different cut-outs I wanted to find and even the exact meaning each piece would have.  I was going to use poster-board because I had it and because I felt confined on a small piece 8 ½ x 11 paper.  I was going to do a watercolor wash with paint and crayons and markers and then cut out a big pink spiral that would represent the love in my heart and how it radiates.  And it was going to have the appearance that it continues even off the page.  That, combined with the “frame” that really wasn’t –I was going to take out my one painting from college of the plastic frame that is holding it now, and clip my “spirit” within the plastic top-piece and the plywood backing.  By clipping it in instead of using the plastic slides it came with, it would represent that I can’t be boxed in, though I do appreciate lines and borders.  Also, the clips mean that it’s unfinished.  I didn’t want to be locked in to whatever this picture turned out to be and wanted to be free to change it if need be.  That was week one of the assignment, which I had every intention of doing, but got to be too busy.

Week Two is the same story, but I started experiencing anxiety related to this picture.  Not only did I not want to lock my spirit in to whatever I put down onto paper but, as an artist, it frustrates my “spirit” to have to create a specific, required assignment.  I want to be free and have an unlimited amount of time and resources to complete it.  I knew I had in mind a  beautiful collage, but the thought of actually doing it overwhelmed me and I felt limited.  In her very quiet -but this time very stern- way, Karen told me I had to get it done.

This week –week 3- I hated the assignment for all of the reasons stated above.  Also, because I thought I would end up dissatisfied by my artistic attempt of describing my soul and then explaining it away or apologizing for it or just plain hating it and then realizing that I’m plagued by self-hate and my soul knows it and I would have this big “spirit of self-hate” to remind me of the assignment that was just an assignment and who cares, anyway.  Nevertheless, I knew I had to get it done lest I face the wrath of Karen and the disappointment of myself knowing that I hadn’t completed this assignment.  So, I set out to do it tonight.  I also knew the time that would be involved in creating this multi-media masterpiece, but I knew I had to do it and begrudgingly gathered my materials.

I filled my little mason jar of water and tore off the price tag off the back side of the posterboard that I was about to slap color onto.  It actually ended up tearing right across the page, which I then decided might turn out to be something cool, anyway.  If nothing else, it would add texture. I now realize it represents my torn-ness -my broken-ness- which I realize now I don’t have to resent and it is very much a part of me and I can embrace and appreciate it because it does, in fact, add to me.  It adds texture and even beauty to my spirit. To my soul.

I opened my case of Crayola watercolors, which I feel certain I haven’t even picked up in at least 5 years (I grew partial to oils when I was in college).  I decided just to go for it.  I knew I at least wanted to wash the base of it with watercolor, so that’s how I began –with red-violet and blue-violet to be exact.  And I started mixing in other colors in the same family –turquoise, blue-green, violet, indigo, red.  I opened my crayons and filled in some white spaces with pink and red and green, but decided I would just finish with watercolors.  The crayons offer a nice resistance to the watercolors, which I’m certain is some metaphor for my spirit as well.

I turned the paper around, filling up every side and every white space.  I don’t like using white as empty space.  If it needs to be white, leave it.  But everything is more beautiful with some color to it. Like…me.

Right.

I’m getting this now.

When I started painting, I simultaneously pulled out my “great party ideas” issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine, and pulled out a picture of gerbera daisies –my favorite flowers- in a vase.  I also took note of the picture that LIZ gave me when I graduated from college –a picture of all the theatre girls surrounding and dancing around myself, Annya, and Carey –the three who graduated and left the theatre together.  It was such a beautiful moment and this picture captures it in the most lovely way and I’m so glad Liz gave it to me.  That time in my life remains with me.  But I digress.  I decided I would be able to use both of these in the conglomerate of cut-outs and color and the big spiral thing in the middle that would be assigned this creation as my “spirit”.  I would be able to copy the picture onto transparency film tomorrow at work and that would make Ms. Parker very proud.

Only…

I found that as I covered my poster-board with my watercolors and saw how beautiful and soft my painting was becoming…by the time I finished, the funniest thing happened.

I knew that I couldn’t add anything to it that would make it more beautiful.

I couldn’t even hold up the picture of flowers to it because it doesn’t need a thing.

And I realize that my “spirit” isn’t my spirit because of all the people in my life or gerbera daisies or even the “pink spiral” (because it’s my favorite color) that was supposed to be my heart which radiates love and goes off the page because I can’t be put in a box.

My spirit is my spirit just because it is. And that’s it.  And it’s very beautiful indeed.  Just as it is.  I can’t add anything to it or take anything away from it.  It’s not complex or difficult or time-consuming or burdensome.  It’s wonderful.  It’s one-dimensional and simple, though deep and colorful.  And soft and warm.  And shiny, too.  And a little torn through the middle.  And it is very, very me.

* * * * * * * * * *

since ‘drawing my spirit’, i have shared the story only a handful of times because it’s obviously so personal to me. i haven’t wanted it to be judged or criticized or even commented upon at all because there’s no changing it. it’s not really up for debate or discussion, you know? but from time-to-time, karen has said to me, ‘what does your spirit say, mary kathryn?’ or ‘live from your spirit, mary kathryn.’ or ‘you’re not living from your spirit, mary kathryn.’ and then i know. i remember why i did the assignment.

i have moved a couple of times since i’ve created it and i hang it near my bed with thumbtacks each time. (you know, kind of like a college dorm-room.) never been framed and still in its original condition, though a bit faded now and none the worse for the wear (and tear) {not unlike the one it represents} i keep it up as a reminder to live from within, to live from my very colorful & torn spirit that god was so kind and gracious to give me.

what does your spirit look like?

are you living from it?

p.s. pink is no longer my favorite color and gerbera daisies no longer my favorite flowers, though i still like both very much.

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