place

i first understood the notion of place when i rented an apartment beneath the home of a local mother of four. this home of mine stretched from the front of the house all the way to the back, but only on the right side. the other side contained two much smaller studio apartments, and in the back was an extra two car garage that stood under another apartment. the family's residence dwelt on the second floor of the main house.

my memories of the year spent in this place remain in my thoughts with nothing but fondness. the house was old, and it was falling apart in places, and it was not always conducive to energy efficiency in the wintertime. however, there is not a single moment spent in that home that i would trade. i remember weeks in december spent curled up under the window unit reading Anne of Windy Poplars and listening to the ep Poison and Wine on repeat. i remember sitting at my desk writing letters to various friends because the romance of written correspondence can be replaced by nothing. i remember sitting at the kitchen table on lonely mornings staring out the window with my french press coffee. i remember playing host to old friends and making blueberry muffins in the mid mornings while they lazed in my bed reminiscing in giddiness like preteens waking from a sleepover. i remember long conversations with a special ginger friend about life over tyson chicken patties and pasta. i remember writing final papers and exams in the wee hours of the morning with The Half-Blood Prince rolling in the background as we needed to be prepared for the soon-to-be-released 7th installment. i remember knitting on the borrowed pullout couch while movies entertained. i remember the cold early morning walks down two blocks to work. i remember the countless treks across the street to class every day. i remember becoming more myself than i ever had before as each corner of this place closed in to familiarize itself with me and mold me.

our hobbit hole is what we called this place. the ceilings were surprisingly low, and like a tunnel, it wound its way to the back of the house lined with carpet, tile, paneling, and plaster. this is where i lived when my views of the world and my perceived responsibilities in it as a Christian were drastically remodeled and became unrecognizable by my younger self. this is where i truly felt at home, at my home, as the walls and features reflected my being. 

much of the time, the world looks at the envied life of a globe-trotter, those few with the fortune, the smarts, and/or the luck to be able to travel from one place to another, never settling for long before the next adventure pulls. and the world views those lives as amorous and charming. and for those who truly feel the calling to live such a way, and can do it with the peace that is necessary, they are doing what is right. and sometimes i myself desire such liberty. and perhaps the moments will make themselves available for a season or two. however, there is no other kind of peace that can replace the peace of present permanence. in my year of residence in the hobbit hole, i knew sooner or later i would be filing out with all of my possessions, but for the time i was there, i could not think about that. i had to be at home should that truth of home be for one year or for many years. 

photo by Rachel Guerry

place is as much a part of who we are as humans as anything else that makes up our days and memories. place is to be treasured and loved as an old friend would be. 

i should like to continue this journey through the notion of place in future writings.

'i just believe in putting kindness into the universe'

Three and a half weeks of travels, and I still don't feel like I've seen the world. I guess this hunger is only temporarily satisfied like my normal daily hungers. I love every new experience now that it's all in hindsight, but I was all too ready to return. And I surprised even myself with that.

I think often of what makes life full and meaningful. And what I just did certainly ranks at the top of that. But I fear that many will too quickly assume extravagance and heavy expense are necessary. But truthfully, fullness is, the majority of the time, found in candles and fresh flowers. Food prepared by familiar hands. Live musical sounds. Invigorating conversation by those drunk on the excitement of being together. An afghan and the written word. 

I find my life unsettling in its awkward position of the in-between. Contentment and desire. I choose always to be happy where I am, but I always want more. I always want to see something else while I want to stay home and sleep.

And now, two weeks after those travels have ended, I can't believe that so much of what I have been working toward has finally happened, and I'm left with the only thing I know how to do now, which is to ask: now what? There are too many things that I want to do in my time in this world, and I've mentioned many of them here before. But if there's anything I have to do, it is to keep writing. And through that I will hopefully find a way to all those other things that I want. I would love to one day lose myself in the titles of librarian, teacher, editor, writer, bookseller. But at the same time, I have piles of yarn, cookbooks rarely opened, journals still unfamiliar to the pen, a guitar case collecting dust, tennis balls somewhere, and I swore to myself that I would learn to french braid and drive a manual before I died. I would also like to master chess and sourdough bread. I have patterns and fabric waiting for me, and if I believe about the world the things I say I believe about the world, I better learn how to make my own living. And I mean make my own money as well as make my own food and clothes and gardens and sugar scrub. 

That was a bit of a rave. But it brings me to my next point which is a bit of encouragement. Go to your local farmer's market before you make a trip to Walmart. When your clothing rips, don't buy new ones right away. Make a friend who has a sewing machine. When you meet your copains, don't go out to eat, make a mess in somebody's kitchen. If your house is stuffy, try to plant something before you pay too much money for the Febreze plug-in. These are only a few of the many places and moments where community sprouts, and through that, I believe one can find that life is full, because everything you think you need and all the things you weren't aware you needed are hidden there.

I had a dream

"I was a little girl
alone in my little world
who dreamed of a little home for me

I played pretend between the trees
and fed my houseguests bark and leaves
and laughed in my pretty bed of green

I had a dream
that I could fly from the highest swing
I had a dream"

I discovered this song in mid-June of last year, loving it so much and listening to it on repeat. It was in my head all through my time in Zambrano, and I hummed it to myself constantly.

The song reminds me of when I was a small lass of ten, and I used to roam the green pastures of my childhood and daydream... I remember when my life was simpler, though it didn't seem that way then. And I'm all too certain that in another ten years I'll look back on my life now and perceive it to be simpler now. I will only gain more in the way of knowledge and understanding as I grow older, and that makes the mess of my mind feel so much . . . messier. But of all the new things that I learn, one thing that I'm realizing more and more since I've left my teens is that the things that were at the forefront of my everyday ideas of what mattered really don't matter at all. Like the amassing of things. The need for a lot of money. The plans every child unknowingly makes that involve good grades so they can get into a good college so they can get a good education so they can get a good job so they can make good money so they can have a good family so they can raise good kids to get good grades to go to a good college and so on.

The American Dream is something I'm looking at and wondering if it aligns at all with the dream Jesus had. It is defined as the opportunity for prosperity and success according to ability and achievement, and I'm not so sure that's exactly what Jesus had in mind. It's not a sin to own your own home, but Jesus was homeless. It's not a sin to work hard to provide income, but Jesus lived entirely off of the generosity of others (specifically rich wives, but that's beside the point). When I look at the system that has been set in place as industry and time swiftly proceed, I begin to wonder if the faces that are left behind were worth the price. And I shutter when I think that I have been a part of leaving those faces behind.

I look at the food in my pantry, and I wonder whose hands were responsible for growing what made that food. And do those hands get to rest as often as mine do? I look at the clothes in my closet, and I wonder whose child's hands were responsible for putting them together. And did I really need half of those clothes? Many of us would look at our full closets and pantries, and we think we are blessed, but when I realize that these blessings were borne on the backs of cheap labor and exploited humans, I begin to wonder if they are really blessings at all. God has blessed America, we say, but by torturing the workers of other countries? I have realized that my failure as a Christian was not so much that I bought a cup of coffee, not sure who was rightfully paid for it or that I have helped to keep Old Navy in business. My failure was that I succumbed to the belief that this is the only way of living. This is what is offered to me, so I have to take it.

And I then realize that an even deeper failure exists beneath all that. It is the failure to believe that as a being of God's image, I have the ability to create, meaning that my imagination is to reflect God's imagination. I have failed to believe that God's imagination for how we are to live is way bigger than, and not limited to the ways of living that are so infused into our society. I have been given new eyes to see that the way of Jesus is possible without leaving others behind, with our scraps and leftovers - if we've left any. Jesus had a dream where the kingdom that he was/is building would be a kingdom open to everyone, and that has to start with me. Everyone deserves a full life, and so much is required for that: food, education, medicine, friendship. There is no reason why everyone in the world cannot have that other than those who have too much will not give to those who have none. I read once that the only way to make poverty history is to make affluence history. I don't need ten coats and thirty sweaters. Especially when the majority of my neighbors have none.

I would like very much to wake up every day and commit to a different path. A path that excludes taking part in a lifestyle that has abused someone else along the way. And I know that I will fail many times. I will still buy Hershey's chocolate at some point, I will still pay four dollars for a cup of coffee, and I may buy a garment at Wal-Mart. But what I have decided for today is that I'm tired of stuff. And I really don't ever need what I think I need. What I need is to extend my hand as it holds what I've been given, and offer what I know to the sweatshop workers in Honduras who made my hoodie, or to the immigrant farmers in Florida who put the orange juice in my fridge, or to the many, many children who can't get to school because they can't afford the uniforms or the supplies. The world that Jesus dreamed of does not have to be the world I live in, and I certainly won't succeed in making it that world when I'm still stuck believing that the old way is the only way. While I miss being ten years old, and my biggest concerns were how much I hated it when people still called me "little," I am glad that my dreams have expanded as my knowledge has expanded, and I can't say for sure that I'd like to go back.

My dream now is that I will be able to look at everyone and see the image of my God reflected in them, and I will be able to clasp my hand with theirs, not as an American, but as a Christian, a sister whose familial love exceeds national, economic, societal, and racial borders.

this is just to say

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."

-unknown

And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

~Twelfth Night Act 5, scene 1

Oh my teachers are so inspiring. I want to be like all of them. Today in poetry workshop, we talked about authenticity. We read essays by poets who pondered this idea and how it is expressed through writings. The artist faces many dilemmas, but one in particular that I want to discuss is the dilemma of authenticity. To be authentic is a tough thing because you have to decide how you're going to do it. We think authenticity is genuineness and using your own voice, and that's true. But as a writer, you have to be authentic to your audience. You have to take into account what your readers want, since you are, after all, writing for them. But the way that this authenticity fails is when the writer forgets that while his product has to appeal to someone, it still has to maintain its appeal to him.

My poetry has gone through workshops and conferences and critiques and forums, and everyone from friends, students, teachers and strangers have all had their say in what should be done with it and how it can be best revised, and that is needed. It is a well-known fact that nothing beautiful can be generated without the input of fresh eyes and ears who have no bias to your work. But as artists, it is a common downfall to get so caught up in what other people want, that we forget the most important thing which is that our work has to have value to us. My poems need to mean something to me, and if I sell out to the point that I'm only including or adding what others think should be there when I know deep down, because I know my poems better than anyone, that I am destroying the soul of the poem, I have gone too far.

Dear ones, I must inform you of something. I feel like God is trying to tell me something. For so long, I have lived under the guidance and supervision of others. And this is a good thing which I have no intention of disrupting. But it has to change. I have realized that I have taken a certain ideal too far. "With many advisers, plans succeed," the proverb says. True, very true. But I am forgetting that it is I who makes the decisions on my life. Those I trust more than anything have golden advice which I appreciate sincerely and take seriously, but I have to recognize that these people are not the sole authority on what is best for me. I'm sure most of you already knew that, and no one (most of the time) has ever given me advice I did not first ask for, so this is a realization more for myself than for (most of) the rest of you. But after asking twenty people what they think I should do, and hearing twenty different responses, I have to accept the fact that it comes down to me. And only me. I decide. I act. I cannot let myself be run by others anymore.

Southern Gothic

It's interesting to me how genres can split in countless ways over time. It wasn't fifty years ago that you bought a record, and it was classified as "this." Now, we by albums that are more likely to be classified as "this, this, this, and that, and a little of that." Some people like this, some don't. There's no such thing as "rock music" anymore. It has to be classified as alternative, experimental, art rock, grunge, heavy metal, instrumental, progressive, punk, southern rock....

We have come a long way since the time of The Beatles. Life is not so simple anymore. We are genre-less.

My favorite band changes every few years, and of course this is because of what I'm drawn to in other areas of life, and of course that has to do with where I am at the time. As a writer, I'm drawn to the rawness and honesty in the stories around me, the books I read, the friends I make in my writing classes, the burnt coffee, the hidden family secrets, the struggles of my neighbors. The things I am drawn to in my personal life and the situations I find myself in when I study for my degree strangely seem to coincide with each other.

I've been a Joy Williams fan since I was 12 years old. The first CD I bought with my own money was her debut. I was sad when she disappeared for a couple years after she released her third album. Then in fall 2007, I ran across an article online that stated she had created another Myspace profile in addition to the one she maintained for personal and what little musical activity she had been sharing at the time. This one would be for her songwriting activities. So for several months, I visited these two sites to see what she had been producing. She released a few EP's, wrote for some pop artists here and there, did a handful of shows, then in early 2009, she announced that she was teaming up with some guy I'd never heard of. Two years later, almost every show of theirs is sold out. Can you put them into one category? No. The best one can do is: folk, Americana, singer/songwriter, country? We are all being influenced by so many, and so the art we produce in these times will exude traces of the many, and there rarely exists these days a musician or a singer who falls strictly into one style of music. And these beautiful artists don't care where they're put. They just want to play. And they're always sold out.

I believe that this is largely due to the fact that so many people are realizing how malnourished they are musically. For the past several years, pop radio has ruled people's ears, and sugar, though delicious and loverly, eventually makes you sick. So when someone comes along with something so organic and pure and unglistened, it pierces needs we didn't even realize we had.

These are artists who realize that the stories we tell should be honest, the tension in our relationships should not be brushed under the rug. And that's what people need to hear. We need to be okay with the fact that our stories can't be put into one box or one category or one section of the music store.

This comes as a relief to those of us who grew up in the setting that inspires many of these songs. But honestly, we're just glad that more people are starting to realize this. Some of us have already been familiar with these concepts because we have Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Kate Chopin, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Truman Capote, Cormac McCarthy, Larry Brown, William Gay, Harper Lee. Writers who defined what has come to be known as "Southern Gothic". This is basically defined as stories that reject the common stereotypes of the South in the form of the happy slave, the southern belle, the God-fearing preacher, and the chivalrous gentleman, and instead write stories about what life in this environment is really like for some people. It's okay if you had an uncle who did nothing but drink his family into depression and lifelong therapy. You can tell that story. It's okay if your parents never had enough money to buy you a pair of shoes without holes in it. It's okay if you never married like your family wanted you to. Life is hard regardless of the region you call home. But at least some regions have those who are willing to advertise it on the paint-chipped front porch if it will put others at ease and make them sigh in relief that they're not the only ones, even though not all will go so far as to admit it.

My favorite quote on this literature is by Flannery herself, "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic." This can be explained by another quote of hers: "I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it."

Just running forward

I cannot believe the entire month of February went by without a post from me! I guess you could say I have writer's block, but I cannot say that because I don't believe in writer's block. I am wondering what I could write that would be worth writing about, I am searching for something that won't be overwritten or overdone. But it's hard to find something I feel I can successfully produce. I don't believe the well of inspiration is ever dry. I just think we sometimes just lose the bucket. I want to believe that I always have something brewing in me that needs to get out, and I do.

All I know is that I always want to be better. I have a green shutter in the corner of my living room that's been there for about four months. I took it from someone's trash because I thought something creative could be done with it. I planned to nail some knobs or something on it and hang my coats and hats, but winter has gone along with the need for coats and hats, and the shutter is still sitting there.

I want to drink tea everyday at the same-ish time, from my teapot and kettle, and I still stick the teabag and water in the microwave. I want to eat more fresh foods, salads, sandwiches, soups, and all those are in my fridge and freezer in different forms, but I still grab the prepackaged, processed snacks from Walmart when I'm hungry. I want to display photos of faces more prevalently around my apartment, but they're still in an envelope in my desk. I want to write more, but the thoughts stay impermanently in my conscious self and eventually drift to my much larger subconscious before I have the chance to remember them.

I always want to be better. And I know that's a good thing, because if I were perfect, there would be no point in continuing my existence because I would be in the wrong species. I know I'm always growing, and I can never be at a point where I will never need to improve, but when I feel like I want to be better, I always feel like I'm reaching for something even though I know I will never grasp it. That's a hopeless feeling. Hopelessness is not something I want.

More than anything, I want to stop writing about myself. It is only natural for artists to internalize everything these days, and as beautiful as that can be, and as necessary as that was when the twentieth century came about, I still think the pendulum needs to go back towards the other way (preferably stopping in the middle). The world is so much bigger than that. The Romantics and the Realists saw that from two completely perspectives, and even though it was an extreme, they still have what we modernists and contemporaries don't. I wish there was a way to meld the two.

I wish I was Mary Oliver. Never have I encountered someone who could so beautifully observe and express nature in a way that so profoundly reflects the self the way she does. She is so external in her writings and yet so internal with her content. I hope that's something that can be learned, because if it is a gift, I shall find it very hard to accept if I don't have it.

So to those of you who read (and those of you who don't), I want to know you so I can write about you. And I want to learn to make steak in my skillet. And use up my spaghetti noodles and sauce. In different meals, though.

l'art de vivre

It is a dream of mine (I have many of those in case you can't quite tell) to live in a community with artful people. And no, I don't mean a commune of painters, writers, musicians, and actors who merely want an excuse to not work. And I don't mean an early 1900's Paris neighborhood with Hemingway, Pound, Moore, Eliot, and Lawrence. I mean a hub of sorts for creative conversation, hospitality in forms of feast, making things, care for creation, music, books and developing ideas that to live as a disciple faithfully means to live in an artful and imaginative way. A community where sound spiritual counsel is readily available. Where coffee conversations take place in a home and not a Starbucks. Where a party is for celebration and not getting wasted. Where academics and the arts are not separate things. Where theology and imagination go hand in hand. Where everybody has a vegetable garden and a compost pile. Where people are looking everyday to be interested in the same things Jesus was interested in. Where our sights and goals are not for the amassing of things, but the advancement of care for hungry, lonely, criminals, strangers, and overlooked. Where music is stripped down and raw. Where nursing homes are scarce. And cemeteries aren't overgrown. Where every day someone wants to know what's going on with that family down the street who's son was arrested the other day. Where every day someone wants to know what happened in Darfur yesterday. Where learning and study are essential and encouraged. Where people can ride bikes all the time for transportation because it's fun. Where we have guests to share our food and couch every day. Where someone else's laughter is always heard in my home.

In my daydreams, I...

am an accomplished swing dancer, jazz singer, and theatre actress

live by the sea -- not the beach -- the sea

travel to coffee shops, bistros, cafes, small bookstores and taverns to read excerpts from my writing

teach things that I love, and get paid for it

take my children on a tour through Paris (without a nanny!)

have lunch with JK Rowling, Joy Williams, and/or Tina Fey

have read all "the classics"

like beer

know how to knit and sew everything

cook every day

can play a piano that is not out of tune

can swim

have a few precious little brunettes running around calling me mommy and learning how to knit and read and play musical things

Every child is an artist.

The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. - Picasso

Lately there have been quite a few thoughts when it comes to art and storytelling. I'm reading about this guy who published a book about his life, and it made a lot of money, and people wanted to make a movie out of it, and they wanted him to write the screenplay, and what I'm reading now is a book about him writing a screenplay for the movie based on the book based on his life.

And there has been a lot of talk of writer's block (whatever that is I don't believe it exists but that's another topic) and how to deal with it. There is a discussion that involves the idea of the artist living vs. creating. If the artist tells the story, he has no time to live in it. If he lives in it, he has no time to tell the story. So what are we to do? Which is more important? Someone has to tell these stories.

But isn't it also possible that, while we are gifted in that we can speak for those with no words, it is ultimately up to an individual whether or not he would like us to speak for him? Wouldn't our time be better served if we could teach people how to tell their own stories? And if people knew how to tell their own stories, wouldn't it be much easier for all of us to tell our own stories as we live them?

Storytelling is special. It is what makes us uniquely human. It is, I believe, part of being in God's image. Being able to tell a story. Being able to live a story. But it is all too easy to think we are better than others and we are serving a better purpose in the world by locking ourselves in our rooms and "making art."

One possible interpretation of Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" is that he felt a distance from society and could not relate to them. Thus, the Lady is cursed to stay in her room weaving constantly and can only view society from its reflection in her mirror. It's that thought of, "they just don't understand"

But isn't it our job to make them understand? It is not art if it is not an attempt to help the world understand something better or at least grapple with something complicated. No more excuses of "we're just too different" or " they won't get it."

But this book. It makes me think a lot about my story. It makes me aware that I am a character. And I have a plot.

"The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps."

Sometimes when I write . . . I don't want to. Sometimes I stare at blank lines that look to be filled. The pen rests and stares back at me with questioning eyes. I pick up the pen with exceeding effort, and I feel like I'm peeling off pieces of myself with something really sharp. But I continue even though it gets painful. I feel like it's my life or my identity, and I must continue, I must press forward even though I have no desire or will to. I wonder if this is healthy. I wonder . . . if something is not ready to leave the safety of my self. But I still push it. For I fear that if I do not write, then I will lose the desire or the will altogether. If I do not write, if I do not force myself, the pages will never have any meaning. People look at a painting and assume it was naturally done. Maybe it was. But naturally does not always mean easy. Sometimes . . . to write is to urge something out of oneself with great pain. And the hope that someday it will be worth it.

BAHAHAHAHA

"Do you say your prayers night and morning?" continued my interrogator.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you read your Bible?"
"Sometimes."
"With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"

"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah."

"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"

"No, sir."

"No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a ginger-bread nut to eat, or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, "I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."

"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.

"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
--Jane Eyre, Chapter 4

"Let each man practice the art he knows."

Have I told anyone that I love jazz? Melody Gardot has over the past couple of months become one of my favorite new feel-breezy kinds of music. When I imagine her recording, I think she is sitting in an overstuffed armchair with a glass of wine, a cigarette, legs hanging over the side, and singing as she pleases. A quite relaxing feel.

It is an observation of mine that many would like to think art is something that overflows from a person's soul as naturally as rain falls. And I think this is true. But just because something comes from the soul, does not mean it comes easily. You see, I believe that the soul is as mysterious to it's possessor as it is to outsiders. There are many areas, dark corners, crevices and closets that one may not even dare to venture for fear of things they have a strange inkling are there, but also wish that they are not there if they were. Sometimes what we need is a full length mirror. The kind they put in dressing rooms. With the not-so-pleasant lighting that is not so pleasant because it exposes EVERYTHING from zit scars to love handles.

Unfortunately, while such mirrors are readily available for the body, the ones that are needed for the soul are not as easy to come across. And perhaps some of us are okay with that. "Oh well, guess I'll just have to go with what I see and know about myself. Why go exploring down there for things that will only hurt me and others more."

So what if we were to search for those mirrors? What if we did put on our brave faces and dig deep? Of course we would find what we feared. Wounds. That is what keeps us from exploring the soul. Wounds. If we were to travel down this road, we would have to uncover those hurts that we buried a long time ago. That breakup, that death, that fight, that betrayal, that mistake, that lie, that night. If we were to place our whole selves in front of that mirror, we would find more than we wanted to admit was still there. Leftover pieces we thought we had dealt with that were just lying around in the attics of our souls collecting dust to the point that it just blended in with the floorboards.

So for art to be true, for a creation to be sincere, the artist has to know himself completely to the point that he's not afraid to expose what he's been through and what he's done. Beauty is not in the covering up of things or the addition of new things, but in removing the dirt to reveal the original beauty that God put there. Beauty is in the process of chipping and chiseling and carving and pruning and getting messy.

I believe that the purest definition for art is anything a person does to make life beautiful, understandable or enjoyable for someone else. And your art matters. To truly do this, we have to be honest with ourselves and admit to the past and present in which we find ourselves a part.