you don’t need to write a book or release an album.. your life is your masterpiece
depending on how old you are, one day you’ll stop being that dog chasing cars and notice the half finished canvas of your life.
your canvas was mostly painted by others and you were mostly complicit. except you didn’t realise what was going on. you got a name, a start in life, or not, a flag to salute, a set of beliefs about the world and your place in it. a few wounds and pitfalls along the way, you may have a partner and kids and a semi-detached house in a lego estate.
there comes a moment, you may be 20 or 40 or 80 years old, when you realise that the picture feels unfinished … its difficult because you’re so close to it. you’re in it. you are it. at least thats what you think at the time.
but the uncomfortable feelings you had when you see this ‘gap’ start to drill into you, its unnerving. so you might double down on deflection. a new car, a new house, a new job, a new city, a new wife. whatever. but its still eating away at you.
i remember driving to work and crying at the steering wheel. i had no idea what was going on. i had it all. good job, a wife, two kids, food in the fridge. soooo…bring on the prozac and the numbness, two years of a flat-line life later and i was back to feeling broken again. a high functioning husk, i had to keep it together somehow. only my wife, at the time, had to put up with my disintegration. (but the kids sense something, they always do, they are magic)
i lost my religion, my self respect (pride), i couldn’t even ‘get it up’.
i started to look at my canvas intensely. who and what was in my picture, i examined it. i wrote about what i saw, i recorded my own voice breaking it down while walking the dogs in the freezing cold park. it felt less lonely that way. sitting on this ..actual bench.
i started to work out what i did and didn’t like in the picture. this is hard to do at first because I had suppressed my preferences. there were many strong emotions hiding in plain sight on that canvas and I picked away at it, picking myself apart.
i started to notice there was a paint brush on the floor. it filled me with dread to contemplate picking up that brush because i knew what it meant. it meant disruption, it meant broken hearts, everything would go up in the air. i couldn’t face it and i procrastinated for years and years, cycling through ‘how could I be so selfish, there is something wrong with me’. in the end the balance tipped.
survival meant picking up the brush and i started to painstakingly….add and takeaway people and places.
like any beginner artist, not trusting my judgement or where this was going. i made mistakes. i had to start again a few times.
but by this time, i knew i couldn’t put the brush down.
the images painted by others started to move to the edge of the canvas, many disappeared. i painted people and places out of my picture. how? based on how i felt around each one.
i look at my canvas daily. i’m a bit of a weirdo obvs. i’m pretty pleased with my picture now. the people in my life truly like or love my ‘dickheaded-ness’ and those that don’t are on the edges... or have been painted out.
i haven’t written a book, or released an album. i’m not rich or famous but i am creating a masterpiece. only i …will think so ….and thats just fine.