2017
For me, this year was an enquiry into aging.
I faced deep fears about my physical capacity, and my capacity for enduring pain, because I still haven’t recovered completely from an injury I sustained last January.
I wonder if I ever will.
So, what if I never recover completely? What is my life without the ability to physically do what I want to do? What do I have to offer with the physicality I have left? What do I have to offer as an “elder”? What if this is as good as it gets?
Because, you know what? It is. One of my teachers once said, “This is as God as God gets,” and I’ve been marinating in that all year.
Oddly enough, this has been a year of tremendous creativity for me. I finished a series of eight ceramic masks I’d been working on, and completed two new paintings. I also began working on four new sculptures. In August, I also started taking photographs with my iPhone to discover and uncover what’s brewing inside.
Lately, I’ve been exploring seed pods as a surrogate for myself. I’ve collected them for years. Dried, shriveled husks. No longer outwardly juicy, springy, succulent.
And yet, 1800 year-old lotus seeds have been sprouted.
Date seeds recovered from Israel 2000 years ago have been germinated.
And an Arctic flower native to Siberia has proven viable 32,000 years later.
I’m curious to see what viability I can bring to the new year. Maybe I’ll be viable a few more years.
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