It’s a Type of Heat

There are some phases I go through when I make and publicize anything new. Levels of manic excitement and drudgery fold over each other like the building of a cake batter; adding a little bit at a time to insure the whole thing doesn’t quit before it’s begun. Stringing my thoughts together, putting some on the screen, second guessing every step, typing and retyping, sketching and trashing, until finally, somehow, what finally trickles through is decidedly that new “thing” that is ready to “launch”. There is an immediate rush of the release and having that big idea out of my system. The hunch that’s now turned into a new drawing, writing, garden, or song. The feeling that was taking up space in my chest and my head, slowly warming and building pressure, has finally hatched and is ready for me to embrace it. 

And wouldn’t you know, it is almost never what I thought it would look like? Familiar for sure, but never ever what I had initially dreamed. It seems that by the time one of my ideas evolves into its final form it’s been tumbling through the ether for a spell; rolling and picking up dust from the collective dizzy of creation. It’s surely mine, but it also came from somewhere else. Partially from someone else too, I think. Moments of my daily life swirling together with the mystery of the unspoken parts of this world I’m wandering around in. Once this tiny little idea takes its first breath, though, it is now looking at me for survival just as much as I am looking towards it. What felt like the hard part was really just freestyling, dreaming, and building the framework. 

Sustaining the new creation in this strange world is where the real effort comes in.

The name Forever Flame for this newsletter came about because fire is what I think of when I think of creation. Which seems almost like the opposite of what one might think. Fire causes destruction, but really it just changes the form of something. When I exercise, I burn. When I eat, my belly warms up. When water boils it sings from the kettle. When I’m uncomfortable, I sit in that very specific heat wave of awkwardness as it spreads from my gut to my fingers and my toes and back around again, until something in my brain finally clicks and I'm ever so slightly braver, slightly changed.

My forever flame is the constant burning need to create. This flame lives somewhere behind my chest and it’s the thing that keeps me propelled forward. I’ve often wished and wondered how I could get rid of this flame that won’t go out because sometimes I can let myself turn it into a burden. I wonder how many people feel this same constant heat pushing them to make something, write something, do something. It’s the same type of feeling that makes me wonder if I could have a steady job doing something other than whatever my burning heart’s desire wants to do. I have been committed to this little flame since about 2003 when I graduated high school and moved to NYC with a tenuous plan of becoming some sort of artist. Twenty years later I am no longer in new york, but the tenuous plan continues to bob along.

The flame is both a reckless boss and the saving grace of my life. 

I used to feel tremendous guilt about my little forever flame and my need to always try new things, as if having one way of expressing myself or being myself should be plenty enough. To try on any other skin or to jump onto a new stage was just too greedy. There is weird shame in being perceived as noncommittal, flakey, indecisive, and experimental. As if trying too many things is somehow a bad quality or a sign that someone is lost in their life. 

I felt some shame like that about a year and a half ago when I closed down my brick and mortar store that I had erected back in my hometown. I had been so sure and excited in its conception and launch, and then eventually something in me started to break down about it. I felt stuck in place. All the energy and envisioning I had put into the store was something I was deeply proud of, but in the end I felt like my leg was caught in a trap, and I was gently reminded as to who I am; someone who needs a lot of room to stretch. Someone who had left home a long time ago, and then came back to realize my spirit was still somewhere else. I decided to close it before I got too invested (financially) and the feeling of letting the people down who were really excited about the shop’s existence still sometimes makes me feel ashamed. The shop was a shiny new presence in a town that I always wanted to help boost in some way. I had fulfilled a dream of mine, but like most dreams I didn’t know how long it was going to live. I followed my gut, yet again, and honored my realization that owning a shop wasn’t where I wanted to be at this time in my life…but yet: 

The hangover of leaving a mark in a place where I could’ve just as easily been a ghost still lingers.

So what is the alternative? The other path is just not trying many things at all, and that is just as difficult. I read recently that the choice to pursue your dreams is incredibly hard, but so is the choice not to. It’s hard to simply work a job you don’t care about, and it’s also very hard to work in the way you’ve always wanted to. It is all very hard because there is never an absence of challenges. The choice is about which challenges I want to face. How do I want to spend my precious time? What am I willing to risk in order to nurture my ideas into being, and how much am I willing to be judged for it?

To embrace my forever flame is to accept that I am in constant transformation. Some of us need to have many different stages in which to perform and at almost 39 I am starting to learn to accept that part of myself without the self inflicted guilt. I’m trying to remember to look around at the people who constantly inspire me, the people that know what it feels like to be propelled by their forever flame, and they are just as floaty, flakey, and experimental as I dream to be. So who’s to say I’m not that person for someone else? It’s the artists who can continue to follow their calling, in whichever form it takes, with wide eyed childlike appreciation for the diversity of life’s experiences that leave the biggest mark. Sometimes they also work jobs they don’t care about. Sometimes they are bouncing between passion projects. Not once do I judge them for following their own forever flame; so when will I finally extinguish my own harsh inner counsel? Is it even possible?

I may never leave a trace here, but one day my little fire will go out. I will someday be a resting ghost. In the meantime I guess I am writing this to vocally recommit to my weird little forever flame. The type of heat that keeps me curious and wondering what’s next. The part of myself that keeps me challenged and moving and launching forward. Because without it I am simply not here.

Let my tombstone read “Here lies a flakey one. She burned bright. She burned fast. She tried just about everything once.”