July 5, 2016 – The choice we DO have

The two paintings I’m working on. I’m loving having this rose to paint when I just want to play. The other is of an apple, I’m planning for the 2017 calendar.

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This morning as Bo and I were taking off down our street to head up the hill, we ran into Ed – a neighbor – washing his fishing boat.  I asked him if he’d been out fishing.  He said yes – and that it wasn’t very good.  The wind has been terrible, whipping up big waves that tossed him about, banging him against the console of the boat. He’s come home with his arms aching from holding something heavy all day – and not much fish.  He said he used to have bigger boats that would take it but it’s not worth it anymore, things have changed.  He said “what can we do but go on?”  To which I said “we really do have no choice.”  He agreed, we wished each other a good day and Bo and I took off.  This is how it is, isn’t it?  Life changes, we may complain and grouse – and we go on.  Fighting reality is ultimately futile, we have to accept and adapt – some of us more readily than others.  To the part about not having a choice though, I had another thought bubble up.  There is something we can choose – our attitude.  We absolutely have a choice as to how we show up, who we show up as, and how we frame reality in our minds.  This is sounding very Viktor Frankl.

And it brings me back to a conversation I had with my niece and her partner when they were here a month ago. They are in their early 20’s and both identify as “gender queer.”  Born female, they experience themselves as neither masculine nor feminine, but “gender neutral” – at least this is how I understand what “queer” means.  Until a couple of years ago Leigh was called Hannah – her first name.  We watched her evolve from a little girl into a teenager who was exploring her own style with long dark hair, sometimes with a big blonde streak, strong eye makeup and very bold, black eyeglasses.   In her late teens she cut her hair very short, wore much less makeup and left skirts behind.  Now she wears her hair very, very short, no longer colors it and wears clothes more closely associated with what we’d think men would wear – and we now know her by Leigh – her middle name.  Leigh doesn’t identify as a woman and I don’t experience her as one.  It is such a privilege to witness someone so close to me evolve or unfold, showing the world the truth of who they are.   She is so at home in and complete with this expression of her self – of her gender, or rather her lack of gender that my mind is caught by hearing and using words like “she,” “neice,” “daughter” and even her given name – Hannah – in reference to her.  Leigh agreed – she doesn’t find herself inside these terms either.  What an experience to be on the edge of human expression beyond the extent of our current language.   No doubt terms will evolve and one day be commonplace, and until they do, for convenience sake, I’ll keep using the feminine pronouns.

While they were here we were talking about how they didn’t choose who to be, they just were.   They didn’t choose to love each other, they just do.  These aren’t things that we do in an eeny-meeny-miny-mo kind of way.  I believe that who we love, and our own experience of our humanity are factory installed.  Then Leigh added:  but we do choose how we behave, the actions we take, what we say – we choose how we are with who we are and what we love.   Leigh could hide, she could resist, she could even reject herself as most LGBTQ people have for centuries – millennia – and many in the world still do.  But it is in choosing to allow ourselves be who we are and love who and what we love that we change the world.  We push out the edges of acceptance.  Those on the front lines do this with great courage and danger, even – and they still choose to do it.

I have so much admiration for these two young people. Leigh and Lena are remarkable: smart, creative, funny, joy-filled, tuned in, purposeful. They care about our impact on the planet and are working to change it more than anyone else I know.  My hope for our future is stoked by the fires that burn in their hearts, their brains, the light behind their eyes.  And their commitment to each other is more complete – they have more fully surrendered to the good of their union than just about any other couple I know – most of whom are decades older.  And, I’d venture to say that if they didn’t exercise their freedom to express themselves so genuinely, that some of their energy and passion for each other and the world would be trapped under the restraint.  We are all better off because of their choosing to be who they are – and love who and what they love.

These two are a bright, shiny example – in the most important way – of what I’ve been sharing with you these past several weeks – how vital it is to live our love, be our love and paint our love.  In a conversation with two of my coaching sisters last week, Maralyn, who works with people to have real, intimate, courageous, human relationships – said that this is how she “paints her love.”  For all of us doing our purposeful work – we are “painting our love.”  She has expanded for me what constitutes our “canvas” (though we watercolorists generally paint on paper) and what it means to “paint.”  Painting our love is even more than art-making.  But this not to trivialize painting!  For many of us painting is closely aligned with who we are – we must paint.

Today I hung eleven paintings in some offices at our local community college for the next two months.  The curator who helped hang the art suggested that I paint some abstract paintings – “to give gallery owners what they want.”  My immediate reaction was – I won’t paint to give gallery owners what they want.   I paint paintings that people can – in their minds – fall into.  My art asks of me to be about beauty, light and color – and emotion.  I know that what I paint isn’t what many who are finding great success paint, but I am choosing to be who I am, choosing love what I love, choosing to paint my love.

It’s in us, each of us – it’s in you – who you are and what you love.  By honoring who you are, choosing to act accordingly, you further the course of humanity.  So what are you waiting for?  I’m here to support you.

With my love,

Cara