The Necessary Solitude for Work

I am still dragging after losing my studio access for the next two years. This is the third time I’ve begun working up there, then been displaced. I know that creativity is supposed to blossom in a pinch; that restrictions are supposed to spark out-of-the-box solutions. But that’s not happening.

Sometimes I worry there’s no fight left in me. And that makes me feel guilty. Or, or and ashamed. In this house, I am being squeezed and chased from room to room, and I forget what the advantages are of living here. This isn’t what we planned.

I am physically cut off from the paints and the papers, the screens, and the sewing frames. I don’t know why this feels like punishment. Like an opportunity lost. I didn’t make my creative work real enough: I haven’t succeeded in justifying the space I take up. Took up.

So much for my summer plans. I am not depressed. It is nice to know anger can sit in my body without settling into depression. Though I can’t really say much about the relation of anger to self-pity. I suppose I’m seeing the latter surface now and then through the anger, like some odd sea creature in the swells.

I am sad. One can be sad and not depressed.

I will drive to the doctor’s office alone later this morning. A half an hour to sing full-throated with chesty notes. To sing until I cry, and feel very, very foolish.