whereof, thereof.

i need and half-want a monastic period. i have a piece of cardboard that’s bigger than me, a composition plotted for the thing which is complex to a degree that makes me very nervous about my ability to accomplish it, and a feeling that there’s an opportunity to make the painting of it into meaningful spiritual practice in a way that i can’t really explain. and to paint this i can tell that i need to be too much alone. i need to become a ghost, i need to forget myself, i need to be free of the expectations of other people and my fears about what will happen to the relationship if i don’t meet those expectations; fears that masquerade for my conscious mind as concern for the feelings or wellbeing of those whom i love. the selfishness of altruism is a very secret and well-guarded thing.  

relationships must be relinquished: this i know. i see a way in which that can be done without devaluing the relationship at all, without losing anything, without pain or malcontent. but it is an unspeakable thing: the words take on too many meanings and capsize halfway to the foreign shore. it’s a recognition that the basic matter of the relationship is love; that all the rest, from date nights to camping trips to years on end when we don’t see each other (all of it, these memories we call “relationship”), is gorgeous incidental clockwork in a thing inconceivable because containing the conceiver. our silly prideful attachment to our little piece of the world, with our ideas of what should or ought to be, causes us to throw fits and wrenches into the thing as we try to steer the cosmos — the entire history and future of the universe — towards some arbitrary personal goal derived from the desire of a moment or a lifetime. but, you know— try tellin’ that to your girlfriend.

this is all just talking out loud. it may not be time for this painting to happen, and the true lesson here is still inside me like a broken arrow: there is nothing i can hope to change but myself, and changing myself is changing the world.