Dani Shapiro’s words come back to me now: “Your way in will not always be the same. There are no rules, and you cannot force it, but you can show up every day and practice the art of writing.”
Big discovery: the word “practice” is the one that has mostly eluded me over the years. “Artist,” “writer,” “photographer”: those words dazzled and blinded me to the quiet, reliable, and rather boring wallflower in the corner. I hung labels around my neck, trying to convince myself that they would make me something that I’m not, because other people proudly wore the same labels, had convinced themselves (and a few others) that their work was something special, and—most of all—they told me I should do it, too. Certain expensive publications that I used to buy on a fairly regular basis at Barnes & Noble were really little more than mimetic desire melting pots for women bound and determined to check all the boxes in the “Creatives” category. It didn’t matter if their work really wasn’t very good, if it were trite and tired, if it had little business beyond the binding of a private diary. I wanted to be like them.
It turns out that all I really needed (and wanted, it so happens) were opportunities to practice drawing, painting, and pasting; stringing words together in coherent and interesting ways; and using a camera or two to see my world in a new light. Who knew?