4 years ago today I got to start over.
There were no collectors, no audience, no observations, no masks, no museums, no council, just the seeds for them. These 3 here, were the most I could muster at the time. The best and clearest answer to deal with a decade of failed attempts at creative expression, heartbreak, self-hatred, isolation, excuses, and fear all festering, was, of all things: 3 melodramatic paintings of a named monkey and some poems made as a reminder to myself of what I wanted to leave behind and where I wanted to go next.
A few people showed up. Support came. Friendship came. Love came. A family. A home. A child. Loyalty. Trust. Systems of giving. A network. A little world engine with roots and circles that run independently from me now and have given enough to plan their next 4 years and beyond. Those 3 were enough. It's all grown and unfolded here out in the open from them. All there for anyone to trace its lines, see its formation, and write their own stories atop. Its fragility in infancy has been replaced with a cherished and true responsibility. Despite its chapters, the story I'm making I've found is not linear, it folds like all folds, into an infinitely cyclical one. Its lessons in creation recur to be learned all over again, for me most of all.
A second life that can make our first attempt utterly unrecognizable is waiting right atop the same footprints we've already made. And through Luci: its paintings, poems, and systems, I've been trying to make a map to the best of my living memory how. So that after first rupture, and second gasp, another after our last is there waiting each time we're ready for it. Until they stop feeling like counted lives and even the ruptures begin to feel like breathing.