I watched Julie and Julie on the plane and was inspired to up the volume on my Human Body Project work and do a blog a day for a year. (Sadly, for my husband, no French cooking will be involved.)
I am freaked out about it. So I need to declare as above that I'm allowed to fuck up. There are no rules. No requirement to be insightful and brilliant. No word length limits or minimums. Just do it, but probably without the glamourous Nike sweat.
Heretofore, I have allowed my ambivalence about being researcher and researched/art and artist to more or less rule the day. I honour my commitment and do at least one Human Body Project event a year. I blog when it feels really necessary. I think I've written before that these blog entries feel, for me, like putting messages in a bottle. Very few people, as far as I'm aware, read them. Even fewer comment. I am able to feel somewhat safe and anonymous, with the odd (in both senses) interlude of showing up physically naked.
I also kind of detach from the project in between naked "shows." I find balancing my mother/wife/teacher/M Ed student life enough of a challenge and throwing this project into the mix pretty much feels impossible. (And trying to integrate this project and the M Ed is a whole other giant bag of giant worms to be written about, but not today.)
This decision to do a blog a day for year is a change in intention and commitment. I am freaked because of my biggest difficulty, lack of time. I am freaked because, like Julie, people may actually start reading my blog and, while I can admit that I'm ready for more acknowledgement, influence, and a book contract, I am frightened of provoking violent people. What I'm doing is a form of non-violent resistance (I want to write more about this, not today either, though). You may remember that Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi were both assassinated. I am wholly not interested in martyrdom. I am interested in being a mother.
I am also freaked about doing a "good job."
It feels like time to deepen my commitment, but in a gentle way. So, here it is, the January 1, 2010, entry.
Ecofeminist, inconvenient prophet, artist, activist, cancer survivor, mother. Radical vulnerability on behalf of the collective. Using nakedness—literal+figurative. Processing my pain.
your courage is deeper and more encompassing than you realize.
ReplyDeleteAnd not only are you allowed to fuck up, you're allowed to be silent, to catch up, use just one word, just once sentence, just a picture, just a question, or any variation that comes to you.
I am honoured to be able to read along.