Diary of an Artist
My name is Chanelle, and I am attached to my mystique. A dollop of privacy in the ether; the sexiness of solitude; the echoing voices reverberating through the amphitheater of my mind. These things are lovely and delicious to me, kept tucked under my wings like a cooing dove. The price of this, however, has left me in a state that has hitherto rarely felt consequential. But there comes a time where every budding rose must face the unravelling bloom; Every sprout must burst forth from its earthy reticence to face the sun. As Thomas Mann writes, “Solitude produces originality, bold & astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd, and the forbidden.”
I don’t have any close friends, but rarely am I lonely. I am a buoy that waltzes to and fro in a sea of four children whom I have somehow, miraculously, bore. My husband, the lighthouse that beckons me, a constant and sturdy glow withstanding the moon and the tide and the deep ghostly night that leads me out to sea from time to time. But he, like the faith we share, brings me softly and safely to shore with love and patience. Always with patience.
I grew up on an island, and have freshly moved to another further north. All I have ever known are islands. Their isolation like a petri dish, growing and multiplying and incubating cultures. Their beauty like the ripest fruit, radiant and swollen, seizing the jaw with a saccharine dripping sweetness. These islands, with their mold and their sugars, the theater of my unfolding, syrupy, speckled life. For simplicity we will call these islands Hawai’i.
Our days are mild. The oldest children keeping to themselves with homeschool. A baby buzzing about the rooms of our home, spinning in circles till she giggles with dizziness and occasionally clinging to me for the warmth and comfort of nursing. We take long walks around the neighborhood and down to the waterfront park where we’re greeted by wild cats and pigeons who are plump and unafraid of human interaction. The ocean shimmers with its cascading glittering tide and the sun beams into our eyes like a glowing welcoming committee.
The greatest pleasure I find happens to be nestled within the thing I find most difficult to consistently do: creating art. But I am getting better. For I know that if the paintings and drawings and writings and stories and assorted artworks do not come out of me, I will implode like a sad little weeping thing whom everyone would pity, and I do not want any such thing. So with this, I grumble and make faces at my husband’s sweet and stern reminders to paint everyday, even if for a handful of minutes. I then go off and do the palette scraping and mix the colors and load my paintbrush and do the painting. And when all is done, I clean everything and curl into his arms and say thank you husband, I love you husband, you were right husband, to which he kisses my head in return, telling me softly he “loves me very much, you know.”
Many women I have been. Some versions of myself more than others, oscillating back and forth between the public sphere of the internet and the private domain of the home and mind. Some versions have overshared and overstayed their welcome, while some have withdrawn so completely from the eyes of others that only God and the angels and devils lay witness to them.
Perhaps this space, a place to write outside of my journals and notebooks, a corner to speak outside of my prayers and private conversations, is a pursuit of balance (I am a Libra, after all). Perhaps this is the fertile soil in which seeds may flourish within and around the boundaries I have cowered behind. And not simply allowing them the start, but giving room for the bursting forth, the thrusting out towards sunlight, the wrapping of vines and burgeoning of petals. The maturing and expansion, the finishing of the beginning.
If nothing else, here I can write some of my story. A life woven with many heartbreaks and triumphs, miracles and monsoons.
I can share the minutiae, the details, the little sparks of joy that glimmer in between the muddiness of a hard day’s work. A place where I portion out my thoughts on art, culture, and various other judgements and opinions that only see the light of day when conversing with my husband in the kitchen.
Autumn has come, bringing a sense of retrospection. A quiet season following the bounty of summer, ushering in the intimations of openness and vulnerability; A season of experimentation and creation. Maybe this is an era for simply doing in order for the why to be revealed.
I will be the first to say that I don’t quite know what I am doing, or what purpose this space will serve. My hope is to find some beauty in the madness; some clarity and some wonder. What I do know, however, is that still small voice within that whispers the calling to create, to do, to share - whether I am ready for it or not. May I heed its calling, and withstand the temptation to wither back into the earth without knowing the warmth of the light. May I know myself better, and may I share her with you.
Welcome to The Art of Eating Honey.
