Many years ago, I went to college and majored in art. When I graduated, I wandered aimlessly from real job to real job, and dreamed of living a creative life. I could never find enough room at the end of the day find that.
I walked away from my last real job several years ago. It took that long for me to realize that I was never meant to have a nine-to-five job. I didn’t even fully realize that I had repetitive stress injuries at the time.
At that time, and for a long time, there were people in my life who did not understand this decision stopped taking my phone calls and answering my email. I can understand how my decision might be confusing to most people. Perhaps they wanted instantaneous success for me as a poet/writer and artist. Or, they wanted for me to keep a job that kept me from my passion and never ever take a leap into the unknown. Perhaps they were afraid of things they did not understand.
There was something about the leap that set me free, to where my creative work soared. I absolutely knew that there was something ineffable back then telling me that it was time to leave. It did sound crazy, even to me. I just knew I had to do it. And slowly, I walked away from one life and into this one.
Before I walked out of that last job, I had been meditating daily for a little over a year. One day, I got up and went to work as usual, and on that day, I left work early and was driving through downtown Oakland on Clay Street, headed toward the farmer’s market.
Something happened as I was looking out of the car window, noticing the people and the scenery that I was passing by. I suppose that I started feeling a dimension of interconnectedness more real than the material world.
Last winter, I was told by someone that I am living on what he called the razor’s edge because I just trust that I will be OK, and that my work will get out into the world for many, many people to see. I hope people listen to and hear my words and see something new in my art, poetry, and photography and maybe even be inspired to live in a place that can be gotten to only through the heart and not the mind.
I trust that I will be supported, that the right people will show up at the right time. I suppose that staying present to what is going on in the moment and maintaining my trust through everything is that razor’s edge.
It took a while of being displaced, of going on silent retreats for me to heal enough to do the artistic work that I’m doing now. And I am doing it now, finally, and after decades, come what may, this is my life now.
