Imposter

The wind blows strong at the beach tonight, I'm sitting here a little meloncholy thinking of the weekend.  It was a beautiful weekend.  Mike and Abby spent the weekend here with me at the beach.  I cooked a candlelight dinner, my first candlelight dinner in many years.  It was a wonderful feeling, just being excited about it, and having someone to cook for.  I cooked italian, so by the time he got here I had a little of a wine buzz.  The weekend flew by as all my weekends seem to do now.  I'm back on getting back in shape.  Working out and such.  It's been a while since I hit the gym, but just started back.  Hope to see the results in a few months.  And maybe say goodbye to some unwanted inches in the mid section.  Tonight my mind wanders.  Goes back to a time long ago.  Yes, I have a therapy visit coming up Thursday.  Years ago I created an imposter so to speak.   From the place of our woundednesss we construct a false self.  We may even find a few gifts that work for us and we may try to live off them.  I'm not sure how old I was but I was young, during that time an imposter was born.  The imposter within whispered "Derek, don't ever be your real self anymore because noone will like you as you are."  Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know!"  What was I thinking?  It's not easy growing up and having the feeling I had as a teenager,  I havn't talked much about this subject.  Growing up gay!  I tried to be anything other than who I was.  I was good at it too.  I was the actor in the plays, and pretty darn good at it, all the way through college.   Tonight I'm asking myself how much of that imposter is still alive today.  Not as much as then, but still there.  I'm still very hard on myself, always have been.  Not quite sure why?  What do I think about my plan then now.  I may have had all the greatest of intentions, it shielded me from pain, I thought, secured me a little love and admiration, but the false self is a lie, it's built on pretense.   A trap I walked right into without looking both ways.  I'm glad God has taken me out of that place.  A picture of me flashes,  one of me in a mirror with the mirror shattered.  A shattering of the false self.  Now I think about what hasn't been going well in my life, and how does that threaten me.  My mind is starting to race, maybe I just need to go listen to the wind and take a time out.  I think I'm still letting pieces of that ole imposter go.

How Art has Influenced My Life

Judi is having a contest that she is sponsering on How Art has influenced my life.  So couldn't resist participating.  I havn't written an essay since college, but here goes.

Check it out here http://journals.aol.com/judithheartsong/newbeginning/entries/1039

Art has influenced my life, but life has influenced my art. Art has always told a story to me.  The first artist I remember was my mother, who drew beautiful women all the time.  I loved these drawings she drew for me, and I found myself drawing lovely women myself.  My love for beautiful faces was born. As a young boy I escaped life by drawing, most of the images that I created told a story.  As a young boy I drew pictures of people looking in mirrors.  I wanted to express a concept of what life is like looking into a mirror, which obscures what is really there. It is practically impossible to know someone from a self-portrait, but I've always been fascinated with faces.  Mirrors helped me show something else.   What the faces were really feeling, or maybe what I was really feeling.  Artists seem to be very busy revealing bits of ourselves, from piece to piece that we create. Looking at several of my drawings you'll see not only things and people I love, but also things I find disturbing.

I grew up on a peanut and corn farm in South Georgia, lived almost every waking moment outdoors, playing and working with my family. Plants and animals seemed much more real to me than people.  So nature was my first influence in art, nature gave me my start and my basis from which to grow.  It also grew with my nightmares, I had some terrible nightmares as a child, and with each nightmare came more drawings.
My love of art grew as I grew, I read and studied everything I could but my influence was from nature and trying to capture the beauty of our fellow earthlings.  I think of how very similar to the rest of nature we are.  What purpose could my drawings possibly serve, if not some spiritual service? Art is the illumination of life in collaboration with the creative Spirit. What a blessing it is to experience the Blue Planet, to walk or swim or climb along and see so much life here! I pray that we'll always be able to enjoy these moments of shared existence.

When I was a teenager, one of my teachers noticed my love for art, and took me to the city, Atlanta, Georgia to visit museums, and art galleries.  Places I'd never seen before.  I loved it, and couldn't get enough.  I loved writing also, and something about drawing and capturing images was almost like writing, drawing telling a story without the words, but expressing those images that are mental and spiritual.  I found something that made me diffrent from others.  Symbolism of my own childhood and life are usually in my art.
The practices of artist is informed by the theories on arts that we as artists may have.  We can take our personal theories and apply them to our art.  I was self taught and I don't know if I follow any real genre in art.  We create our own totem so to speak.  Theories are an integral part of an artists decision making or practice, that goes with each and every artwork that an artist produces.

 

 

Brother Bear

What a beautiful story of man's bond with nature.  I wasn't expecting this movie to touch me as much as it did, but had to write about it since I loved it so much.  Havn't had a movie grab me like this one in a long time.  I even cried a little bit.  I love cartoons!  There is a lot of symbolism and metophers in this beautiful movie, and the artwork is super.  Every go rent now you hear.

Finding my heart

I am here to tell you that you can get your heart back.  But your going to have to fight for it.  I want all wounds healed and strength restored.  I'm a fighting. Today I've been sitting with my thoughts, ever changing thoughts.  Sometimes thinking of the pain, but then something just saying let go.  Don't hold onto the pain, just let go.  I read Barb's journal yesterday, about seeing what is in front of us and being thankful.  Things may get hard, but seeing what we do have and being happy with that.  I am happy and I have faith things are going to even get better.  It funny how some days I feel so lost in my journey and other's I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be.  I've let my past hold me back so much.  Not liking the person I was at one time, blaming things of my dad for not initiating me into life and my journey.   But my heavenly father is taking me on that journey and  providing for me what was missing.  A hope seems to be rising up in me one that wishes I could draw something or paint something to show that feeling like my friend Judith.  I don't want to dismiss this hope I want to do something wondeful with it.  I think I have some pretty good things I can pray for tonight.  I wonder if I have enough quiet times, I surly need my quiet times, in the early morning, or late night to think and pander about life.    I've been whining lately, why me, why can't I get out of this hole I'm in financially.  But maybe there's a lesson, maybe God is trying to teach me something.  God I have faith in you and what your teaching me, I don't love you because I want you to make my life easier.  ( Althought I do have those selfish prayers at time) 

What questions have you been asking?  Question to self, Have I been asking the right questions?

Running from Frances

Last week during Hurricane Frances, Mike and I left the crazy weather of Florida to visit my family in Georgia.  It's been a long time since I've brought someone home that I cared about to meet my family.  First stop was Dena and Andy's to see my nephews, Eli and Ethan.  When we went in we were greeted with hugs,  Eli looking at me and smiling saying hey Derek.  Then over in the corner in his little swing was Ethan just falling to sleep.  He was so beautiful laying there I just stared for a long time, It was a wonderful day being a baby hog.   Mike was really good with the kids too, kind of shocked me, Eli was really crazy about him too. Then we went to Sherry's and Mama came over and we played with Autumn who was in rare form when we got there, very energetic.  Later Dena and Andy and the boys came over and we all had dinner and spent the night together.  Me playing with the kids mostly.  The whole weekend was really nice, especially letting my family get to know Mike, which they all really enjoyed him and seemed very happy that I'm happy.  The weather home was really bad for a couple hours, but we made it back to Jacksonville in one piece.  I had not damage at the beach.  Mike was without electricity until Thursday so he stayed with me until then.  So we've been spending quite a good bit with each other.  It has been wonderful.  We've had a nice weekend.  Watching movies Friday and going out with friends for dinner last night, and just spending a lazy day together today.  All is well!  Hope everyone out there in J-land is happy and well!

I'm Wild

As everyone may know Cousin Francis is out there swirling and wild.   I live right on the beach.  Not sure where it's going to hit,  I pray it's not here.  There's sure to be flooding so it's probably going to be wild.  If you have any doubts as to whether or not God loves wildness, spend the night in the woods...alone.  Take a walk out in a thunderstorm.  Go for a swim  with a bunch of killer whales.  Go out in a field with some bulls like I did as a child.  Whose idea was this anyway all this wildness?  The great reefs with it's sharks, the wolves in my dreams, the jungles of India with it's tigers, the deserts of the Southwest with all those rattlesnakes-would you describe them as "nice place"?  Most of the earth is not safe; but it's good

After God created all this, He pronounced it good, for heaven's sake.  It's His way of letting us know He rather prefers adventure, danger, risk, the element of surprise.  This whole creation is unapologetically wild.  God loves it that way.  So do I. 

Do you love wildness?  How much of your life are you trying to control these days?

Big Brother welcomes Ethan with a kiss

I've said before how sweet Eli is, well he was very happy when his little brother came, he even watched the entire event, and wanted to give him a kiss after they had him all cleaned up.  I thought this was a beautiful picture.