Mother moon

Tonight I saw the moon reflected in a window above me as I sat below in conversation, in community. Noticing her hanging there in her solitude made me smile inside. I'm always comforted by the moon. She is very content to take part by observing quietly from a distance, but the light of her touches everything in the most intimate way.

I think I am addicted to my work because through it I can be fraternal. I want an art that reaffirms the human need for communication and contact - something I find so difficult in my personal life. Sometimes the longing for independence registers as sort of fatal flaw in my character, something to be overcome - like addiction, or shyness. We won't talk about the source of it. Although recently I was told about my maternal grandmother, who never I met. She decided one day she would like to leave her family and live her own life, and that's exactly what she did, leaving behind four children, including my mother. Am I anything like her, I asked. You have no idea how much, said my mother...

I am quite sure it's a question my mother has asked of herself too. But she stayed, that's the difference. I am not positive it was an entirely happy choice, but to speak of things in simple terms like 'happiness' is quite useless here.

There is progress. The tattoo resolves certain complexities for me in ways I can't fully explain. As time goes on I hope I'll add more. My art is a powerful crutch, but these days I feel very positive about it being more than that. Like light from mother moon, it's an extension of me, not some surrogate or vessel. Each day I heave my art closer to me; each day we both become more real and our qualities manifest in each other. One day it will no longer be a crutch, but a tool, and a weapon.

And I remember what Goenawan Mohammed wrote: 'In truth, it is not possible to say, I choose independence, but at the same time I do not choose danger... I cannot only choose a creative life, and not be prepared, like Adam, to be expelled from blissful paradise into the restless world of creation.'