I just finished another book project and since I have been married to the keyboard at every free moment I have had these past few days, it astonishes me that I am actually back at it now posting a blog page. It’s just that this kind of writing, since it requires no editing of any kind, soothes me. I find it very relaxing to put words out here now free flow, especially after having spent so much time lately writing professionally, where I am asked to be perfect, or at least close, in grammar and form and style.

I love that I can just type here in the sacred cocoon of my blog. And type. And type. I think this feeling, the one writing gives me, must be what an artist feels when they touch the canvas with the tip of their brush. When they open the sketch pad and begin to move the pencil across the page. The feeling the photographer has as he or she loads the film knowing absolutely that a great image will be captured with it. The sensation of the sculptor’s hands as they press into the clay to turn it into a vase or a bowl.

This is my clay. My marble. My canvas and oils. I now have no doubt. I am immersed in it. I am kneading and pressing and smoothing. I am drawing, chiseling, holding my palette and clicking the shutter as I press these keys and it feels so good on my fingertips. So very, very good.

It’s funny though, how sometimes even though I truly define myself as an artist, I can still long for a nod of approval. I’m not quite sure what that’s about, except to say it feels all too human. I think it’s like the post someone puts on Facebook in the hopes that it will draw a few “likes.” I don’t think I will analyze it too much, but instead simply honor it for today.

I have to laugh because I just had a thought about my husband and his connection to my “art.” I almost never ask him to read my writing anymore and it occurs to me that this shows how much I love him. I actually honor that it’s not really his “thing” and know that his not always reading it has nothing to do with me or my work or whether or not it’s good. How cool is it that I have finally learned not to go to the hardware store for milk the way I did in the past, by asking him to make it his “thing.”

Instead, I realize that his support comes in other ways, other loving and validating ones that have everything to do with what pushes me to open the laptop in the first place. I teased him once, “Doesn’t it bother you that I won’t dedicate my bestselling novel to you since you don’t read my edits?” He, so annoyingly comfortable in his skin, responded, “No, I’m good.”

Today, I work on recognizing what my “art” does for me and not getting stuck in worrying whether or not it does something for anyone else. And, I can know that when my husband asks, why I still go out to a “day job” instead of realizing that writing is my “work” it is his way of honoring me. OK, OK, I’ll dedicate the book to him. And there it is. A finished piece. And it did exactly what I hoped it would. For me. The artist. 🙂