Too Small
“SPLASH”, 1981, 5′ x 5′, pigment on wool flannel
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POEM
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You must learn one thing:
The world was made to be free in.
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Give up all the other worlds
Except the one to which you belong.
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Sometimes it takes the darkness and the sweet
Confinement of your aloneness
To learn
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Anything or anyone
That does not bring you alive
Is too small for you.
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-David Whyte
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This was a hard lesson learned for me, the thing he speaks of here.
I am gregarious by nature and have always cast my net with a wide sweep.
I like to connect with people and it comes fairly naturally to me.
For a long time it has been the ACT of connecting that fed me.
It made me feel somehow less alone.
But my discriminatory edge was dulled by what I call ‘slimy goodies’.
By that I mean that I saw myself going through all the motions that were supposed to produce a happy and fulfilled citizen in our culture’s eyes.
And in that effort I lost the girl in here who I very nearly forgot altogether.
No one would mourn her loss as few have seen or heard her.
Her voice, posture, sensitivity and desires are not the same as the grown woman.
Somehow, as I continue my swim in authentic waters, she slowly surfaces.
Still timid at the brightness as she rises close to the surface.
But now trusting of the tide and giving herself over to the current.
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