Taking My Dissatisfaction Out To Dinner

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Last night Lena Dunham, a mere 26 years old, won Golden Globes for best actress and best television comedy for her creation, GIRLS. She has received a lot of criticism and praise for what she’s done. The criticism comes mostly from people who probably want to be where she is and are not. Like those film friends we all have who sit around and critique everything wrong with a movie, but don’t go out and make movies themselves—even though they are always proclaiming their desire to do so---(ooh, laying the slap down on a Monday morning!)

I sat in my fuzzy socks and stretchy pants sipping tea last night and watched Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Christopher Waltz (bravo!), and Claire Danes (again!) win these little statues of validation. I admit. I was envious. I just sat there.

Sat and thought about my writing career which doesn’t really exist. Sat and thought about my photography business (which is still so tiny).  Sat and thought about my role in helping women in this world. Sat and thought about all the big dreams I have and how so many of them are in the process of coming true—but how there is always a sense of dissatisfaction in areas where people would be shocked to know you are dissatisfied.

While many people try to avoid feeling the dissatisfaction—or drown them out temporarily in chocolate and alcohol (and yes, I’ve definitely done both), I’ve grown to savor those tiny dagger-like feelings that creep into my psyche ever morning and every night. I’ve learned to temper them, feel them, thrive from them, and make changes based on them. Dissatisfaction, in a sense, has driven my life since I was 7.

Some people might think it sounds awful.  Some people might raise eyebrows at me and inwardly feel bad that I embrace such feelings. But the artists out there, those artists, they raise a glass in camaraderie with me.

Do you know what's already happened this year? A million Beethovens were born. A million Oprahs. A million Einsteins. A million Florence Nightingales. A million Martin Luther Kings. And a million Madame Curies, to name just a few. Each as capable of moving mountains, touching lives, and leaving the world far better than they found it.

But which ones will have the courage to do whatever little they can each day, with what little they've got, from where they are, before their baby steps turn into giant leaps for the legions who will follow them?

I truly believe it’s the ones who feel a little dissatisfied every day--and that dissatisfaction drives them to ultimate creation.

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Name that Painting

I'm painting again....and yes, I seem to have one thing on my mind lately. However, I don't want a cliche title for this one...any suggestions?

A Poem

lines composed by young man in English literature on a day in February.


First Kiss

Upon an Autumn clear,
A visit with my lover dear,
The songs of the birds you could hear
Them singing pleasantly.

A clearing in the woods so light
Not a person near in sight,
We thought that we just might
Kiss, but hesitantly.

Slowly, awkwardly, we started to kiss,
So nervous that I thought we'd miss;
I closed my eyes and felt the bliss
Of our kiss, so passionately.

The Process of Painting

Sometimes an images will flash across the movie screen, the tv screen, the novel page, the neuron connections, my dreams, my wakes and will ingrain its tiny self into some part of the gray folds of memory, and then one moment it chooses to emerge and paint itself onto my canvas. This is what has come out lately...it's my goal to finish it this week and then to sell it because the inspiration behind it haunts me a little too much to have it hanging freely about my bedroom, my living room, or any other room...

The faces are blank, although I know exactly what they should look like, I just don't know if I want to create it and have it out there in the world...and yet again, maybe it's exactly what I need to do.

It's gonna be a good week.