I am 45, perhaps too young to be consumed by regret but certainly too old to be immune to it. And it is not my actions that haunt me but my inaction, my lassitude, my long years of waiting, breathlessly, for some other entity to emerge from this skin.
I have managed to take a single photo of myself every day for a year. The project, small in its demands, was nevertheless an enforced daily encounter with myself, fifteen minutes of creativity and inspiration (more and often less)that asked of my attention something beyond my brooding in its many forms. It was "good for me," that cliche that belies the underlying desperation of it all; it was good, fun in the way that child's play is fun (for children) as a manner of losing oneself in the imaginings of who you are and who you can be. And perhaps to be both model and eye offered me that same playdough of personality. I envisioned who I wanted to be, or who I could be. I reconstructed my aging features with light, or delved rapturously into my current mood. I made faces, and I kept face. It was good for me, plain and simple.
I have managed to take a single photo of myself every day for a year. The project, small in its demands, was nevertheless an enforced daily encounter with myself, fifteen minutes of creativity and inspiration (more and often less)that asked of my attention something beyond my brooding in its many forms. It was "good for me," that cliche that belies the underlying desperation of it all; it was good, fun in the way that child's play is fun (for children) as a manner of losing oneself in the imaginings of who you are and who you can be. And perhaps to be both model and eye offered me that same playdough of personality. I envisioned who I wanted to be, or who I could be. I reconstructed my aging features with light, or delved rapturously into my current mood. I made faces, and I kept face. It was good for me, plain and simple.
The process has reinvigorated me a bit in the direction of my biggest regret: my writing. I commit today to a similar project of 365 days here and now. I activate this blog with a handful of words, promising in turn to throw another handful of dirt on the pile daily for the coming year. Will I make a mountain on which I can stand or simply fill in my own lazy grave? The prospect makes me nervous. I have made these grand gestures before. Perhaps if I think of this more as play than practice. Perhaps if I place my faith squarely on the beauty of the words.
