I’ve had a funny relationship with desire. For long years I repressed and lied to myself about my own. That looked like a religion that fit like a bad shoe, and a marriage I betrayed myself to begin. 

 

For other years I gave myself to it; wholly - without shame. That looked like rogue ambition and….well stories of free love that would earn a stronger rating than R.  

 

I found that when I repressed my desire, it haunted me. When I allowed my desire without shame, it burned itself out. After the fire, left standing in the ashes was what I truly wanted. What I still want now.

In this way it is only by looking back at my life up to his point that I can name my desire. It makes me blush to tell you. I want to shout, “it’s not how you think!” But here we go anyway:

I looked for it in marriage.

Then lit a match.

I looked for it in religion.

Then lit a match.

I looked for it in sex.

Then lit a match.

I looked for it in my career.

Then lit a match.

I looked for it in myself.

Then lit a match.

 

Burning, burning, burning, burning. There’s been so much burning. 

 

And what is left?

 

Nothing. A nothing that allows me to feel everything.

 

What’s left, is surrender.

With surrender comes the sweet understanding that it was all true love all along. True love wasn’t the perfect relationship, worship, the best sex, or my various identities as an artist, mother, woman. True love was the flame itself, both outside and within. True love is what we are. It is the spark of aliveness we all share - the one that never leaves us, even when we cannot feel it. True love is the capacity I have and always had to light the match. But too long in one place or phase of life had the effect of making me forget I eternally possess that spark. In desperation to feel my own heat again, I kept lighting the match, instead of tending to the warmth of the fire right in front of me.

 

 

These days I’m tending my forever fire instead of thinking I oughta light new ones. I’m learning how when I simply pay attention to my life, I am deeply satisfied with gentle rhythms and streams of truth, rather than starving for more of I don’t even know what. 

 

It sounds more boring than it is. But it's definitely weird how I can feel the same intense satisfaction that I thought the perfect partner, or my dream book deal would give me, just by sharing an extra tasty bagel and deep laugh with my autisic 16 year old. 

 

Lest you think this is a plea for you to give up your desires, remember this took a lot of burning through my own to get here. I believe in desire. I believe it is one of many wayfinders to true love.

I also believe that each way to true love will inevitably include an exploration of self. All of my work hovers around that exploration. As the new school year begins, I find myself trying to settle on my 2023 offers. Here are four that I’d like to tell you about. From photo sessions, to online classes, to workshops, to year long creative mentorships. Each lands somewhere on the venn diagram of self and desire.