Trusting Collaboration

I just finished a-four month collaboration with Margaret Bellafiore who is an artist, Mobius member, friend, writer and professor at Bridgewater State.

Our interactive installation called Body Language (and reviewed here) was about how and why the body is burdened by trauma (and how to lighten that load).

The two-day run is done. For now. 

I was too exhausted to feel anything other than tired after set-up, show up and tear down. But now I am exuberant again and thinking lots about creative partnership in general and the process of working with Margaret.

When I think of myself it’s as mother, writer, friend and animal lover. Slob, seeker and poetry lover squeeze into my identity as well as sister, cousin, carbohydrate junkie, crafter and curious nerd.

But artist?

Nope.

That is a title reserved for my brother, sister-in-law and cousin.

I tear at rather than cut paper. More paint gets on my skin more than anywhere. I’ve never been asked to sketch someone or even doodle.

When I show anyone a practice (free-writing), hobby (wire-wrapping sea glass) or share what I think is a secret invention (like making a soulbook) they immediately do it better.

You know who you are and it’s true always and EVERY time!

Am I too distracted, careless and unable to stay with one thing for long enough to do it well? Do I get bored easily and have to move on to the next thing?

Ding. And Dong. Yeah…. but it’s more than those things.

I like to share – skills, information, clothes, hobbies, electronics, facts, classes, ideas, dreams.

People. I even share people.

When I date someone who might work out better with someone I know I can’t help but mention it or match make. Why keep people I love from each other if they’d work better?

My friend Kathy calls some of these the traits of an “activator.” I think I’m just bossy and enjoy what others call over sharing.

You think everyone is a writer,” my friend Heidi says and she’s not wrong. I’m write. Everyone is a writer.

I don’t say everyone is a good writer. I never say that. Some people are fantastic! 

When people free-write, spontaneously, they are revealed, often to who they read to but most of all to themselves. They immediately show up as their essence. Maybe they are open-hearted, hilarious, irreverent, whimsical, deliberate or disarmingly tender. It’s never vague.

The voices and tones are salts and scrubs different textures and smells. I love bathing in them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always going to go for vanilla and coconut and pass up on what’s too fragrant or flowery for my nose but it doesn’t mean I don’t know that is strong and distinct and just what someone else needs, loves and craves.

In writing, I’ve been brave and been able to witness my heart crack open and my defense mechanisms melt away as well as seeing the same happen for others.

But I’ve rarely been risky outside the realm of writing so I’ve been asking myself how on earth I ended up doing an artistic collaboration ending in a public event.

It’s a two part answer.

1. Margaret

2. Stacey

Both women are in my writing group.

Margaret is the artist, writer, neighbor friend who asked me to work with her. When I said “Sign me up” I thought I’d do the research and she’d do the art. Plus, it was just talk until she held me to my word, got her calendar out and booked meeting times and gallery space.

Oh, we are actually going to REALLY do this?

From Margaret I learned it takes three things to be an artist:

1. Planning

2. Supplies. Lots and lots of art supplies like spray paint, stencils, clay and fearlessness.

3. Being willing to abandon the plan and buy new supplies if a better idea comes along even at the last minute.

Alone, I would have waited until I was 122 and had studied, practiced and understood more.

Alone, I would have revised ideas endlessly generating mediocre, good or brilliant ideas which would all live and die in my psyche seen by no one.

But I wasn’t alone.

I was collaborating.

Here’s where Stacey comes in.

She gave a a speech at Toastmasters that is TedTalk worthy. It was about rock climbing a wall, getting near the top and wanting to quit. It was about not quitting, once near the top, because her husband was at the bottom yelling up things like, “You got this” and “You can do it.”

The talk was a celebration of his support and how crucial and important it was in making her reach new heights. She wasn’t apologizing for being needy or not doing it 100% on her own.

Huh?

I remember the night I heard her speak and how excited, confused and emotional I was. It wasn’t just me. The woman sitting next to me had her mouth open too and we looked at each with a Wow.

Maybe the other woman was saying “Wow” because it was a great speech. Maybe she was wowing having a husband who supports the climb (rather than cutting or climbing on the rope). I don’t know and can’t speak for her.

I know Stacey shattered the way I thought like a hammer to a mirror.

She did it with a question and instead of seven years bad luck I’ve got this recurring thought.

What could you do if you had support?

Not, why are you afraid or broken or not reaching your potential or even what could you do if you weren’t afraid?

Just, what could you do if you had support, as in other people and encouragement and stuff.

It’s not really a question I ask myself.

I mean I do the “I could have been a contender” thing in the way I probe my childhood and wonder what might have been if this, that or the other thing.

That’s not what she was talking about.

Today, I had enough support, what might I try?

Ambition after ambition, dream upon dream, adventures – they all shot across my mind but not as one-second shooting stars but as possibilities.

Actual and real possibilities in this life, from now on and going forward.

Because, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, my usual thinking goes like this:

How can I live without relying on anyone? How can I make my life work so I don’t need a soul and if anyone and everyone leaves, disappoints or jumps ship I’ve got food, housing and enough for me and my kid?

or

I’m not going to get messy and needy with others when all that can be used against me later. Sure, I have wonderful people in my life but who helps you on moving day or when you’re puking or when you can’t pay the vet? How can I keep overhead and neediness to a minimum so all I dream or promise I can deliver even on a bad day?

It’s not like I didn’t have quality people in my life. I always have – as an adult – thankfully!

But that doesn’t mean I trusted them or myself enough to consider them as more than visitors or guests.

They were like annuals who might pretty up the porch this summer but be gone by winter, when it gets chilly or when the porch needs painting.

Or maybe they’d be like the blossoms on the tree that showed up in May but were gone by June. Familiar and maybe in my yard once a year but only when it’s warm and there’s a party or an ocean breeze not when it’s time to cut back the overgrown limbs.

Which, as it turns out, makes for a home with only my name on the deed but also a home with only me cutting the lawn and cutting back the limbs of the trees.

My world view hasn’t been all good for relationships of the voluntary and adult kind.

I don’t mean parenting my child, which is supposed to be a heavily one-sided for at least a decade – or three – where my daughter’s dependence on me is nurtured, celebrated and normal. That, at least, I’ve nurtured.

I don’t mean therapy where unconditional support is purchased for $100. an hour which is helpful but not an actual relationship. Having a therapist to consult, can be useful at times, but it’s not an actual relationship, it’s a service.

And I don’t mean dating which can be fun and fabulous or dramatic and daunting (or both) and has a temporary nature unless it morphs into more.

I’m talking partnerships, relationships, adult to adult co-creations which are voluntary and based only on choice and love and caring.

What if I believe my relationships, especially the ones that have already lasted one to three decades, are durable and worthy? What if, rather than assuming the worse and hoping I’m proved wrong I assume the best?

What if?

Would my life get bigger or smaller? Easier or harder? Would I be there more or less for others?

See how it changes everything just to think different?

I’m still sort of in shock myself. These are my new questions and expectations.

Stacey talked about getting support, without apology and how it was strengthening. Positive. Something to get more of.

Me? I usually worry about getting too dependent on good stuff.

I can’t afford to eat organic, don’t have time for yoga and those low drama people won’t want me. No. I’d rather eat crap, get fat and be with drama. Wait. What? 

Hmnn….

What if I throw out the view that the only person you can really trust is yourself and that everyone else but the pets and kids are optional?

Hmnn….

What if I try on the idea of mutual love and support as normal and healthy and that the best is yet to come?

It’s been an adjustment. I didn’t just run and blab blog this right away. I had to think long and hard, like half a year, to make sure it wasn’t some feel-good speech without any teeth.

It’s been like a pair of boots I’ve been testing out. First, for a night out and then a weekend. Do they work with jeans? a dress? even the right shorts (if I wore shorts)? I had to do all that before investing in my own pair. Do they wear well in snow? Will they breathe?

There was testing and experimentation.

I said yes to collaboration with Margaret after listening to Stacey and have a four-month collaboration from concept to completion under my belt. We’ve got an expansion in the works and phase two in planning.

It’s fair to say I’m building proof and growing.

On Saturday, Margaret asked me why I didn’t include more of my poetry about my own traumas and recovery.

“I want to share from my knowledge not my pain,” I said for what might have been the first time ever. I realized how much I’ve learned, know and live. And still I want to share.

But collaborating? Needing and being needed? Give and take? Compromise? Assuming better of people including me?

Why the hell not?

Turns out I need activating, from others. I guess I like people – the human and fleshy kind.

This is my story about how an interactive installation on trauma made me more cheerful.

Sorry writing but I’m also in love with people, like Art, who have so much to teach me.