{"id":4419,"date":"2016-05-31T13:17:50","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T20:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=4419"},"modified":"2016-05-31T13:27:09","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T20:27:09","slug":"may-31-2016-love-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/may-31-2016-love-love\/","title":{"rendered":"May 31, 2016 – Love what you love"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n \n \"Fb-Button\"\n <\/a>\n <\/div>
<\/fb:like><\/div><\/div>
\"plumeria

The soft animal of MY body is in plumeria heaven on Kauai.<\/p><\/div>\n

[Note: I\u2019ll resume recording when I\u2019m back home from vacation.]<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was four years old, my older brother Joe (who was 5 at the time) and I were on the Bay Area Romper Room TV show.\u00a0 We rode in the car over to KTVU studios in Oakland to be with Miss Nancy and the other girls and boys for our turn on the show.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember much about it, except for one somewhat traumatic experience of being re-directed \u2013 on camera – when I wasn\u2019t doing what I was supposed to.\u00a0 At one point in the show we were each assigned solo activities; I was given some kind of a matching-card game. I\u2019ve always been such a <\/span>girl<\/em>, and I wanted to play with the dolls that had been assigned to another little girl.\u00a0 She got to put on their pretty clothes and arrange them, have them talk to each other. <\/span>I<\/em> wanted to do that.\u00a0 So, being just 4 and not realizing that I really had to stay where I was, I went over to join her and play with the dolls.\u00a0 A camera-man then pulled me by the back of my dress back over to the cards.\u00a0 Oh, I was mortified!\u00a0 And <\/span>so<\/em> disappointed! I didn\u2019t want to play with the stupid cards when there were <\/span>dolls<\/em> to play with!<\/span><\/p>\n

This memory came back to me in a recent conversation pointing to me something that has always been in me.\u00a0 Since I was very young I have clearly known what I like \u2013 what I love – and what I don\u2019t \u2013 and that this matters<\/em>.\u00a0 Another bit from my past aligns with this realization. When I was planning to get married in my mid-twenties one of the things that brides did (do they still?) is register for fine china, silver flatware and crystal wine glass patterns.\u00a0 I went to all the department stores, including Gumps in San Francisco, searching for exactly<\/em> what I wanted.\u00a0 If a store didn\u2019t have anything that I wanted to set my table with for the rest of my life, I moved on.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t accept their selection of patterns as all my options.\u00a0 I liked what I liked and wasn\u2019t willing to settle!<\/p>\n

As I looked at this, I remarked at the line from Mary Oliver\u2019s poem \u201cWild Geese\u201d (hear her read her poem here<\/a>) that is on the front page of my website and in my artist statement:\u00a0 You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.<\/em>\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 This.<\/em>\u00a0 It is what I believe, deeply, fully, completely.\u00a0 And I\u2019m realizing this is what I\u2019m here to teach and even – dare I say? – preach. \u00a0\u00a0Mary Oliver\u2019s inspired words \u2013 the soft animal of your body<\/em> \u2013 make it visceral and intimate.\u00a0 Coming to know what the soft animal of our bodies love isn\u2019t an intellectual exercise \u2013 it\u2019s not something we figure out.\u00a0 Either we experience it in the moment or when we don\u2019t, it\u2019s something to discover, or rather uncover<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What allures us, what we love, is intertwined with who we are at the deepest levels. \u00a0And the increasing permission, the expanding freedom to live accordingly is aligned with evolution \u2013 both in each of our lives and in our culture.\u00a0 I have far more permission to love what I love in my middle age than I did, say when I was a teenager and was so concerned about being accepted and included.\u00a0 The recent expansion of the law to include same-sex marriage \u2013 granting the freedom to openly love and build a life with the person who we love, regardless of their gender and ours \u2013 shows how our culture is evolving in this direction too.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t consciously choose who and what we love.\u00a0 Who and what we love is a given. I believe it is<\/em> given to us. \u00a0I\u2019d go so far as to say that what we love chooses us<\/em>.\u00a0 And when we live with loving what we love at the center of our lives, making it visible, loving what we love becomes who we are to others.\u00a0\u00a0 Quite often I get messages or Facebook posts from people with pictures of beautiful flowers along with messages telling me that when they saw that flower they thought of me.\u00a0 Me!<\/em>\u00a0 By loving what I love (painting flowers illuminated in sunlight that I\u2019m so drawn to) I\u2019ve become a \u201cbeautiful flower\u201d person to them.\u00a0 The same goes for Paris.\u00a0 I am a \u201cParis person\u201d to those around me.\u00a0\u00a0 My hubby is a pilot, so he\u2019s an \u201caviation person.\u201d\u00a0 My brother Joe is a \u201ctropical fish\u201d person \u2013 he has an eight foot long salt-water tropical reef tank in his living room that he tends to.\u00a0 There are several people in my life who are \u201cdog people.\u201d\u00a0 When we love what we love, whatever is our \u201cthing\u201d becomes who we are.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean to imply that we should love everything.\u00a0 If we were drawn to everything equally, we\u2019d not have the contrast we need to see what we do<\/em> love.\u00a0 And – there are things we are ambivalent about too \u2013 I sure don\u2019t have strong preferences for every aspect of my existence.\u00a0 But knowing what we love and letting ourselves love it where it matters most to us makes the difference between a life worth living – and not.<\/p>\n

\"I'm

I’m painting these eggplants for our “shiny things” Special Saturday this weekend. But somehow, it’s not doing it for me in Kauai.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve been here on Kauai for two weeks.\u00a0 The paintings I brought along with me on this trip have just not grabbed me.\u00a0 I so love to paint here in the soft, moist air and several of the days here I\u2019ve had to make myself sit down to paint \u2013 to keep my commitment to paint every day.\u00a0 The experience of painting something that does<\/em> \u201cdo it\u201d for me, is altogether different. \u00a0I can\u2019t wait<\/em> to get back to it, I have energy for it.\u00a0 I\u2019ll get there with the painting I have underway, but in the moment it\u2019s hard to be excited about it.\u00a0 The good thing about this experience is that I\u2019m living right now the not<\/em>-loving what I\u2019m doing \u2013 the contrast is striking.<\/p>\n

All of this shows me why I was reluctant to teach at first – my fear and reluctance served me.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know how to teach in a way that would honor my desire to have people love what they love. The only workshop and class formats that I knew of were those where the teacher assigned something to paint \u2013 either everyone painted the same image or a subject chosen by the teacher \u2013 including a dead fish sitting in the middle of the table.\u00a0\u00a0 I think this is why I\u2019m largely self-taught – life didn\u2019t put a teacher in front of me that provided exactly the kind of instruction and environment that supported me to paint what I loved.\u00a0 I needed to figure it out for myself, so I could offer it to others.<\/p>\n

\"I'm

I’m glad to have this little painting\u00a0with me – at least I have flowers to paint here.<\/p><\/div>\n

Because of this I am not the teacher for everyone.\u00a0 When a new artist\/student comes to paint in one of my groups, if they don\u2019t know what they want to paint, I ask questions, I offer a computer to look through photos, but I don\u2019t give any assignments. That doesn\u2019t work for everyone, so it\u2019s really good there are teachers who offer more structure. \u00a0For me, it\u2019s worth waiting for a flicker of inspiration to emerge.\u00a0 In doing so, it invites the soft animal of your body to share what it loves.\u00a0 The art that then comes of you is personal, it\u2019s yours. My hope is that the flicker will become a flame of inspiration, a hunger even, to share with the world what you love.<\/p>\n

There is a genius in you \u2013 something you that said \u201cI want to learn to paint\u201d that is connected to something deeper than acquiring paint-handling skills.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never been more clear or more certain that I\u2019m here to create the environment and provide the support and encouragement for you to paint what you love, live what you love, love what you love.\u00a0 I love the book \u201cThe War of Art\u201d by Steven Pressfield.\u00a0 The last section of this book is laced with this very message.\u00a0 These are the last lines from the book:\u00a0 \u201cCreative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth repeating:\u00a0 let yourself love what you love – and then, give us what you\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

Love,<\/p>\n

Cara<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Note: I\u2019ll resume recording when I\u2019m back home from vacation.] When I was four years old, my older brother Joe (who was 5 at the time) and I were on the Bay Area Romper Room TV show.\u00a0 We rode in the car over to KTVU studios in Oakland to be with Miss Nancy and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMay 31, 2016 - 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