BE BRAVE FRIDAY, a conversation with my cat.
Marsie the Cat: Let's talk about fear, human.
Me: Again?
Marsie: Yes. Again.
Me: I'm just afraid of so much stuff.
Marsie: You're afraid of failing, of being vulnerable, of exposing yourself to the world, am I right? Or worse: what if nobody even notices you?
Me:
Marsie: Oh! And you’re afraid of being silenced. Of people saying, “Don’t let her speak.” Even when they might be joking. And of people ignoring the fact that you have a newspaper.
Me:
Marsie:
Me: How do you know so much?
Marsie: I am a cat. Therefore, I know all things. Plus, I know about fear. But I don't care. I live my life. Look at this photo. I am on the dog bed and right there? It is the evidence that the dogs destroy things! That was a perfectly good owl toy and it is dead now. That dog has jaws of steel and could eat me in a second for daring to be on his bed. But do I care? No! I still claim the dog bed. You, human, need to claim the dog bed.
Marsie doesn't understand that sometimes it's hard to claim the dog bed. I wrote about this on Instagram a while ago because I was thinking about my grandmother. I’ve found it because I am thinking about her again.
She wrote so many poems and made so many paintings that she never let anyone see.
She couldn’t handle the scorn. But she couldn’t NOT create things.
She was afraid of the ocean, thought it was this massive, beautiful deadly force. But she couldn’t not stare at it and wonder.
Humans can be like that too sometimes, she told me.
“I don’t know why we are expected to be so strong. Why must we be so strong and vulnerable?” she asked.
I was like ten when she asked me that so I didn't have an answer.
This painting is what became because one of her paintings that she left unfinished. I don’t know if she had copied the original or if it was her own, but the women walking across a realistic earth, approaching the sea all huddled and afraid and then reaching out for the unreal sky makes me think of her. Afraid but reaching out.
I am not an artist. I have absolutely no training at all except for one high school art class that I managed to fit in amongst all the college courses, but all I want to do is paint and be outside.
I am not a great philosopher, but still I'm compelled to share what I think.
I sound like a muppet and slur my s's, but still I still made a podcast and I've in charge of a really intensive online writing class that forces me to talk on video to 12-20 people every month. And the whole time I thought, “I am so afraid to do this. People will hear my voice and laugh (not in a good way).”
Some did. Some didn’t. It didn’t matter.
All those things scared me so much.
And every time I wrote a book, I thought:
What if nobody reads it?
What if nobody likes it?
What if I never write another one?
But life and creating is all about vulnerability. It's about saying yes to experiences even though it's so scary. Yes, just writing a blog post is scary to me because it's vulnerable. Now, I write a newspaper and deal with cranky people all the time. All. The. Time.
What is it that makes you vulnerable?
What is it that makes you scared to say 'yes' to things?
Because here's the thing: You are enough. You are good enough and real enough and authentic. Your story matters. Your work matters. Your voice matters.
And if other people don't see it? Their loss. What matters is that YOU see it.
QUICK NOTE
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