No. 5 & No. 6

This week, you came to me with questions about questions. 
Curious? 

“People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.”
Rumi

[No. 5]

WHAT IS THE MOST COURAGEOUS QUESTION YOU HAVE EVER ASKED? 

Are all questions created equal? Perhaps there are categories of questions: 

[small talk] questions, 
[make you think] questions, and then 
[rock you to your core] questions. 

When I think about the most daring question I have ever asked, I understand we are talking about the third. Percolating on my response to you, I could sense the feeling of what it was like to be the bravest I have ever been (heart aflutter, butterflies in belly, throat tightening ever so slightly), and at the same time the most inquisitive (childlike, eyes to the sky). Yet, it took some time to assign syllables to this stirring, this small symphony. 

“Art hurts. Art urges voyages, and it is easier to stay at home.”
Gwendolyn Brooks

I have reflected on the possible strata or hegemony of questions that I have asked others over the years, and those that I have asked myself. Which is the absolute wildest? I think of the prickly things I have wondered about in body, mind, and soul. I think about gender. I think about break-ups. I think about money. I think about my preventive double mastectomy. I think about family. I think about my divorce. I flip through a Rolodex of rites of passage, but I feel there is an unfolded note somewhere inside me. Deep, deep in the ocean of my consciousness, on a walk, I locate it: the query I find most terrifying and glorifying at the same time.  

[AM I BEING HONEST WITH MYSELF AT EVERY POSSIBLE TURN?] 

Am I facing my truth?
Am I accepting it?
Basically, am I turning toward or away from me, from life? 

“I think that it is impossible to be deeply in touch with one’s feelings and, looking at the world squarely, not to become revolutionary. “ Robert Motherwell, 1960

When we ask [AM I BEING HONEST WITH MYSELF?], we invite impermanence, precariousness. We test our wingspan. We invite our bodies to move with decisiveness and to rattle that which may be askew, and yet so familiar. We forego the tattered, faded blanket that holds more memory than warmth. 

Image by галина ласаева

To stand in front of the mirror and look oneself in the eye requires trust that we will make it out alive (if we are meant to make it out alive). Reality is edgy and sharp, and that’s okay. We can hold knives; we can even get cut and be alright. 

“I’ve learned to treat my emotions now as teachers. I feel as if they have arisen in me to teach me either something about what I’m experiencing, something about the past, or something about myself.” 
Monique Mitchell

[NO. 6]

“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.”
James Baldwin

WHAT IS THE MOST PROVOCATIVE THING SOMEONE HAS EVER ASKED YOU? 

For the sake of elegance, perhaps this is the other side of the question above. Provocative is defined by Merriam-Webster as [serving or tending to provoke, excite, or stimulate.] Provoke then is defined in part as [to call forth [a feeling, an action, etc.]. When I thus think of the most provocative thing someone has ever asked me, that voice is essentially the echo of asking myself if I am being loyal to what I know to be true. Whether I am listening to internal sirens, calling me out to the proverbial sea.

[ARE YOU LIVING ALONGSIDE AND IN HARMONY WITH YOUR OWN DEEP TRUTH?] 

To me this is as provocative as any question could be. It shines the spotlight on the choices that I am making to live a life that feels like my own. This question takes the blame off the ex, the boss, the child, the lover, the weather, the planetary alignments and all else we often seek to hold accountable for what we are experiencing. This question inspires honest reflection, [sometimes] discomfort and ideally action [or pause if that is the correct movement forward]. Are we paying attention to what is happening inside of us and acting accordingly? 

Contemplating what it means to live in tandem, in rhythm with honesty, is a thread throughout my work. I smile as I write this, because you know this. I believe truth is what makes everything tick, and once inner knowing is unlocked, we have two choices: we can either address it, or duck. Addressing what arises within us in this realm is often intertwined with other people, places, things. If we untie these knots, we are often asked to look at the creased rope, the places we have created impressions that have held our sense of safety and worth until this point. 

The bottom line here is that what happens inside of us is the most courageous space. It also can be the most provocative and activating space. Once we become more habitual about tending to that precious home, we can orient our focus on a sense of empowerment through our ability to act on what we know to be true. Then, it is not as if everything goes away, but everything falls into place.

“If I didn’t define myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”
Audre Lorde

When we die, which we inevitably will, then that [death] will also be true. So who will you be, what will you do, in the meantime? 

How we hold ourselves true might be the most avant-garde thing we could possibly do. When we build that studio, we have nowhere to hide. No reason not to create, to live. Instead of distracting ourselves, we tend to ourselves. We make things the world has never seen before; We become things the world has not yet been. 

We ever so bravely turn into our own true idols. 

[Amen.]

WHAT IS THE MOST COURAGEOUS QUESTION YOU HAVE EVER ASKED?