only one step at a time
i made this in 2016!!!
you can only take one step at a time. one foot in front of the other. does this sound blandly obvious? it’s true. you shine the flashlight and it only goes three feet in front of you. actually — it’s not a flashlight. it’s an old oil lantern. sometimes, I’m really frustrated by the limitation of this oil lantern. I want to see the entire road lit clear with street lamps. I don’t want to trip.
but if an entire road were lit with street lamps — if you knew how each job would turn out, how each romance would end (or not end), what each endeavor would yield; if you knew exactly what to do at every step of the way, would you be bored? I would. I would enjoy the security at first, and then, eventually, I would get restless. to know the entire path — the conclusion to every plot — would take the drama out of life.
darkness is fun. until it makes you cry. and then you accept it — and it’s fun again. after all — you have your oil lamp, no? and when you fully trust in that lantern, it feels like living at the edge of life — where possibility and vulnerability meet. that’s where the fire begins.
right now, traveling indefinitely, I am living the extreme version of this — not just with my work, but with my physical body. where will I be in a month, in three months, in six months? I don’t know. it’s a daily practice in surrendering.
four years ago, I hand-lettered the quote above for in my advice for creatives series:
where was I, four years ago, when I created that?
I was 24 years old — two years out of college.
I had just quit my job, and was three months into working for myself
I was doing creative coaching and hustling for graphic design work
I was taking evening design classes at School of Visual Arts
I was living in a one-bedroom apartment in NYC with my first boyfriend
I was feeling anxious about the relationship, my work, the future, etc etc.
and then what? then a whirlwind of things happened the next four years that led me here. if you told me everything that would happen to me, I wouldn’t believe you. even if I did, I would have panicked about all of it. so thank god I didn’t know. thank god for the mystery of life.