50. It’s coming fast.

Some days its bothersome-in the way this modern culture has taught it to be-

getting old~

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Most days it just is, though.

And

when I let it be, and let me be in it, it is a tool

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this turning, this next.

It is a point for contemplation and consideration.

For deep exploration and rebirth; if I let it be.

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And I will.

I am.

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I’ve been thinking back on my divorce-

on my two years in Australia-

These two major events marked the road through my previous decade and made me much of who I am.

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The divorce; turning me into an entirely different, altogether deeper, finer, richer and more real person than I even knew was in me.

The capacity that the divorce forced-

to change, to grow, to shed a skin I thought was a true and real me-stuns me still.

I had no idea this me was in me all along.

It takes a great squeezing, a forcing in and through, sometimes against ones very will, to come out the other side and see the light~

This happens in big-life ways like divorce, and in everyday life ways…

Australia I look back to with similar awe,

but a furthering-on of, rather than an all new becoming.

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In Australia I was again wearing a skin. It was where I put on a coat of who I was, and had become in the world and wore it protectively throughout the two years journey. Australia was where I stumbled and struck out my way to keep this skin whole and fresh.

This skin-coat kept me warm, safe, cocooned.

I didn’t have to be or do anything other than wear it, this coat of encaustic artist, author, international instructor, everyday. And if I did this, just this, I was fulfilling my life purpose

to that point.

Cocooned in this comfortable skin.

Cocoon; a place of transformation, but also a place of hiding.

I was cocooned in this skin-coat of my storied self and wore this for two years.

Like so many others before me and alongside me, I was settling for where I’d been, and carrying it into where I was trying to go. It no longer was my cocoon but my cell…

This skin-coat was meant to be worn when needed; not for a long duration over many miles and changes~

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Fast forward two years. Now.

Turning 50.
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Stepping back from the insecurities, the doubts, the fears, the wearying, the carrying of the past decade

and simply (forced to be) doing what life brings my way;

through John not getting employment as swiftly as we’d hoped upon return-

through buying an ancient house and turning it into a blessed home-

through arriving here and needing things that most people in adulthood already would have: furniture, vehicle, warm clothing-

through ‘taking a year off’ and finding that a year off was a harder endurance race than anything I’d ever run before-

I faced my self in that ‘off’, and wasn’t sure I could stand it~

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The skin was starting to flake and fall away

and the person underneath frightened me.

I didn’t know who she was.

If not encaustic artist, then who?

If not author, then what?

If not international instructor, then why?…

Where was the difference I would get to make in the world…?

Being forced did several things:

It made my consciousness shut up and do what had to be done to survive.

It allowed my subconsciousness get a word in edgewise, finally.

It forced me to put my hand, thanks to necessity of survival, to new things and ways I wouldn’t have otherwise naturally picked up

and I discovered I liked it.

Loved it.

and was very good at it.

And I started to hear that subconscious voice telling me things I needed to hear….

and began wondering if I was hearing real things….

and decided to trust them, and see what would come.

And here I am, at 50, two years removed from the stripping down of this skin I’d been coated in so seemingly comfortably for the previous decade, looking into where I am, and where I get to go.

I am an encaustic artist, author and international instructor.

Not because I call myself this.

Not because I use it as my short, succinct bio, but

because the world holds a place for me in this capacity, and when I step into it-the next place that opens before me-

with confidence, trust and persistence,

it is my world I am living.

And it is a skin I fit.

And it goes much deeper, much thicker, than the one I put on and wore.

Same coat if you look at me.

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Entirely different design and quality of craftsmanship~

It is my difference.

This is why I EncaustiCamp. This is why I pbsartistOPENStudio.

This is why I am

in love.

trish