Finding My Self, Back in School (Yet Again), 24” x 24” mixed media/panel

For me, painting is a form of journaling. It’s sorting life out. It’s playing. It’s exploring, discovering. And because it leaves a material trace of the decisions, a physical path, each painting becomes a sort of record. In essence it documents a journey. Silence can be more potent than words. Colors and textures and line can convey things directly, in ways narrative imagery can not. 

Like the way our lives unfold, sometimes a painting moves in a steady flow. Other times the way is staggered; we take a few steps forward and then fall back. Or other things require our attention. Despite our fervent intentions, old habits may bedevil us, and can fill us with feelings of disappointment, embarrassment, or regret.  Endlessly in school. But in my paintings and life, there’s a glimmer of hope in the awareness and acceptance of my imperfect, switchback route.

This piece is a sort of quiet tapestry. It felt complete enough months ago that I shared it in a show. I was delighted some dear friends purchased it. Unwished for circumstances have delayed getting it to them. During this time the personal challenges of letting go, over and over, had me despondent and adrift. I was not pulled to paint.

So it sat, in plain view, as my soul reeled and rested, a conspicuous mute witness. All the while I kept looking at this piece, thinking and not thinking. When first made it was a spontaneous effort, direct and honest, like a burst of emotions we may share in conversation. In retrospect it lacked a coherent wholeness. It’s appealing fresh impetuosity revealed a lack of patience. I sensed a failure to “listen.”  I recognized all this, but felt stuck, fearful about attempting to alter it. 

Finally, this week, for the first time in nearly two months, I found the courage to attend to what for so long didn’t feel right. Trusting that my friends who’d made the purchase would encourage me to follow my gut, I tentatively took some gentle steps, made some temporary intuited adjustments — and all at once it felt more “right”, more spacious and harmonious. And so this imperfect painting will soon be delivered to its new owners’ home. 

We all need to honor our limits and our need to recharge. But also, no matter how hard we try, we’ll never create our best self solely by plotting the future, or dwelling in the past. We’ve all accumulated missteps; our task is to build on them. When I come into acceptance, show up in the school of now; my authentic unseparated self appears, and I can share in the dance of living. 

www.johnwiercioch.com

It soothes me to partake in energy from the non-human world. It feels best to do this in silence; how else can one hear the field sparrows, glimpse the trout breeching the river’s surface, or catch the crickets’ song? Very occasionally I’ve come across folks who are comfortable sharing quiet with me.  A bond instantly forms when I sense someone is able to be at ease in this. Being with my son immediately comes to mind. Somehow just being and wordlessly experiencing with another, for me, makes the sharing more potent. It feels a great and precious gift. 

And rare. We don’t nurture it in our culture. We declare people should “be direct!” —but the abstraction of words demands a point of view, and suggests separate interpretations, and so clouds Being. Sensing presence requires not thinking, or “communicating,” or even responding, rather it silently invites an open communion of feeling. In this way it softly reveals our unspoken bonds. 

So these days, I often absorb and recharge while wandering on my own. I also mostly work alone. Which means I spend a great deal of my life in quiet. I don’t think I’m a misanthrope; I can engage with most folks, and truly enjoy hearty conversation. I’m a decent listener, can even be chatty, and often learn from dialogue with others. Generally I measure as between introvert and extrovert on the scales. But applying the standard extrovert/introvert rubric “do you recharge through being with people or being alone” clearly qualifies me as a version of the latter. 

Lately I feel critical of and less attracted to social media. Maybe because I’ve suddenly lost some friends and loved ones — real losses, not social media “unfriendings” — but hard-to-bear, heart-challenging adjustments of minimized calls, correspondence, or contact; in some cases, that severest of transitions, death. I suspect grieving all such losses makes one reconsider what’s real and genuine. 

Yet I also seem to have a need (or strong desire) to share what brings me joy. And hypocritically I end up sharing on social media! Is this now our only avenue of exchange, or simply the most convenient one? Or is it the way that gives us a dopamine rush most instantaneously and efficiently? 

But beyond the means, I wonder, what drives my desire to share? Is it an introvert’s safe way to balance an inner insecurity, a need to be seen or heard in my social circle, without actually showing up to a meeting in a circle? If we were having more genuine exchanges, if we really were sharing and felt heard, would we still be so desperate to abstractly post about living? I wonder, if I was sharing wordless experiences with others, would I still feel the need to use words to articulate or express the experience here or elsewhere?… 

Or is sharing in any form, about minor concerns, huge worries, great celebrations, or small joys simply intrinsic to being an engaged vital human? In lieu of physical contact, maybe it’s a healthy lifeline that sustains our connections until we are pulled from the seas of isolation—when we recover our footing enough to wordlessly share our stories, be truly touched by offering our direct physical presence to another. 

Often I’m at peace sharing my presence solely with the non-human world. I can savor the exchange while wandering woods or sitting on my haunches at the edge of a river. This evening I enjoyed the crisp autumn air, slowly chirping crickets, the waving golden grasses, shimmering jade ripples, watched the sky itself transition from azure to rosy crimson. But having recently not been given an option about letting go of a few loved ones (with each of whom I could effortlessly share silence), I recognized I’m not a fully realized hermit, not quite yet. 

Nonetheless even as I ached about not sharing the rich and beautiful communion of evening with each of those now distanced, inexplicably, I believe we did.