When you open up to spirit, creativity is limitless. In order to manifest it, we must ignite our passion for truth, which illuminates our underground excavations.
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I am still very much attuned to my own inner child and that part of me easily connects to children. Even if my spanish is awkward and the room is chaotic, just being with children is a very good thing for the soul. Each week for the rest of the year, I brought a new project to do with the kids.
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I have come to realize that at this point my only real chance to have a true cross cultural experience here in Baja (which is so full of gringos and so influenced by American culture) is through my involvement with the Elias Calles preschool. Even though I feel shy and intimidated, and struggle with communication, I push through it all knowing that this a great opportunity.
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I have been wanting to share my experience of the Elias Calles Jardin de Ninos, the tiny little preschool that my son Emilio attends. He started at 4 years old. And now he is 5 and a half. This will be his final year there, and we will then move onto the primary school, which is next door. The kids of both schools share the same school yard.
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It’s been five days since I have left the house.
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This morning we learn a hurricane is coming—Odile. A category 4, with 125 mile an hour winds, which would be the most ferocious hurricane of recorded history to hit this peninsula.
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I trained myself to be more disciplined, I challenged myself to be more alive. I awoke myself to the mysteries of natural life. I dared myself to share what was shameful. I flirted with exposing parts of myself to the public eye. I got curious about what it was like to take my art more seriously and myself less seriously.
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How beautifully simple life was when we camped here. Not that it was easy, but it was a special and peaceful time. I realize how lucky I was to have lived in nature while I was pregnant--ocean, mountains, desert, and also: dessert.
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It came to me a few years ago. The idea for a clothing line that was so local it was named after the area code.
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Making art was no longer about ego gratification and being clever, but it became a soul need. It became a way of living. A way of making meaning out of life, so that I could have a more playful, creative relationship with myself, and with others. It was a way to take myself less seriously, but at the same time take my feelings more seriously. I found something I really believed in. Making art in this way is magical, deep and satisfying.
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I have always had an ambivalent relationship with the visual Art World. Even though my mother is a painter, with an MFA in art, and I was a Studio Art major in college and grew up in New York City, getting to go to some of the finest museums and galleries in the world and I have dedicated to my life to the study, practice and teaching of the arts, there was a clear moment when I decided that I would not become a professional visual artist in the traditional sense. I knew, somehow, that I did not want to make art to sell in museums or galleries. I have had a few pieces in shows here and there, but really, it has not been my goal. This project ZOELAB is the most I’ve put myself out there as an artist in my life.
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Sometimes we get what we want, and we rejoice.
Sometimes we get what we want, and fear makes us recoil.
Sometimes we don’t get what we want, and we learn and grow.
Sometimes we don’t get what we want, and we turn against ourselves.
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The other lessons that came from Alexander were cultural. One day, sometime in the mid eighties, while waiting for the bus in Brooklyn, Alexander turned to me and gravely stated: “Promise me, Zoë, that you will never wear designer jeans.” I asked him why, and he said, “just promise me.” So I promised him.
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In honor of his visit, I want to write a post about the person who had the biggest idealogical influence on me during my coming of age--my older brother, Alexander. Just last night, we were having an intense conversation about how freeand authentic I feel in our new life in the desert, and how strange and surprising it is that my life has taken this direction. I found myself confessing how deeply anti-capitalist I’ve become. At first, I sensed a hint of defensiveness on his part--as he had just confessed to his recent shopping spree in LA.
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We took Emilio to a Halloween party for kids at a local bar/cafe. Lucas had found a very official-looking NASA space suit at a thrift store in California--it just happened to fit Emilio perfectly. After we already had the suit, he said he wanted to be Spiderman, but we had no time to make him a Spiderman costume, so he had to be spaceman instead.
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The Office got me through the last long days of pregnancy and the first painful months of motherhood.
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And we heal ourselves through our creativity, through our interactions with our world, through being present, curious and compassionate. The arts lend themselves so beautifully to cultivating these very qualities, the conditions for healing.
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It’s a new day. And now, as I write, Emilio, Georgie (4) and Vinnie (6) (another Friday night sleepover) are getting a special Saturday morning treat: they are watching The Muppets. The new one that came out in 2011. I love this film—as a Muppet fan, I find, in its sincere and hearty goofiness, that it stays true to the original Muppet credo.
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The main, if not totally conscious, reason I chose to do this project of blogging 365 days for a year, was to knock myself out of the indelible, lifelong habit of whiling away the evening (the most precious free time of the day, especially for a parent) watching television.
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