This week’s column links two entries from “Double Take,” from May and July 2017. Both entries explore how, when faced with adversity, some people fail miserably at giving up. You read that right. Some people call it “perseverance” but I prefer “failing at giving up.” It’s more accurate.

I have a lot of experience with this. I give up all the time. Daily actually. Despite all this practice, I suck at it. If I must resign myself to a new limitation, I pout for a while, even a day or two, but then find myself scheming a new way to get from A to B, because it’s the pathway that broke down, not the destination.

You don’t quit writing because your pencil lead broke. You don’t quit painting because new eyeball fog has rolled in. You kick and scream. You throw your tools and toys across the room. You feign quitting.

But if you were a real writer or painter or musician in the first place, you will suck at quitting.

Despite vision challenges, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, and O’Keeffe all failed to give up. That’s why they are my heroes.

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Resilience: May 14, 2017 – Mother’s Day, Red River Theatre – “Exhibition-on-Screen” series
Before the show starts, the interior of this movie theatre is dimly lit and visually boring. I have time to kill, and an itch to sketch, so I draw my own hand.

The theatre is already packed, buzzing with anticipation. A full house yet again for the next in this wonderful art-film series, this time it’s “I, Claude Monet.” The film is about Monet’s inner world more than about his life as a famous artist. In it, he states,

“The future seems very black… doubt has overtaken me… I think I am lost.”

That resonates with me: the drive to create, to draw, to see, to express, to doubt. Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, O’Keeffe all had well-known eyesight problems later in life. It wasn’t what drew them to be artists, but if they were anything like me, it brought out the fighter in them, made them dig their heels in and silently declare, “One more painting, damn it; just one more.”

The good news is there is no cure for this compulsion to look, look again, and take symbolic notes that turn into sketches that are drawn, painted, or both. I understand the obsession, the relentless drive.

“Talent” is only the beginning; it is an un-scratchable itch that some are born with.
“Skill” is the work part, it’s what you do about that itch.
“Talent” gets you out of the parking lot.
“Skill” drives you to the land of your dreams, in exhausted bliss.

~~~~~

Positive Resignation: July 1, 2017—six weeks later
Unstable eyesight has brought with it the gift of urgency and an odd sort of mental clarity. I’ve made some big decisions, and the relief is extraordinary. I resigned from one volunteer job and from my paid part-time job. I am clearing the decks, preparing for the day I have to give up my driver’s license because I can no longer pass the vision test. Mind-boggling.

After those “resignations,” I am “re-signing” a contract with myself.

It starts with kindly saying “no thanks” to any outside activities that would kick my creative plans farther down the road. I don’t have much time left to see the way I can see today, and I am the one who needs to understand and act on that. It is up to me to set priorities now.

I keep getting the metaphor image in my head of the nice person in the grocery store check-out line who happily lets others go ahead of her because, well, they only have a few items, and well, they look like they’re in a rush. When that metaphor expands, and when that person is me, many of my heartfelt dreams on my to-do list are still untouched by the end of the day, at which time I’m out of energy, saying, “Oh well, there’s always tomorrow…”

But is there? If I learned anything from David’s death less than three years ago, and from this recent retinal trouble, it’s that there’s not always a tomorrow. Every dent in my eyesight is a nudge asking me, “So, Bobb, is there anything else you want to do while you can still see, hmmm?”

Resignation can feel like liberation, though.

I wonder what will rise to the surface once I create new space in my diary/planner. I’m sixty-four. It’s time. I’ve scrambled my whole working life to make ends meet, going from one job to another, but never managing to cobble together anything like a career because I’ve been paying off medical debts my entire adult life. A moment of lapsed medical insurance would have made both of my eyes a “pre-existing condition,” so I stayed in dead-end jobs just for the insurance. I couldn’t think straight long enough to come up with a better plan, because having an unexpected eye surgery every couple of years kicked the living hope out of me. I lowered both my eyes and my dreams.

Now I’m coming off yet another set of medical emergencies with my poor little eyeballs. I think doing much less, at a slower pace, might be just what the doctor, or God, ordered.

Slowing down doesn’t come naturally. I’ve been a scrambler from as far back as I can remember. I’ve worked for five decades so far, and I never caught up with the rabbit of fiscal safety.

It’s time to step aside and pause beside the edge of the dog track for at least a few months and let the rabbit run once around the track without me. Some days, bed, a novel, and a cup of tea are the best approach. Until I can think straight, that’s what I’m planning to do.

(to be continued…)

Note from today, seven years later: Trust your gut. Because of that 2017 decision, I made the time to write and publish three books, one of them a best seller, despite even more vision loss. I also fell in love with writing this blog. And best of all, most days I love my life. Give it a try if you like: start carrying a journal for stress management. See what your pen is dying to tell you. It’s smarter than you think.

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As always, thanks for spending some time with me “aloft.” Happy sketching!