Oversharing
[a drawing i did last spring - an intricate nest with handwritten text: 'there is a lot of room for honesty in love.']
When I was younger, I held this romanticized ideal for myself to be private and mysterious and tough; I wanted to be someone with “sexy problems” that were invisible to all but the few trusted folk who knew me best. There's a romantic archetype for this, is there not? Perhaps it's bound up in the bootstraps individualism mentality of the states. But hey, let's be real: I am just not ever going to be that sexy-problems person. This morning I was staring out the magical window watching the wind flick rain onto the glass and listening to it howl over the grey city and thinking about this fear I have of being an oversharer. A seagull flew past.
Finally it struck me how ludicrous that whole concept of oversharing is! Like what even...? I know what it's referring to – those people who miss the social cues when someone isn't listening anymore, or who let their realness spill out in a social situation where they're supposed to pretend to be normal. But hang on a sec... oversharing?! Isn't sharing something to celebrate; isn't it an act of generosity and abundance?
I am reading a book that talks about craftsmanship and guilds in the middle ages, when apparently things were less competitive and more sharing / collaborating / hospitality oriented. This whole stigma against oversharing feels connected to modern-day capitalism in some way – part of a system in which you protect what's yours, keep to yourself, deal with things on your own or in your nuclear family, and don't let your 'competition' see your 'weakness.'
Yesterday I spent a long time on a squeaky stool in the puppet centre workshop, licking little pieces of parcel tape and sticking them to a giant cardboard head of the Indian God, Ganesh, in order to smooth the creases and cracks before the resin and fiberglass are applied. It was so lovely and meditative, and I got to ask Malcom, the director of the centre, all kinds of questions (hard questions), which he answered honestly and thoughtfully. This man has spent a lifetime as an artist, performer, craftsman, researcher, and educator. So much experience, and so generous in sharing. We talked about practice, apprenticeship, balance, joy, compromise, artistic integrity. Maintaining gardens, sketchbooks, and perpetual openness. I cherish these conversations. People are so full of wisdom and tenderness and knowledge and I am so grateful for the calm, grounded afternoons in which to remember this.
Slowly but surely, this year is teaching me to admit that I am an artist, and to celebrate it with all the fear and uncertainty and joy and wildness that brings to me. Being an “artist” means different things to different people, but one of its primary meanings for me has to do with the impulsive, ongoing, urgent search in myself and in the world for the real things and the tender things and the human things. The persistent need to collect those things, observe them, nurture them, combine them, express them, see what they have to teach me.
A question that comes up a lot for me in speaking with artists and performers is how do we continually make the risk of offering up our brains, bodies, hearts, and souls to an audience in a sustainable way? I have boundaries, and that is something I think about often and gently. There are things I like to keep to myself, or process on my own before sharing with others. Still though, I want to share. I enjoy sharing. It connects me to others and offers me infinitely more ways of making sense of my experiences.
Why is sharing your inner world often considered self indulgent, while sharing your money or food or home is considered generous? Is it all that different? Is my inner world what gives me sustenance, what houses my spirit or soul or whatever it is that makes me me? I want to share fearlessly and recklessly and with so much love. I want to share the tangled, confused parts of me and I want to see and hear and love the tangled, confused parts of others. I want to be brave enough to invite people into my world and to explore other people's worlds with as much humanity as possible when I am lucky enough to be invited in.
So hey, hi, come in, come in! I will steep some nettle-questions into tea for us, I will make a soft bed of feelings that we can rest in, perhaps later we can walk along the cliffs and look into the inky ocean of your dreams. Let's share and share and share and make a home out of this.
