When my head is filled with scraps of conversations and hints of tasks undone, let me manage something simple:
Let me dispose of the papers that have accumulated on one surface—my computer desk.
Let me answer the letter from the young artist who is incarcerated in a Texas prison, “re: Seeking Helpful info/Artist Representation.”
But what do I tell him?
He would like me to give him the 1, 2, 3 steps to successful art marketing, or better yet, to direct potential clients his way.
I get requests from young artists all the time, but they are usually through email. I send them links to possible venues for sales and online art business advice. But this one is different.
What tools does he have access to? He says, “Despite my present circumstances, I am utilizing my time wisely creating hi-quality, highly collectable art pieces. The skills that I have are marketable, this I know.”
He sounds confident, but exhaustion settles over me. I don’t know how to answer this young man.
So I search online for arts organizations in Amarillo, Texas, where he is incarcerated. Perhaps there is someone from a local art association who might be willing to meet with him, to look at his art, and give him some advice?
Based on my online search, there doesn’t seem to be an art association or any other cultural organization in Amarillo, Texas. So then I wonder where exactly Amarillo is. In relation to what?
I know nothing about Texas. Adrian and I drove through it once when we moved from Florida to San Diego. The air changed from humid to dry along the way.
But that’s a digression. Back to helping the young incarcerated artist, I wonder if I have anything useful to say to him at all.
Probably not if the only reason I’m even trying is in order to clear the clutter from my desk—to remove his letter, the photo he sent me, and the SASE he enclosed for my convenience.
I think I’d better put the letter and the photo back in his envelope and set them aside. I can’t deal with this kind of problem today.
I look at a few other scraps of paper on my desk: notes I jotted down for the play I’m writing. They seem too important to throw out, but not important enough to retype into the file I’ve started called “Play Notes.”
As I look around at the miscellaneous scraps of paper, typed and handwritten notes, a napkin, a calculator, pen and stapler, I realize that the clutter is not on my desk, but in my head.
At first I think, it’s Sunday afternoon. I’m allowed to feel cluttered, or to simply walk away from the clutter.
I can take a walk. I can read a book. I can watch a movie.
Yes, I can walk away from the clutter on my desk, but not from the clutter in my mind.
It is just there.
And so, remembering the words of Pema Chodron I read this morning, I will attempt to allow this feeling--unsettling and dissatisfying as it is—to just be there.
I won’t solve the world’s problems today.
I won’t educate the prisoner in Amarillo, Texas about marketing his art.
I won’t organize the papers that have accumulated on my desk.
I won’t manage even one simple thing.
