Most Sincerely,

Its taken me nearly all morning to get up the nerve to start writing. At the moment I feel very close to what a tight rope walker must experience walking high above the earth. One foot in front of the other, balance, stay calm, focus, walk ahead. The external transition that internal shifting often times brings has become realized. I find myself a bit in awe at where I now stand, and the new responsibilities that follow.

I am now a formal student of college. It has been quite awhile since I've been able to say that. I've been a student of life this whole time, but undertaking formal education once again has startled me. As the reality of classes begins to settle in I find myself riddled with self doubt, depreciation, and fear of failure. I don't believe I fear the literal failure of classes, I've always been a pretty good student, more so I fear failing myself, not meeting up to my own expectations of what my mind is capable. I think about completing assignments, about completing them perfectly, about coming to a concise and ultimately right conclusion about the topic at hand. I shutter. I am daunted. Moment to moment I must remind myself to remain calm. That, and there is no such thing as "perfect."

It seems when it rains it does pour, for as I have started classes my mind and heart have begun to come alive with more artistic fervor than I have experienced in awhile. I am constantly running through my tick sheet of projects I would like to start, have started, and have yet to finish. I am so full of ideas it is almost detrimental. Where do I begin? And furthermore, deceptive doubt niggles at me that once I begin I will not be able to carry through to "perfection." I hope that I am not the only artist that feels undermined, at times, by their temperament. It is a blessing and a curse alike-- that inner critic constantly crying for perfection. It drives me and defies me.

Also, I have been so inspired here lately by some recent finding on the internet. They too are a double edged sword, sparking the fire of creativity all the while making me feel inadequate. I must focus on the sparks, the fire, the moment to moment bliss of new discover-- how a string of words form a sentence that nearly dances with eloquence, the texture of a biscuit slathered with a smudge of peanut butter working its way across my tongue and settling like comfort in the well of my belly, the bliss of falling deeper into like with a musician that has been the soundtrack to so much of my life, and the excitement of picking up my camera again and seeing. It is these individual moments of clarity that I wish to live in. Not the moments of doubt that wear on my heart like a worried hangnail. Not the solicitous whispers of inadequacy that tires my ears with their murmurs. I wish to live in the wonderment of evolving-- for truly there is no greater wonder that that of growth.