The Sun Is Shining So I Think I'll Go Outside

I was a very quiet child. Growing up my brother Paul, who was 8 years older and more jovial, teased me relentlessly about being the “freak” of the family. I enjoyed car rides without music. I spent countless hours closed off in my room, making up elaborate stories in my mind. There were characters with specific names like Dennis and Cherry. I played out scenarios, made up relationships, and crafted beautiful islands more than once. As a pre-teen, I began to record these stories in a stack of diaries with tiny golden keys. When I lived in my first apartment, I enjoyed staring at the ceiling or out my 3rd story window– taking from the trees, cars, and people who passed. Even today my imagination eats the quiet. 

Most people I interact with on a daily basis know very little of my artistic side. To the common acquaintance or friend, I have a steady job that seems interesting on the periphery. I homeschool my 3 kids who, at their tender ages of 8, 7 and 5, continue to require a large portion of my attention. I have a clean-ish house, a family dog–a  somewhat “normal” American life. Purposefully, the artist is missing from the picture. To anyone on the outside looking in, my life is a diorama– an illusion. The backdrop I live by can only be seen through the space of everything else. I paint the sky to be lost. My womanhood has always been first in line–woman as mother and feminist. I had fallen under the spell of capitalism: If my art wasn’t making money–if I wasn’t on a constant quest to be published, I wasn’t a real writer, a real artist. 

For as long as I can remember, my poems lived in the bathtub, hidden from judgment, safe from the label of difference. Yet, they were always there. There was a time when creating for myself was enough. I didn’t long for anyone else to read my poems. When I needed breaks from the real world, I held prose behind my back, shading pictures with desire. 

Then I saw my mistake. Day-to-day obligations began to eclipse my authentic self and I became bitter. Days would multiply and I often found myself with zero time to write. Then, the clouds would come. As any artist knows, there is a bargaining process in each of us that must be managed–one which balances dark and light. When I don’t tend to my inner voice, I am moonless. I grow large and press into a landscape of too much. I don’t brush my hair. The sun shines and I lock myself in the bathroom. I needed a real way to infuse artistic expression into each day for my own sanity. I longed for more artists to talk to, to lean on; I needed a safe space to be “the freak.” 

Gossamer Arts was an idea born from two writers wanting to showcase the importance of transparency. Even though our literary magazine is still in its infancy, the prospects of growing an authentic community, sharing work with fellow artists, and infusing more play and wonder into the mundane parts of human life is hope that flows from a cup. Hannah and I met in 2015 through a mutual appreciation for attachment parenting. We slowly realized we had way more in common for our connection to be a mere coincidence. This year, too many synchronicities led us to create Gossamer Arts from a steadfast need for more: more beauty, more colors, more gleam. Like so many others, something burns in both of us that needs stoking. Parenting is revered. Work has purpose. But art runs water through the mind. Art makes life so much more beautiful than it is without.

Image Credit -

Pippa Blake, "Flightpath III"

Owen Gent, "Kernow"

Peter Schmidt, 1965