The Gift Exchange
A year ago in November, as I was walking back from the library under a long line of monkey pod trees on Kapiolani Blvd, a story popped into my head. It entered quite effortlessly although a bit jumbled-like a folder full of disorganized files. After I got home, I sketched it out and “file” by “file” every small element made its meaningfulness known to me in the flow of the process.
The main character looked like my little sister Suki from childhood wearing the same light blue nightgown and having distinct shaped hair. Her posture-unsure of herself-wasn’t an accident and wasn’t just her posture, it was my posture, and was to represent the struggle shared by many souls in this world trying to awaken and step fully into their truth. Every step is unfamiliar, you are unsure, and you have a thirst for a kind of support and reassurance that the world cannot quench.
Due to personal circumstances at that time of my life, I was made ready to step more fully into my own truth: that I am an artist. Why was it so hard to get here? Why is it so hard to come alive? To really wake up? I don’t know. But there is an overflowing amount of joy that seems to self-generate simply by my living my truth. The world is my ball of clay to fiddle with. And it’s not about the end result, it’s about the joy you feel holding that ball of clay and entering into the creative process.
In life we have roles, and I was always playing out numerous ones like daughter, sister, wife, teacher, and friend, but in the midst of all that I wasn’t living my truth. It’s a very spiritual feeling that is difficult to describe aside from the special kind of “knowing” you just experience directly from the heart. It’s not like I’d never heard the saying that you should “follow your heart.” I think a lot of us do. However, I now feel a kind of pull that suggests that true authenticity means aligning one’s choices and actions more fully with the heart. It isn’t enough to follow it in its general directional pull, we can aspire to merge with it to really “satisfy” our unique nature and constitution. What that looks like for me-an artist and storyteller-is always going to be different from what it looks like for others on different paths, but what is the same is the bravery it takes for us to hold fast to our respective truths in a hyper-stimulating world of endless influences.
Line by line as I scrambled to illustrate this story in time for Suki’s birthday last December, I held tight to that truth and watched myself really surrender to the creative process for perhaps the first time. It used to be about working hard, but now it’s about working hard to surrender. We are not our thoughts, or emotions. We are our nature: the language of the heart and soul. We need to listen to that language and become fluent in order to really grasp the capacity we all have to give of ourselves in the most meaningful way. It is my intention for the “If souls could talk” visual narrative series to attempt to touch on some of the universal symbolism of that language.
We are now in the midst of the “season of giving.” It can be a synonymous time with feeling that we aren’t giving enough, and sensing that the amount we really want to give is sadly beyond our capacity. This year, let’s not feel that way. May we all find joy and thanks in being ourselves and knowing that that is enough <3
