On disappointment

Or, how I learned to love the hard times

I started writing last week with every intention of publishing for three consecutive weeks, but that week was tender. Good Crafternoon, my fledgling craft school, has cut the umbilical cord from Brooklyn Collective and is now floating the void of the pop-up space.

In normal words, I moved my table and art supplies out of the space and rented a storage unit a block from my house where the table and art supplies now await their next outing in climate controlled comfort.

I went through some mourning and a bit of grief because I had high hopes for the arrangement to work out, but alas, it didn’t. It was a good reminder to let go of expectations. In my craft classes, especially with the introductory levels, I urge people to let go of their expectations, if they can. Expectations pave a direct path to disappointment. It’s a foolproof way to feel like a fool (derogatory).

I’ve been working on my relationship to disappointment lately. It used to be, when I felt disappointment, that meant something about me as a human was actually very rotten and I would hope for a bed of compost to finish out my life as a rotten person among rotting things. If I caused disappointment in someone else, well, that would have meant I didn’t deserve a bed of compost but a bed of carnivorous ants to polish my bones. Either type of disappointment would manifest as grave crying jags in childhood, evolved to self-destructive behaviors like heavy drinking and less-than-safe choices in young adulthood, and most recently has developed into deeply aggressive emotional eating of ice cream and avoidance of things like writing this newsletter or doing my laundry. My brain, which is the WORST roommate, goes, “Why take care of yourself when you’re such a rotten, rotten being?”

This is where my External Brain becomes useful: it literally shows me I am not a complete and utter waste of flesh. It reminds me that I am not failing or even flailing. It shows me that I’m in process, that my business is still new, that I am worth caring for. This is an unexpected side effect of doing the Externalization. I’m not mad at it!

Earlier this year, for an artist’s residency application, I put together a curriculum vitae, which was utterly terrifying. Do you even know how many jobs I’ve had? I mean, shit, do I? The answer is no. I don’t know all the jobs I’ve had. It’s hard for me to keep track even now, especially as I have embraced my neurodivergent need for novelty and have commodified all of my skills. Tax time is a draaaaag, but I digress. The C.V. was looming. I had to do it. I didn’t want to and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I have four different resumes for different fields of work. How was I supposed to bring that together into a cohesive and understandable document? When in doubt: art it out. Also: deadlines are a helluva drug. I made it an art project and I had to finish it within a couple days. I opened up Canva, I picked a template, and then I let myself play. I made my C.V. cute as hell. Here’s a screenshot of the first page (of six):

Once I was done, I looked at it as though I was a hiring manager, and I really liked what I saw. This candidate has done so many things! She has so many skills! She is clearly fun! I had this preconceived notion (read: expectation) that a C.V. should be sleekly academic or high-level professional. In fact, curriculum vitae literally means “the course of life” in Latin (which I studied for ten years, but this fact didn’t make it into the document). The course of my life is actually really well-represented by torn paper, dried flowers, and held together by pins and tape.

If, instead, I can lean into exploration, I’m more likely to pave a path to joy. I’m a fool for joy. These past two weeks, I’ve allowed myself to find flow where I can, to rest when I need to, and to let go of expectations like I ask my students to. I’ve continued to be productive, even though I’ve felt disappointment. Not everything goes right all the time - that’s so rare as to be nearly impossible. Recognition of this has given my brain and heart space to witness disappointment as a step toward growth. So, I’m sorry I didn’t post last week, but I was doing some important work that wouldn’t have allowed these words to come out.

Accountability Tracking

This week, I started taking a clowning class at The People’s Improv Theater, where I took a few weeks of a sketch writing class before the pandemic shutdown. I then took a bunch of improv classes online with The PIT during the shutdown, which changed my whole attitude toward comedy. I continued with the online solo show writing course, which spawned “Cooking Up C.U.T.E.,” which is on my External Brain to send to Mark Pagán (author of “Other Men”) for feedback. I quit stand up because it was, ironically, too strict of an artistic modality. Clown has always been a low hum in the background, and it’s wonderful to return to it as an adult who needs to just do the stupidest stuff for fun. I frogged the Tunisian top (for non-crafters, this is the unceremonious ripping out of the work you have done) because I learned that I straight up did not do it right. It’s so easy for me to start craft projects over because I’m not precious about sticks and string. I will try applying this perspective to everything else. There’s more, but this is long and self-indulgent. Bye.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for taking the time to see me. Let me know what you want to know more about in the comments.