Writer/Artist/Athlete/Jen
Writer/Artist/Athlete/Jen
there is space for even more
I first called myself a writer when a friend casually used it to refer to me around 2010 after I’d been writing for about twenty-four years. I remember it feeling weird, like it was just dawning on me. Or I had never said it aloud in self-description. But I trusted her.
There are ideas of what things are and what they truly are. I find myself in a constant reconciliatory loop of this, first handling the idea that maybe a true writer was someone who published something. Received payment for writing. Required monetary evidence that their writing had value. “Wrote for realsies,” as a really good writer might say.
But when I heard it aloud, first by her and then by me when I paused, forced to unequivocally agree, I claimed that truth that always was. Now that—for the most part— I don’t need anyone to tell me what I am, and although the act of being a writer can be incredibly difficult, I can fully incorporate it into my being, relax into it. It’s what I do, what I’ve always done, and what brings me profound joy. Sometimes I do it well enough. Often it just feels more like practice for the idea of some vague future thing that won’t really turn out (another reconciliation). Which is probably a lot like what life is, in disguise. A trick it plays so it can say to you, “Ah ha! You see? You had it in you all along. It’s more about the process, etc.” (I like the idea of life adding an etcetera onto some important message.)
But I understand the joy in my journey, and can orient myself to that. I cheer myself on as I go, too. I celebrate the wins, the good turns of phrase, success of expression. At the very least, the catharsis of getting out the words that so desperately seek formation.
I was first called an artist by an acquaintance I happened to run into soon after moving back to Utah from New York about eight years ago. I knew her in High School and we shared the same friends but never quite made the leap ourselves. This day, I was dining with yet another mutual friend at a restaurant when this High School Acquaintance walked in with a friend of hers. She stopped by our table, greeted us, and introduced us to her friend (this is getting confusing. I’m doing my best here). The friend I was with had actually published some novels and I know this HSA was a writer herself.
She pointed to my friend, “This is ____ and she’s a writer, etc and this is my friend Jen from High School, and she’s… an artist!” Which I found to be a very giving introduction. We hadn’t been in touch since …ever and we maybe had a class or two together as teens. I know she can’t know too much about me. But even though she paused when she said it, kind of delighted I said,
“Why yes! I like that. Yes, I am an artist.”
Could this be how I’m seen? And also, does that matter? I decided to accept it. It’s important to note, however, that this was not the first time I felt like an artist. We attribute so much to the word and sadly there’s a lot of fear around it, but thankfully the truth of it expands so eternally, and the first time I felt like I was treated like an artist in a way I could recognize was by Sean, also known as “the artist,” (not formerly known as anything) who would not necessarily jump to even call himself that.
When we were engaged and he had begun art school at the Pratt Institute, I drew a drawing one day as a way to illustrate something. When he saw it he paused and commented on it seriously, like a piece to be considered. He gave it a little critique. He really liked it for reasons other than the original intention or anything to do with me. I’d never felt so honored, because he doesn’t patronize. And I’ve never lost that feeling from him. Maybe it’s his gift to see, and maybe that’s a shorthand definition of what an artist actually is, but he taught me how to do it too and to hold myself to different standards, and other definitions I might not have adopted before. And ever since, we have carried on in a special kind of peership, colleagues and collaborators through the working out of life together. To make someone feel loved is wonderful. To make someone feel like an artist might be the ultimate. Because it’s who we all are, really.
A few weeks ago I was heading up a project that involved some simple artistry. It was a massive project and I had some people helping including a neighbor who I am acquainted with and Sean, who I know very well. She proceeded to ask us questions about ourselves including my experience “as an artist.” Imagine my gleeful grin to Sean when we see I’m known as the artist in the family. I let this reality last as long as I could before saying, “You know, Sean does a little art as well.” She was surprised and turned to him,
“Oh! I didn’t know you were an artist too.”
Ha ha ha ha ha. Relish. I explained he went to art school and everything. Sean is never one to gloat but I might, so this worked out very well for everyone. I took it, and he let me.
When I was in 9th grade at my athletic peak in life, I sat behind a friend who made class fun. One day he turned around and we talked about labels we give each other and ourselves and I asked him what was mine and he thought for a minute and then said, “Maybe a brain? Or a jock?” It made me laugh. First, I knew my grades. Second- what! A jock? I guess I felt that had a negative connotation. But, amused, I considered it and I took that too, or some version of it.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked a friend if he played any sports. He said he used to. I said,
“Yes, same. I’m an athlete who doesn’t actually play anything. That’s how I self-identify.”
Which was a little sad and lame in a “we’re old” kind of way. But it was mostly funny and fine with me. I can call myself whatever I want. I know me better than anyone.
The making and defining of oneself is such a journey. I’m learning it takes a lot of flexibility. Right now I feel a dichotomy of “you can be what you want” and “you are who you are.” Another reconciliation? Maybe they don’t conflict.
It makes me think of the labels we acquire through our life. Ones we adopt, reject, or perhaps carry over into adulthood without even realizing it, assigned to us as children. Maybe there are some that transform, evolve, complicate. Obstruct. But I think I love experimenting with identifiers, trying them on, or letting them go. Challenging the ones that have sat like stones for too long. I practice not being afraid to assign one to myself nor believing that I don’t live up to it in some arbitrarily defined way. It’s very freeing, like I’m unlocking parts of me in steps, and realizing that maybe I get a say in that.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play some pickleball. I am an athlete, after all.