Boodaism
This is for all the times I’ve stopped myself by trying to write something smart or profound.
This is for all the times I had to stop making art because the bills on my desk got too loud to ignore.
This is for all the times I tried to write something people would like, or share, but instead just stared at my computer screen.
This is for all the articles I didn’t write, because they might offend people or make my parents cringe.
This is for the kid who got an “F” in art class because she didn’t follow the directions.
This is for the high school music department that has to justify their funding requirements to a society that doesn’t always understand how important it is to raise a generation of artists.
This is for the man who told me at age five he was singing freely in church, until his grandmother turned to him and said “Jesus wouldn’t want you to sing like that” and he never sang again.
This is for the reader that emailed me to say what I do matters, at the moment when I felt like giving up.
This is for me, for showing up every week to create things I love, even though sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s work, and sometimes I don’t get rewarded for it.
This is for me, because I believe that beauty is what makes life worth living, and if I continue to make that a priority, I’ll die happy and fulfilled.
This is for me, because I have no editor, no publisher and no one to censor what I do.
This is for me because every time I look at this website’s archive, I feel proud that I showed up and did my part. I stuck to my values and made creative output my highest priority in life. Not because it’s the right thing to do, not because it validates my existence, but because I think it would be a tragedy if I didn’t.
To me, the ability to make art is at the core of what it means to be human. It’s the thing that’s never urgent, but always important. It’s totally optional and yet on some level absolutely essential. There are a lot of meaningful things in life but to me art is different. It’s not meaningful, it’s the thing that creates meaning. It’s the timeless practice of extracting the juice from existence.
And yet sometimes art gets mixed with other things, and we get distracted from what it’s really about, which is why today I return to writing for the only person that really matters.
Me.
This is for me.
