While it’s not the most exciting part it’s beyond essential, the finished product can’t exist without completely going through this unassuming phase,
While it’s not the most exciting part it’s beyond essential, staying feels like the least romantic form of commitment, I finally understand what it costs and what staying builds,
While it’s not the most exciting part it’s beyond essential, the magic of the beginning nor the clarity of the finished thing, that belongs wiling to remain inside difficult work,
What is the thing I find inside the labor that I cannot find anywhere else, available only in the hours I actually show up for the slow, resistant, necessary in building,
While it’s not the most exciting part it’s beyond essential, not in the excitement of beginning but here, where the work asks and I learn to give without waiting to feel inspired…
I want to build things that can survive in my circumstances, whose quality does not depend on ideal conditions, abundant resources, or the perfect mood for the effort they require,
I want to build things that can survive in my circumstances, rather than one I assume is solid simply because it has held what I have placed on it so far,
I want to build things that can survive in my circumstances, even if the audience disappears and recognition evaporates, and what building it does to me over time,
What would I build if none of the external validation I currently depend on ever arrived as expected and the building itself had to be enough,
I want to build things that can survive in my circumstances, I am still learning that difference in my body rather than only my mind…
I have a project in the craft phase and it is asking me to show up for the slow, detailed, brick-by-brick work, even on days when there is nothing I would want to show anyone,
I have a project asking for the sustained attention, and now I must choose that attention deliberately, even when choosing feels like nothing more than a decision,
I have a project and I am learning to love the phase I have abandoned, finding inside a quieter satisfaction than the beginning promised and the ending occasionally delivers,
What would it mean to give this project the complete, sustained, unglamorous investment it needs rather than the energetic attention I have hoped would carry it through,
I have a project and it is asking me to become slightly more disciplined I am choosing that person not instead of who I am but alongside her, because the work requires both of us…
I am building something that will take longer than I want, require more unglamorous effort than I planned, and cost more than the outside may ever understand,
I am building something, and the building includes pruning, the grief requires trusting that what remains is a more honest, essential, and alive,
I am building something in the least exciting and most necessary phase, I am finding that fully accepting necessities carries a dignity the exciting phases never quite reach,
What is the one cut I have been avoiding that I already know needs to be made, what am I protecting by avoiding it, and is that protection worth making the work less true,
I am building something as someone who has finally decided to love the labor, stay in the middle until it has given everything it has to give, because that is the only way the end has been worth arriving at…
Watchwords:
What it costs to leave and what it builds to stay,
Built from the inside out rather than for approval,
The necessity accepted fully has its own dignity,
The cut I have been avoiding that I already know needs making,
Staying in the middle until it gives everything it has
Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..
As and will always be reminding you to dream: