Making something

What do you do when the world is burning.

When you surface from uneasy dreams to find yourself in a house engulfed in flames, room gorged with smoke and fire alarm broken.

When calls to your elected representatives–all Republicans, or not–are met with stock replies.

When the words of your op-ed turn to ashes in the mouth, and every morning your soul resists rising, your limbs weighed down, affixed to cement blocks with dozens of tiny fish hooks.

Do you understand what I’m talking about? What do you do when you’re stuck?

Usually, what I do is write. But last week, putting one word after another on the page, in consecutive lines, without hope that words can move hearts and bodies into action, felt like trying to escape a burning building by rewriting the order to evacuate.

Shapes cut without thought, taped without pre-planning onto red card stock (all that was available) with invisible tape that proved not to be invisible. Garish throne room fractured, columns and gilded chandelier turned on their heads. Words fragmented, heavy black marker outlining pointed edges. By happy accident, the only image not upended: a window overlooking a spot where sun still shines and green things grow.

What I needed was to bypass the logic of well-constructed sentences and move into mystery. I needed something physical. I had to make something with my hands.

So, I made a collage:

The piece named itself: “Chaos at the Core.”

I don’t know why I am always amazed by the power of making something. After seven decades, I can testify that this ain’t the first time I’ve stood on ground that looks charred and barren. Nor is it the first time that making something has rescued my soul.

Let me emphasize, it has nothing to do with making “great art.” Whatever that means. (And anyway, the word great is currently void of meaning.) It has to do with getting out of my head, getting out of the way, allowing the fury and fear that paralyze me to express. Which ends by clearing a space for Spirit to work.

Then I can get on with the work Spirit has given me to do.

The world is still burning. Making something didn’t put the fire out. But it got me to the other side of paralysis and despair.

And that’s something.