it’s hard to be an artist; it’s easy to be an artist.

It is neither easy nor difficult to be an artist.

It is; it simply is.

Does the turtle feel like it’s particularly hard to be a turtle? No, I think a turtle exists without any commentary on either the hardship or advantage of lugging a shell around. Maybe on really hot days he feels a little more burdened, a little like he wishes he could just dump the shell behind a few rocks for the day. He’d try a swim without it, for a change. But then, I’m betting once a predator shows up, he’s pretty grateful for that shell; pretty glad it’s not hidden behind a rock while his own soft skin is exposed.

I guess my point is, a turtle is a turtle all the time and it would waste time if it questioned the validity of its shell. Better for the turtle to just learn to use it well. Better for the turtle to be the best darn turtle around.

Each of us have a story to tell. Better for us not to waste too much time questioning the validity of that story, I think; better to live a life that shares that story with integrity, generosity, kindness, and truth.

My own story happens to come out a lot. I carry it around like a stone in my pocket. Sometimes the stone feels so heavy; it is then that I steal away to write. To compose. To sing. To dance. To capture the emotions that have turned into boulders on my shoulders and write them down. It is then that something magical happens; the boulders are dwarfed and changed. They become music notes and lyrics; steps and hard work; syntax connected by many semi-colons (some might even say too many. I would say there’s no such thing).

One day my therapist asked me to describe a particular trauma I’ve experienced. I picked the one that is right, well, here. Inside my brain. Written on my heart. It’s confusing because it’s the day that never should have happened, but did happen. The little girl who I once was–with the jagged bangs across a too big forehead and more dreams than pets (and I had a lot of pets, believe me)–still can’t understand it. I try to explain it to her. I also try to tell her that her haircut gets better, too. She says she doesn’t care about her hair and she maintains that dreams come true and love wins. There’s no sense in arguing with her. Just like there’s no sense in telling her to brush her hair.

And love does win. Eventually. Just not in every situation on earth. Just not in the way she anticipated, I guess.

But one day my therapist handed me a sheet of paper and some crayons. “Describe what happened,” she said. “Use sentences to tell me how it sounded and smelled and looked like. And draw it, too.”

I got to work. I am ridiculously excited whenever anyone tells me to draw pictures or write sentences. I am not even particularly great at drawing pictures; I just love to do it. I drew the scene. Like a comic book strip, I drew squares, one right after the other. I showed an empty bedroom, and I explained the sound of the door slamming. I put it down on paper. All of it. In crayon, of all things. What an adult situation to jot down in crayon; if it hadn’t hurt so much, the juxtaposition would almost be humorous.

Almost.

Then my therapist told me to tell her, to show her, to explain. I am not a therapist, so I might get this wrong, but she told me something about how trauma gets trapped in the feeling part of our brain. It’s visceral. A scene that is always just one slight reminder away. But putting it down on paper–in pictures and words–takes it from that part of the brain to another part. The analytical part. So we become reporters. The CSI of our own crime scene, in a way. We lose the extremely raw and overwhelmed reaction as we take it in and describe it. We own the memory, rather than the memory owning us.

The change brings freedom.

The change is oxygen in an airless room.

And, in a way, relaying my story–making my art–does the same thing for me. Not that everything I make or create comes from trauma. No, not at all. But some of it does. And the truth is that all of it comes from my story. My experiences. My feelings. And I am not sure quite how to maintain the balance of telling my story without somehow dragging the other characters in my story through the exposition. Characters who probably don’t want to be mentioned. I do this imperfectly, I am sure.

So, being an artist isn’t hard or easy. Or maybe, more accurately, it’s both. It’s hard to tell my story without somehow exposing other people to ears that are connected to minds that make judgements. And yet, it’s also easy to tell my story. Too easy. Because it happens. All the time, again and again, it happens. Without provocation, it feels, my story comes out. In my songs and words and movements and conversations.

And so here’s to telling our stories with grace and honesty. Here’s to constantly trying to prove that, though I have failed at it before and will almost definitely fail at it again, the two can coexist.

Grace and truth.

Art and story.