People ask me, “what are you going to do now that you are back in India?” They want to hear about my next idea, my next plan, my next endeavour.
When I can only answer, “I really don’t know.” I feel my disappointment roll into theirs – and we are a ball of impatience together.
However, I believe that artists don’t stop working. The creative mind is always searching and trying out and there is even actual engagement in the work itself. Work still happens….. Sometimes it is just to clean a brush, other times it is to simply rearrange the workspace. On the inside, however, we are wringing our hands, pacing back and forth….waiting.
If you read my earlier post about the meandering river, you will know what I mean when I say that once I find my river, all I have to do is stay in my boat and follow it. But right now, in this transition, from one country to another, from a well settled life to the unknown, I sometimes feel like I am floating on an inner tube in the middle of the ocean.
It’s not that bad really. Maybe it’s not exactly an inner tube, but more like a nice fishing boat with a bedroom below and a little art studio set up on deck. Nevertheless, I am floating. It’s not a passive float, like I am helpless or a victim of circumstance. It’s an expectant kind of float….where I am looking for signs and reading the horizon for clues. I am engaged, alive, happy – with only an occasional bout of hand wringing or pacing about.