A TIME TO RETURN

Artist’s Date #46: The Outer Sunset

This weekend, I woke up with the impulse to go to the ocean, which, since I live in San Francisco, is a different vibe than what you might be imagining. While it is certainly sunny every once in a while, it usually isn't, and while it might be sunny in Noe Valley, where I live, it usually isn't sunny by the time I drive west. But I was desperate to give in to this one thought without overthinking. I had the time and the space (Saturday mornings), and fter a summer without the same regular schedule, I wanted to click in.

It had been two months since I had done my artist’s date, formally. I had hiked behind waterfalls. I had breathed through a snorkel. I had stood at the end of the earth while it smoked. But all of these things I did with a child, or in a rush, and I hadn’t had just those three hours to just fuck around or to just let my mind go for a while without interruption.

That’s really what I’m doing on these Saturday mornings, when I try for three hours to be with myself (and without my phone!). It started three years ago when I read the infamous Artist’s Way book, by Julia Cameron, with a group at The Ruby (a women and non-binary writers’ space in SF). In that book, as many of you know, there are two active invitations alongside the many questions about your artistic histories. One is that you write every day – that you fill three blank pages with whatever you can and that you not read those pages, necessarily, or at least not right away. And the other is that you go on date by yourself, once a week, to explore your artistic desires.

At one point I either read or heard that in Julia Cameron’s experience there are two kinds of people: people for whom the practice of morning pages is painful but who regularly fill themselves with art of all kinds, and people who will write their morning pages religiously but who will be very stressed out to the point of paralysis when asked to go out to do something without anyone else that just fills their cup exclusively. My insight about this Art Monster Substack came when I thought, well, what if I press myself to do both, and also to write my morning pages ABOUT my artist’s dates. This was what solidified both of these practices as a part of my week and put them in relationship to each other so that I was no longer just one type of person but somebody new.

And still…I can think that it’s easy to start again after I’ve stopped. That just a few weeks off from doing one or the other will not be so bad, and that I can simply pick up where I left off.

Of course, this never works.

But that is OK. Just like in meditation, or yoga, or parenting (things I’ve been more committed to than my art), the important moment, the thing you hone, is the point of return. You’re going one direction, and then you have to remember that oh wait, your destination is elsewhere. Even if your left shoulder just tilts only slightly, you have begun to make your way back. The hard part is over. You’ve made the shift. And the more times you recalibrate, the easier it is to remember the path, the more familiar that path is and the better it feels. It feels good to be back.

I started my date on Judah by the bakery, where I noticed a line. The corn soup was only OK, but the butter was soft, and I smooshed the fresh bread into the chunk sprinkled with salt. Down the street was another restaurant, and I took a picture of the menu (an Italian sub salad) and thought about making it.

Then I strolled into the bookstore, packed with families in the garden in the back, and a cover caught my eye. The title was a specific woman’s name, and the story was about how the character's whole name was long. The narrator was asking her father about her name and where it came from, going through each specific part (the last, the middle, the second middle) until they got to the first. When he explained that for her first name, unlike the others that had references, he had made it up. He had chosen a name that nobody had – so that she would be the first, his one and only.

Coincidentally, this book’s title was the name of the main character in the ambitious science fiction novel I’ve been writing for years. I’d always worried about the name, not being sure from where it had come, and why, though so much has changed as I’ve worked on the story, the protagonist’s name had always seemed sure. I’d worried that the name HAD a meaning that was important to someone and that by not being sure of its origin, I might offend someone who did. This book seemed to give me permission to keep going on my project and not second-guess myself. I hadn’t known that I needed permission that morning, but had I talked myself out of the beach (it’s gray, it’s windy, is this important?) I might never have got it.

Finally, a good hour later, my feet were in the sand, and I took a long walk down the shore and back.

By the time I was home, my faith in these mornings dates was restored. I remembered why it matters to just have a look around, without a clear reason, and with a strong observational lens. It doesn’t even matter whether I see something artistic or describe something beautiful, or find something I’d recommend — in fact, maybe better if not. But if I bring these two practices together, even once, I know I return to a familiar part of myself — and see it differently. And that is my method.