I have picked up the camera. I have picked up the pen. I have picked up the board, the brush, and the knife. I have swayed with the potter’s wheel, kicked it spinning. The kiln has dried my arms to a pale shade of indigo. Water-sucking clay has bone-tried my tan. What started here as declaration has turned into the fabric of my creativity. I have wielded needle and scissor, fabric and machine. I have created glass, made tiles, and tied knots into crochet. I have glued, hammered, and pinned.

It’s not enough.

In the honing of the skills, one thing has become apparent: the hole still exists. Whether I fill it with words or digital bits, photographic paper or discarded brocade scrapes, the need lingers. The need hungers. It seems to be drowning in the sea of nine, two, and five. It is treading water in the lost joy of what pays my bills and clothes me. There are moments when the sadness is unbearable.

I cling to these moments, the lost moments when I can type, spell, mingle, and devise. When some faint moment of brilliance fills the page or the picture frame – that is the spark. It may be quickly squelched in the bonfire of company need and corporate greed but it exists…it lives. I search and find, rewind, and refine, Remake and shape me, the dusky and dusty picture of what is Real me.

For now, I can keep it going. For now. There will come a time, so very very soon, when it will not be enough. When it will be – ENOUGH.

-TDD