It Hurts
What we do and make can help
“There is a state of mind which is not accessible by thinking. It seems to require a participation with something. Something physical we move; like a pen, like a pencil.”— Lynda Barry
Dear Starlight,
It hurts.
My head.
My stomach aches.
Hard to describe: radiating, thrumming, soreness.
Is my uterus falling out?
There is no infirmary to visit.
No nice nurse to give me an Advil, a blue heat pad, and a pink absence slip.
Will I be a nice nurse or a mean nurse?
It was one of those weeks.
I wrote a draft of a letter midweek titled: It Hurts.
I’m not going to share that letter—but the theme persists.
What do you do, or can you do, when the hurt is everywhere?
In your body, in your mind, and in your heart?
How can you calm yourself?
A few things that help me:
Movement.
Drawing.
Singing.(When no one can hear!)
Being outside in nature.
Making ceramics.
These play things are magical remedies of self-transport, shifting my being from chaos into a harmony with now. And sometimes I barely have the desire or remembrance or the energy. But sometimes I realize it’s not that difficult to pick up a pen and doodle.
This week I was reading What It Is by Linda Barry. She writes:
Most people felt “bad at art” and never drew again except for on the margins of pages.
That thing we call doodling….I believe it helps us maintain a certain patient state of mind,
and there is a part of us that has never forgotten this.
My grandmother was an artist, but she never considered herself a “real” artist.
She equated being real with selling artwork.
She made detailed abstract doodles and left a stack behind.
One night, when I was in second grade, she invited me to collaborate with her.
She passed me the ballpoint pen, I think it was brown ink.
I made a mark and then passed back the pen to her.
She bent the line in a new direction.
“We are making modern art” she said.
I knew then that I loved modern art.
Ceramics offer me a mental rest.
My hands squish and roll clay, and my thinking mind drifts and dances with something else.
I am engaged with an aliveness that exists outside myself.
While sharing my Creativity & Courage curriculum weekly for over a decade, I worked with thousands of individuals.
Almost no one identified as an artist.
And yet, simply engaging with drawing—when it felt safe—
an easeful, inspired state would emerge.
This week, feeling overwhelmed with pain and fear from all directions, I did a few uncharacteristic things.
I stopped gaslighting myself about how I felt.
I stopped whipping myself to get up and get to work.
I accepted the fact: I was in pain.
I had a choice.
I chose to treat myself with care and kindness.
I took a sick day.
I lay in bed with a blue heat pad.
I took some Tylenol.
I sewed buttons on things that had needed repair for years.
I drew a little.
I looked at art that inspired me.
I return, again and again, to the joy of the amateur—
to allow ourselves to be, to move, to create,
to follow curiosity as a child does. To trust the muse in us is also our healer.
This, always, is the way home:
a path paved with wonder and our becoming.
I invite you to find a nice pen, if you can, and draw a line anywhere you want to go. Then follow it for while until you get lost somewhere else.
