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What a year. What a beginning to 2021...I hope you're safe, healthy and pressing on with all the sanity you can muster. All my best to you and yours right now. With all the losses and challenges, I'm fortunate that I can look back on some highlights from 2020. Amidst everything, good things happened. Here are a few from my end. Highlights:
I was about to list some of my losses, but looking back, most of these were related to travel, lost work and household income (aided by grants received), exciting projects put off and important personal events pushed back (like a wedding). I'm extremely fortunate to be healthy, that my family and partner are well and safe, to have a job and a home. I didn't lose close friends or family this year to illness (though it came close) or the violence that came to so many across this country and globe. I'm incredibly privileged, lucky and grateful. Because most of my 2020/2021 goals were made less possible in COVID times, with hopeful optimism (and perhaps naïve delusion) I'm bringing a couple of them back for 2021 and 2022: 3 Big Goals for the Next Two Years:
 How could a year when my sister and I swam here be a total loss? Photo by Kate Kraay
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 Image by Matias Tapia on Unsplash Sometimes I wish Octopuses put ink in my cartridges Sometimes I think the sun will open and we'll return to spring And sometimes I feel my energy wad up into aluminum ball Until I take a nap or practice a jig or play with my cat I remember days I wasn't afraid to open the news When I could look out the window and think progress I can still look out the window I can still make progress I a giant hunk of wax rolling down the hillside Picking up buildings, journeying to oblivion I can surprise myself I can jump out my feet and far down the canyon into new parachute These days are mine Claim them. Reclaim my voice. A pile of young women enter the lobby with a clang The beginning of tomorrow I can write my future and remember when I discovered who I'll become  Image by Element5 Digital I'm falling in love with my process again, the less I try to fill every minute. I time travel when I read the past. I see into my then skin, compare it with now. I learn about where my brain was and where it is. I've learned that the practice of writing takes time. A long time. That having patience and cultivating love for the act of writing is the thing that leads to authentic depth and realization of voice that can't be forced. I've learned there is deep value in waiting. There is no one way to tell a story, to structure a play. The act of writing daily helps me know how to move my hand through a story, an idea, a play or a thought much more than if I wait between projects. I've learned I have something to say. I am an adventure. I work hard. I can miss things, skip things and the world carries on. I can fail in big and small ways, that's how I learn. For me, writing is not about seeking expertise but discovery, opening, humanity. Vulnerability is the gateway to connection. Everyone has a creative voice to unlock. Listening is a difficult art that requires great patience and ability to resist interrupting, speaking, offering advice. I've learned that I love to use giant weather-based catastrophes in my work, often representing some big world or personal event. I've learned that the personal is political. That my tendency to assume factors about people and situations is a habit that I must continue to break. That as a white person I have extreme advantage that is unfair, but I can use that agency to open up space for the targeted. I've learned that we can make something beautiful together through art, and that I love collaborations even though they are difficult. I've learned that writing is hard and I will always do it.  Image by Alexandru Acea on Unsplash Heart is a blubbery mess of whole skin An aching, frustrated chord on the ukulele And also piano, guitar, bass Or a long minor key on cello Heart wants connection Shakes for bravery Sound of a single coin rattling tin cup Heart sees every color under sky And over In the vast universe beyond We are small Heart contained in my fist And massive, oceans deep Vast, interstellar dreams run million miles Arrows point in every direction Hot chocolate kisses spill out wrappers Heart brushes eyelashes Sticky hands stuck faces Watching out windows, radiate sunshine Reflect back at me the rain off clouds the sugar glass panes Heart walks grounds where Dad lies Waiting His wife still here, beating A-Thump-A-Thump-A-Thump Heart's ears capturing news Remember feasting lunchtime sandwiches running acres wide Backside damp from marshland lawns Blue string knotted tight round finger Falling forward into forever yeses A ball of wax slipping through fingers Blots away cheek tears Heart is a feverish night A journey into great beyond Side-by-side by fire  Image by Camilo Jimenez I can work in a way that I guide the process and the process guides me. My work helps me stay grounded. Writing teaches me how to live, how to listen, how to be. I take time with it. There is no rush. My work goes against values I dispute -- commercialism, capitalism, unchecked patriotism. It challenges me. I can continue all my life and there will always be more to learn. There isn't a wrong but I will never get it exactly right. Not about right and wrong. Writing teaches me what I think. Shows me what I know. Brings out memories that don't surface otherwise. My work gets braver and more specific. Is beginning to reach more globally, into dangerous territory. Is starting to connect with audiences and collaborators in authentic ways. Becoming more about-- That knocked me off guard. That unsettled me. That spoke to me directly. My work doesn't define me but is a primal factor in who I am. Me as writer, as playwright, as artist, ingrained into my DNA. I no longer have to prove -- hey look at me I write I'm a writer not just prop master or stage hand or sick person, not that there's anything wrong with that. But this ink is the air I breathe. Getting more confident with my experiments, more courageous and bold. Coming into my true voice that resonates with the young writer me, what I tried to be/make/sound like. I still feel very young. Like I know nothing. But I know something. And I learn more every day.  Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash knees buzz hummingbirds inside freshly hatched stir up from eggs million wing-beats per minute permeate TV snow washes away to bring clarity underneath heat in legs/heels/ankles belly, too echoes way down deep in gut a glowing magma spills out from cracks below ocean at the edge of earth's crust itching out this volcanic self this blaze thundering dinosaur late night retro-Japanese horror mouth large and looming ghost haunting phantom contains breath from my belly to beyond  Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash I blubbery salamander working way through creek transform as I go. Extend hands reaching out, form body against algae. Thank you, bits of green under toes, soft and wet your coat of mud between webbed fingers. I duckweed up above shine like granny smith. Cover the density of me against water surface like blanket. A spidery silken scarf drapes overhead amphibious mess. Beneath my rubber leaves --that look slimy but are not-- watch frog/tad beauties and salamander friends --that are slimy but look slick like rainbows. Wrap ourselves inside ourselves. Forever protection. Watch friend salamander coax down grey rock. I myself have faster swim. Spend time in stillness zip along racing through creeks. Bend legs and arms quick switchblades. Swish tail, turn bulbous head burrowing in lacing mass. One day will emerge. Spend days on stone on pad. Rapid plops in/out water, flash tongue shooting, six-legged bite will make up for now slow underneath.  Photo by Niharika Bandaru on Facebook heavy gust of rain tongue tied nerves blustery clouds in spring fallout days in summer a pair of dry lips lost puppy eyes suck leeches from my knees watch glacier bits fall from sugar white pastures those ways are thawing melting watch the drip let out ragged bleats this morning I rise with full eyes in bloom a thick loaf of sourdough a scrunched up forehead long legs wide hips bloated right now bear fruit out my eyes giant worms on fish hooks all we ever seem to do is wake our names in our chests  Photo by jessezhou on Unsplash that room of stiff bodied people and wild green outside flick of lips when she opened her mouth and a squeak came out the charged nature of everything here/now back bent at screen blue flowers grew up on either side with little saplings bombastic voices surrounding park bench her throat clearing broad skies and clouds skinny wisps of white the building bricks like Marlboro Reds smoked packs a day those years something she was good at  Photo by Taylor Cowling on Unsplash  Art shows me the world I want to see, reveals how I want to live. The process of making art teaches me to live better. Putting creations into the world helps me express what's going on inside me, in my life, what I observe in this world, my beliefs when I find it impossible to do so face to face. By sharing the work I make, I can make myself vulnerable in a way that opens me up to connect with others through empathy, and them to each other. When I see art that inspires me, I am reminded of our condition, our world, the irrevocable sense of beauty and truth in each moment. |
Heidi KraayProcess notes on a work in progress. This page serves to invite you into the way I work, with intermittent posts to show you the hows and whys on the whats I make, as well as prompts and ideas I bring to certain workshops. There will also be some raw, rough content found in notebooks written years ago, previously posted on: Archives
January 2021
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