The Great Unknown
Image by Om Surve via Unsplash
I’ve always loved this quote from renowned artist Georgia O’Keeffe - though the irony is striking. In her lifetime, O’Keeffe kept the lowest possible profile. She lived hermetically in New Mexico, refused interviews, and wasn’t attached to a gallery in the latter years of her career.
In an essay for The New Yorker, “How I Met The Reclusive Georgia O’Keeffe,” biographer Roxana Robinson describes O’Keeffe’s presence: “[s]eclusion and withholding were part of her persona.” Robinson goes on to wrestle with O’Keeffe’s inherent contradiction: “the work, so intimate and engaging, even accessible, and the artist, so remote and self-controlled, clothed in severe black and white.” Part of the success of her work ultimately stemmed from O’Keeffe’s refusal to cater to industry expectations.
These days, it’s hard to imagine working artists deciding not to share their creations. Even this newbie author knows that promoting one’s work and connecting with an audience is the other half of the job. Creative work, however moving its output, is still work.
This week, author Thea Lim published a piece in The Walrus entitled, “The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age.” I read it and was - as the young people in my life would say - shook. Lim describes the pressure of a public-facing job, particularly in a universe comprised of digital markers of success. While promoting her work, Lim writes: “My scale of worth had torn off, like a roof in a hurricane, replaced with an external one. An external scale is a relative scale; so of course, nothing’s enough. There is no top.”
Lim’s solution was to return to writing. She describes writing (beautifully) as a “renewable resource,” a pathway back toward her flow state. O’Keeffe’s solution was to return to painting. Both creatives found a way forward by turning away from the world and back to their work.
I understand this part. Personally, I do my best work in monastic quietude. (Because I’m a mom of four and my neighbor loves his leaf blower, this rarely happens. I often settle for the car lane. But still. A girl can dream.) I prefer work that involves deep research, interviews, or crafting stories about pretend people. Anything that doesn’t involve me talking about myself is my sweet spot. I’ve always been skilled at protecting my privacy and protecting the privacy of my loved ones. I understand how to build these walls. I’ve spent my whole life doing that.
Maybe you agree with Lim and (and also, presumably, O’Keeffe) that maintaining privacy is the ultimate privilege. I’ve always thought this, too. But is it really?
Recently, I found myself cackling when I came across a talk by Anne Lamott. She advised us that: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
After I finished laughing, I realized the statement had given me pause. I’ve never approached writing this way. I’ve always worked from the outside in, often learning what I believe at the end of a story. That’s not to say that I’m not attached emotionally to what I write, rather that I view myself as a conduit. The story finds me long before it feels like it’s mine.
However, in a shocking turn of events for this cloistered creative, promotion has shown me the missing piece of my process. I understand what Lim means when she recalls, following the publication of her book, that “I was glued to my numbers like a day trader.” I appreciate her honesty. Those constantly shifting data points are stressful, and there’s no getting around the friction built into comparison in any industry.
But behind all of those data points are people. Real people. In promoting Summer Triangle, I’ve been blessed with an unexpected privilege: the privilege to connect with a wider audience. I’ve connected with readers, writers, and industry professionals. I’ve had people in my personal life open up about their own private dreams. My children talk openly about the books they’ll write someday. Though this new world brings its share of stressors - particularly, the (eek!) vulnerability required to share my work with the world, I feel a sense of expansion and unity. More than anything else, I feel grateful to be here.
Because a new school year always feels like a new beginning to me, I’ve challenged myself to be more open this year. Certain types of writing - looking at you, personal essay! - still give me the heebie jeebies. Yet, as a reader, I appreciate when other writers open up as Lim did in her essay. As a writer, I’d like to challenge myself to be more open, too. Maybe we understand our creation best when we recognize that isn’t all ours, that our honest expression is part of the connective tissue that binds us. Maybe we can all, as Lamott would advise, tell our stories from the inside out. I’m going to try.
What new challenges are you taking on this fall? I’d love to hear about them.
