The past few years have been pretty wildly transformative for me (understatement) and every time I think it might slow down it seems to accelerate instead. As I look back, I realize that I’ve attracted a lot of ambiguous and ambivalent situations, because I’ve been ambiguous and ambivalent about myself. And across a bunch of dimensions that has been standing in the way of fully realizing myself and my gifts in the world, it’s not of service to those around me either. I need my energy to go to directness and real exchange. If people want to meet me in real ways, that is warmly welcomed and sounds like much fun; if not, that’s ok too and doesn’t in any way diminish my immense respect and gratitude for them. But it’s one or the other, real or not. It’s too painful to be a perpetual ghost, to be part of ambiguous situations without any direct, clear communication. I can’t do that, and more importantly, I can’t treat myself that way any more. Clarity and healthy boundaries are the spiritual foundation of good relationships, and healing in themselves, especially when we encounter them in warm hearts. All of my actions need to be congruent with those values, not just some of them. And I need to evolve to a higher standard, to be the woman I know I’m capable of becoming. Well, that’s enough with the seriousness. I have a bunch of dance floors to tear up, and I better get back to it.

Dear universe, my birthday is coming up, and it makes me take stock. I deeply desire a loving relationship, more true friendships, and more positive reciprocal working relationships. I must admit that on the whole what I have been doing is not manifesting the above. Like a fool I keep wanting to connect with people who don’t want to actually connect with me, who don’t actually want me in their sphere, professional or otherwise, and who keep me at a perpetual distant remove—which is entirely my problem. I should know better than to want more from such situations, and it’s time I got the hint. These people are magnificent, taking exactly the actions they should for their lives, and I have immense, mind-bending gratitude for every aspect of their good, extraordinary gifts, and seismic generosity. But I need to find the ones who really do want to build stuff and have adventures and fun and instigate delightful silliness in this wild world with me. I’m worth it, and I do my best to give it every day. I’ve met a few such friends lately, and they show me what has been missing. Though once again, no one else is to blame here, this is 100% my responsibility. The I Ching says: It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized. To be completely vulnerable with you dear universe, I’m upset about my birthday. It feels like I’m fucking up, and I genuinely don’t know what to do. The only solution I know is to follow what the I Ching says. Nothing changes in my life until I change, so I’m taking some time to work on myself.

I mentioned to a friend the other day that the more I learn about dreams, the more it feels like I’ve barely scratched the surface. It’s been so fulfilling to write about them, in ways that I can’t describe. Maybe I haven’t had that in writing before, where I hit a vein that really gets to my core. Writing is changing my relationship to dreams, and vice-versa; I have a series of dreams about twitter going back a year, it’s like my dreams are very gradually and gently tweet-mentoring me. I continue to be surprised, and it only gets better.

Tuesday night I attempted to begin a short chat about my recent work at NFTuesday, but there was a problem with the projector and my work was rendered invisible, so it was postponed for another time. It was awkward but I can’t even pretend to know what the right order of things is anymore, it seems the universe had better ideas than me about timing. I’ve been a bit awkward in general over the past couple months, what with sharing more digital work and putting out essays and trying to figure out how to do all that, plus the rest of my plate, but it’s growing and I’m very, very grateful.

It’s a feel when a pallet of raw material arrives with a plonk, and just sits there, awaiting transformation into… something.

Back in 2014 when I was spooling up for A house made of air, a flatbed truck arrived one afternoon and dumped 55 sheets of 4’x8’ plywood off the back end. It landed with a ka-bam.

Richard Swayze, the artist-craftsman advising on the feasibility of the sculpture I had in mind standing up properly, looked at me like I was nuts. He cocked an eyebrow that asked, pointedly, do you really intend to rip an absolutely mental amount of ply into this multi-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle you’ve (somewhat vaguely) proposed? I did. He didn’t know me yet; there was an I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it-Kristin vibe. I looked at me like I was nuts too. So it begins.

Wish I had a pic from that day. By the time of the above work-in-progress shot, the stomach-churning pile of ply (at left) had dwindled.

This one shouldn’t be so difficult, are my famous last words every time. But really, this one should be much easier….