This blog is not fiction. This is all true. If death and conflict is a hard topic for you to read about you might want to sit this one out…
Several of my past friends are dead.
My college level art teacher in California who had transformed into a friend shared with me one day she was getting bullied by Germans. She didn’t give any more detail than that, and I didn’t ask. I was startled into silence by the share unlike any other she had made. I hoped she would say more and I could understand the context of her experience. That opportunity never came. Two weeks later, she committed suicide by gassing herself in her car. Maybe she never told anyone else what she told me. It seemed like important information so in her honor I will share it here.
As a result, my attempt toward fine art as a vocation was ended. I had a time of necessary grief.
Another of my friends committed suicide many years later in the same way. She too had shared with me that she had been getting bullied, although in her case it was gender related. She was also part Cherokee from Oklahoma so there might have been multiple factors for why she was bullied. My book, Eva’s Journey is dedicated to her memory. She took her life shortly before Eva’s Journey was published.
Another college level art teacher I had in Hawaii died in a freak car accident. Prior to that, she didn’t tell me she was being bullied, but I could tell she was. The above piece of artwork is one I painted in her class. She was a very good teacher as well as an accomplished professional artist and passed away not long after the class ended.
As a result, my attempt toward fine art as a vocation was ended. I had another time of necessary grief.
The death of my teacher in Hawaii, caused a flashback to my high school art teacher. She committed to take me to Denver to an art show along with a few other students. There we would showcase our art. However, shortly before the trip was to happen her step-daughter died in a freak car accident similar to my teacher’s in Hawaii. The trip to Denver was understandably canceled. At the time, I thought of it as a freak accident. I only think of it now because it has fit a pattern that has repeated so often later in my life as outlined in this blog.
In the course of my life this repeat shock and awe has ended lives and derailed the pathways I was trying to take. I never understood why. What is so controversial for a woman to want to make a living as an artist? That pursuit brings no harm to others.
Even as a pattern emerged and I felt discouraged from my path, I wondered why? Others were walking the very path I wanted to walk. They seemed to go down that path just fine. Why were the doors slammed shut so frequently as I tried for the same path?
Now that many decades have passed, I can see more clearly. I understand now that I couldn’t see why because I was assuming the reasons people had were intelligent and all people are rational. Yes, I was and perhaps still am very naive about violent impulses which run through the culture. I thought if I had a conversation with the person/people who were causing this, I could change how they saw it, and the problem would go away.
I have since learned if you are a lover of arts and humanity, you will be confronted by those who aren’t. Whether because of maliciousness or ignorant recklessness, some will take violent actions that will impact others. A level of this is built in to the culture I live in and no one person can counter the potential for violence, suicide or freak accidents, anymore than they can read other’s minds, know their motives or predict the future.
The one good thing that has come from this situation in my life has been a steep spiritual path which has increased awareness and inner strength. I don’t fall for things as easily. I can recognize when to take action, when to say something and when to stay silent more easily. If I am in a position to help someone, I try to. If I can’t, I can listen. The goal is not to change people because you rarely can unless they seek out your help. On occasions they do, I offer it. The goal is to remain in my own soul integrity and when possible, with heart intact. When friends die, my heart is not intact, it is broken.
What is the reason I have shared all of this? It is impossible to explain my life experience unless I address what has deeply affected it. Many of the pivots I have made might seem random without the understanding of what was happening in my life unseen. Most of these friends weren’t known by family or other friends at the time.
So today, how have these experiences changed me? On the outside people probably don’t see much difference except that I maybe don’t pander for approval as I once did. That is probably viewed as an improvement. The change is mostly inner in the form of improved boundaries.
I am the same loving human as before. I have ground-rules of engagement now. If you are kind, you can become/remain my friend. If you aren’t, I don’t pour enormous amounts of emotional capital and time into fixing a non-existent friendship, I just shake the sand from my sandals and move on. I am blessed to have many wonderful friends and relatives and wish for them the highest possible path they can walk filled with love.
On the flip-side, if you are a friend or relative and choose to verbally threaten my life, (as one has) I will probably be too shocked to respond, so you will have a pass. If it happens a second time you will likely find yourself sitting in a court room.
If I am an after-thought, not a friend to you that is fine. I myself have few friends and that is a valid social situation. The ones who are there deserve to be there. People can choose who they hang out with and I respect another’s choice. I don’t always want to hang out with any one person I meet not because I don’t respect them but because they feel more like an acquaintance.
If you don’t communicate with me in a way that speaks ‘friend,’ just don’t try to steer me toward a second-class captive role in your service. If I am not in your life as an equal friend, then you have no authority over my life or emotions. The relationship is either obvious and on equal footing or it doesn’t exist.
I state all of this for positive reasons. I state this for the love of the arts and those who share that love. I state this to affirm personal agency is something we all have. If self-esteem or boundaries are not healthy, there are ways to improve them. If there is a bully in your life, you might need help outside what you can do alone. Find help. Don’t wait and don’t take your life.
The arts, your gentleness and you are important. It is the bullies who need to take a seat and figure out a better path forward.