I don't know

I had an interesting experience earlier this week and I am not sure what it means yet. In class, we read out loud a  short story called the "Pamphleteer" by Jenny Bitner. I wish I could include quotes from it, but I don't have a copy and this is all from memory. It is extremely heart-felt and sincere. She talks about pamphlets and how they have always contained important information, and how she wishes to write a pamphlet that could change the world. She wants to reach out to strangers, and starts drawing pictures and giving them to strangers. People just think she is crazy, and she moves on to talking about how she wants to have a horse so that she can have her own "Pony Express" and deliver letters to people. She muses about the love communicated in a letter, as opposed to a text. We hardly think about what we say to people in emails and texts anymore, but going through the trouble of writing a letter, we spend more time perfecting what we want to say to that person.

After we read it, Joe said, "Now, you have one hour to respond to that" and he didn't mean a written response. So I went to my studio and sat there and thought about how I wished that I were asleep. I started thinking about dreams and how I had a very meaningful dream in high school that I remember from time to time:

I dreamed that I could feel all the people in the whole world; not see them, but feel them all. I was not in a particular location, I just felt all of this. My brain was different so that I had room for everyone in my brain. As I was perceiving everyone in the world, I also perceived every single thing about each one, like what he/she thinks is beautiful, what is hard for him/her, what he/she wishes for, and even what horrible things helped shape him/her. And I loved everyone like I have never even loved a single person now or since. I don't know where the love came from. I don't think that the love could have happened without the ability to feel everyone and I don't think that I could have not loved everyone with that ability. I remember thinking, "I would give up any and all of my relationships if it meant that I could feel and love like this forever. 

In reality, I don't have to give that up and I believe that I will get to that point someday (although maybe not in this life). It was very meaningful to find out that the most important thing (to me) is relationships. As I was sitting there, also wanting to reach out to strangers, I felt the need to show love to a stranger.

Just days before, I was telling a friend that one of my favorite things to do for someone is to send him/her on a "treasure hunt" with clues to find something meant for them. Sometimes, but not always, it is for a special occasion. When I was little I would do it with friends who would come over, and sometimes for FHE, I would hide the treats and my family would have to go find them. Even now, for Ryan's birthday every year, I send him on a treasure hunt to find his present. While talking to that friend, I realized that making a treasure hunt for someone is personally one of the most loving gestures I could do. Kind of like surprise parties, it is not something that could ever happen by accident. For me, there is no other reason to make a treasure hunt for somebody other than with the intention of showing love.    

So I did what made the most sense in that moment: I wrote out the dream, I stuffed it in an empty ginger beer bottle that Ryan left on my shelf, and went back to class and shared my thoughts with the class along with what I intended to do (which was to hide it between some obscure books at the library for someone to find). This experience along with my "what I want to be when I grow up" decision, have shaken me. I do not see a connection between these experiences and what I am currently doing. My current plan makes sense and is easy to explain to others. I am open to change, but I am not sure what I should change. Not being able to explain what I should change is part of why I feel that I can no longer answer the question, "Why do I make art?" although I had a really good answer a few weeks ago. I am questioning everything. I am not sure what any of this means, but if I am sure of anything, it is that none of my plans and decisions have been  mistakes and that the best way to get from A to B is not a straight line.  

Course of action: keep going and keep praying