Things I’ve discovered while being on a media diet the past week:

1. I really like to discover neighborhoods and get places on foot.
   
   

So, since I wouldn’t allow myself to just mindlessly turn on the tv last week, I instead went walking every day, either to get somewhere or just for the hell of it. Twice I went on walks specifically to take photographs. Besides just killing time, I achieved: getting exercise, soaking up much-needed vitamin D, using less gas, and finding lots of interesting and beautiful things to photograph. I also made friends with a few cats along the way.

1. Facebook kinda makes me feel bad.
   
   

I only allowed myself to hop on once a day, during the fast, just to check private messages. Today, I woke up at around 4:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep…so I broke the media diet by checking into my news feed. It wasn’t three or four status updates before I started to feel bad about myself. While I love FB for being able to keep abreast of the goings-on of nears and dears that are far away, and it is definitely a necessary evil for project promotion, I can also count on it to feel like I’m not good enough: not doing enough, or that people don’t like me, or that I am being excluded from this or that. I didn’t feel that way all last week, and that is telling.

1. I need to start reading novels again.
   
   

I’ve gotten into this habit of spending my pre-falling asleep time, which used to be reserved for reading books going on Pinterest and pinning stuff. While I have no intention of giving up Pinterest (see #5), I need to read books again. So, as of tonight, I’m reinstituting the reading novels before bed thing.

1. I love going to the movies.
   
   

Movies were exempt from the media diet, and I went to two of them the past week, which is more than I think I’ve been to ALL YEAR thus far. I love going with people and I love going alone. I miss going more often, and I’ll have to figure out how to build it back in without breaking the bank (Crest Cinema Center, HERE I COME!).

1. I love taking photographs.
   
   

I spent 2013 taking a photo a day for a year, joined Instagram and have really enjoyed photography. I took a bit of a break after I finished the yearlong project, but my recent trip to Portland as well as the media diet refreshed my love for the medium, and so easy to do since I bring my iPhone everywhere. Things are interesting. Life is interesting, and visually capturing it is fun, creative and doesn’t cost anything anymore, is a great creative outlet that doesn’t have to be MY LIFE – can just be an outlet. I used to love taking photos of people – now I love taking photos of inanimate objects and plants.

1. I don’t mind not being up to the minute on current events.
   
   

While it was a bit disconcerting to abruptly find out about Maya Angelou’s death in passing from an acquaintance who assumed it was common knowledge, it was kinda nice to be blissfully unaware of what was going on in the world for a week. I don’t want to be completely ignorant of what’s going on in the world, but I wonder if there is a happy medium between that and the constant infostream.

1. I still love Pinterest.
   
   

I replaced it with photoediting on Instagram, but I missed it. Can’t wait to get back to it. I would give up all social media for Pinterest. It actually makes me feel good when I’m on, and creating image banks and having a recipe bank is productive without being stressful. I just need to figure out how to give equal time to reading fiction again.

1. I still love TV.
   
   

I cut back to only an hour per day, and I missed it. A LOT. BUT, I don’t need to watch as much mindless tv as I have in the past, and certainly don’t need to have the tv on for background noise. Most of the shows I follow are scripted, and I feel like they actually enhance my life and are a good way to wind down…but the mindless, plop down in front of the tv because I’m procrastinating or feeling lazy doesn’t need to happen anymore.

1. I love hanging out with friends. For FUN.
   
   

I feel like most of the time now, I do artistic projects with friends instead of just having non-project fun. I stopped by a friend’s house on the way back from a project meeting last Friday and we just chatted about this and that for a couple hours. It was nice to catch up and even nicer to realize, I can actually hang out with my Seattle-based friends, rather than just looking at their social media feeds to see what they’re up to.

All in all, though it was challenging, it was a positive and somewhat enlightening week for me…what it comes down to is, do I want to be a constant consumer of other people’s images/words/ideas, or do I want to be primarily a producer of my own?

So, I have been doing an Artist's Way course facilitated by my friend and sometime colleague, Kate Gavigan. More info about these courses HERE.

Now let me explain. I have a little bit of history with The Artist's Way and my feelings about it.

Take One: I first heard about it sometime around fall 1998 when a classmate of mine was going through her reading deprivation week...then shortly thereafter, I was on a day trip to Bainbridge Island and found the actual book while browsing a local bookstore. Since I felt I was in the midst of some kind of creative awakening anyway, I purchased it, then read a little of it while I was on a trip to visit my parents in Brazil. I read some of it, did some of the exercises. I didn't really attempt morning pages, but I did revamp my journal, and since I was going through an awakening anyway, continued to allow that to unfold organically, from Spring 1998 through Summer 1999, realized I wanted to get back into theatre again after a 6-year hiatus, went about implementing that to see what it was about, and ultimately decided, after an *amazing* and life-altering Shakespeare Intensive at Freehold Theatre, that I needed to jump in with both feet.

Take Two: Summer 2001, after spending two years taking classes, and finishing my first production outside Freehold, I had a little time on my hands and decided to try doing Artist's Way again. This time, I got a little more serious, not only started to read the first few chapters, but also started doing morning pages every day...which pretty immediately became a dream journal. Artist's Dates are and have been something I've done since before I ever heard of the book, though I didn't necessarily call them that, so that was nothing new. A month after starting this process, I began taking a non-fiction writing course, and a few days after that, some terrorists flew some planes into some buildings in New York, which was kind of a big deal. About a month after that, I looked back over some of these morning-pages-turned-dream-journal, and discovered I had had a dream on September 8th where I was in New York  and looked out the window just in time to see one of the WTC towers collapse. By this time, I had abandoned the book again, and just spent time analyzing and recording my dreams.

Take Three: Fast Forward to late Spring 2014. I have proudly called myself an artist without wavering for at least 13 years now, though sometimes it is hard to carve an authentic path for myself in the face of everyone and their opinions: peers, colleagues, instructors, extended family members, often popular culture and the magnetic pull of society at large. But yes. I am a Theatre, Literary and Visual Artist, have actually made a few bucks at all three at this point, even managed to support myself at times as an artist. I am also a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre now. I have written plays, poetry, pr materials, press releases, short stories and essays. I have acted in comedies, tragedies, classical and modern plays. I have devised and collaborated. Yet still, I feel like I am less than. I feel like I am not accepted in "the scene", feel like people think I SUCK, but I continue to make art anyway, because I am compelled to. So, though I don't feel like I'm necessarily fully blocked, like I have been at times, I feel like there is some blockage there, and knowing Kate to be an open and inclusive person, decided to take her class and finally complete the book once and for all.

That said, I must say I take some issue with a few things Julia talks about in her book...perhaps she has another one I am not aware of, where she discusses being in different parts of the process...but the whole "recovery" angle feels a little ooky to me. Though I suppose it is an addiction and an obsession if you choose to look at it that way, I've never received anything but positive feelings while immersing myself in making art, and the idea of being "in recovery" feels victim-y to me. I have a tendency to go into victim archetype anyway, so I certainly don't need any help with this. Ultimately, I am responsible for all my own choices...so yeah, even though I had a dick uncle who made fun of my writing when I was 14, I'm the one who ultimately decides if I'm going to allow that to stop me or keep writing anyway. Easier said than done, of course, and perhaps this comes out more in later chapters of the book, but these are some of the reasons why I had trouble continuing it in the past.

I'm not crazy about the "God" stuff either...but that I can at least replace with "Universe" and find it works for me. The other thing she does which, as someone who is not at the beginning of the spiral is a little troublesome is that she says, more than once, about people who call themselves artists that they may not be very talented and are just audacious. I realize this is probably meant to make the person "in recovery" feel better, but someone like me is going to see that as "Oh. I don't have any problems admitting I'm an artist. I've been making art for decades, despite what other people say about my work. Maybe this means I don't have any talent and am just audacious?" Because my inner critic is sneaky and crafty and will say whatever he needs to to beat me down. And since he doesn't have all that many opportunities to do that anymore, whenever he gets an in, he hits HARD.

At any rate, I am trying it again. We are in week 4. So far, I am noticing multidisciplinary ideas starting to come to me unsolicited again, which I love. Also, my dreams appear to be coming back, and I'm actually sleeping a little better which is amazing. I have made at least TWO fairly large discoveries/epiphanies during my morning pages, and it is kind of marvelous to be doing this while I am juggling several artistic projects of various disciplines and in various stages along of development. I have an instant "canvas" on which to work in some of these new ideas and some of these new habits. And I definitely can't stubbornly poo-poo any of that. So I am hoping I will make it all the way through this time.

     Piggybacking off Lindy West’s article on Jezebel, I find myself
musing on my name. While I am unlikely to ever get married (fundamental distrust/disagreement with the institution; but never say never – it could happen, if it needed to, for financial reasons), I have given my name within that situation a great deal of thought over the years.


      It took me a long time to get comfortable with my name. I didn’t
really start to settle into it until I added a couple letters to the end when I was 14, transforming me from the mundane Carolyn into the much more elegant and unique Carolynne I am today. Still haven’t gotten around to changing it legally, but I totally should. I don’t even know who Carolyn is, and she always looks
like an impostor that’s stolen my identity when I see her name (on my driver’s license, passport and bank statements). Carolyn is okay, but she’s basic; Carolynne has that little extra somethin’-somethin’. They both sound the same coming out of people’s mouths, so I am still honoring what my parents gave me, but I’ve also individualized it to suit my own needs and personality a little more.


      Now we come to the last name, which is potentially more fraught and has the potential to offend more people (generations of them, even!). If Ian and I decided to get married, I actually prefer his last name to mine, and I feel like it actually goes better, sounds more artist-y. But SHEESH. I’ve spent 44 damn years being Wilcox. I have mostly kinda hated my last name. Too much potential for nasty little kids to make fun of when I was little, and they did. Since leaving the bully-land of grade school, I have tolerated it, and after a lifetime, I am used to it, have grown into it and own it.


      But if I had the chance to change it? I dunno. Torrey does sound better with Carolynne, at least in my opinion. But…I have no real connection to that lineage, other than it’s Ian’s…but I’m not sure he especially has a stake in it, and I know he would totally leave it up to me. He might actually even be one of those rare dudes that would consider taking *my* name. So we come to the real meat of it: why would I want him to be saddled with “Wilcox”?


      The most compelling reason for me to keep it is purely and simply, my father. He is and has been a good one, and he unreservedly deserves that honor. But if I consider further back than that, and really ruminate on how connected I feel to that side of the family? Erm…not so much. While I have always felt loved and provided for by them, I have also felt mildly judged and never quite understood. Maybe even a bit of an embarrassment for my OH SO RADICAL life choices.


      And if I am considering that side of the family, it bears weight to consider taking my mother’s maiden name, Sabetay, as well. Just as a name, I prefer it to Wilcox, it also sounds better with Carolynne, and easily explains my jewfro. Also more exotic and less anglo than either Wilcox or Torrey, which is a plus in my book. Also, there are a hell of a lot more Wilcoxes running around on the planet than Sabetays, so losing one won’t hurt  the clan. Then there is the matter of just feeling more like them…and this is despite the fact that I was raised in a different culture and speaking a different language than that side of the family. When visiting my Uruguay relations, I've always felt included rather than judged, that they were proud to have another artist in the family tree rather than treating it as something weird, unmarketable or frivolous. Also, I would probably be the ONLY CAROLYNNE SABETAY IN THE WORLD,  NE or no NE. 
 

      But, I am lazy. And as previously stated, I have grown into Carolynne Wilcox and OWN it now. It would be REALLY WEIRD to be called something else, or see a different name – even weirder than when I see Carolyn  Wilcox. It’s mine, at this point, and it’s who I am…I really should get off my ass and legally add the extra NE though.