I was raised to believe certain emotions were not to be felt or expressed. At best, these “negative” emotions should be shut down, stuffed or covered with something “pretty” to make it easier to pretend they didn’t exist. Negative emotions made other people uncomfortable and this was one of the big “hell no’s” in my family.
Angry, for example, wasn’t allowed. Sad was better. Nice girls are allowed to cry, preferably quietly and primarily in private so as not to interfere with anyone elses happier or more acceptable feelings.
Today, for a combination of reasons I felt almost unbearably angry. I realize after stepping back and thinking about it, perhaps it is a combination of the white supremacist gang member I saw while eating breakfast alongside the lack of ability to impact the lives of little Jaxon and his mom coupled with the desire to see my friends follow through on their best visions for their lives and let’s face the honest truth here, frustration with my own lack of follow through on my own best vision for my life on a consistent basis.
In the moment, though, all I knew was I felt pretty darned ruffled and I did what felt better than angry and that was to use my anger to “take care of business.” My kitchen table needed to be cleared so I could get my creative work done. The floor needed to be swept and mopped. There were dishes in the sink but I ignored them while I took on the very physical and more movement oriented task of sweeping and mopping.
It felt good to be angry.
It felt good to get something done.
I felt pleasure in the sounds of the broom and the movement of the dirt into the trash can. My anger felt like it was laughing as I sloshed water about the bucket and the room and later dumped the filty water down the sink and disinfected the bucket once it was emptied.
Deeper and more heavy frustration followed me onto the page. I took a barely started, half-finished art journal card that needed to be finish and darn it, I would get it done.
I knocked over a cup of supplies which further fueled my miffed feelings as I angrily scratched words onto the card, using it as a journal.
I threw gesso on the page and used my fingertips as a brush.
I kneaded the card as if it was bread, pushing the gesso in to the orange gouache paint from the day before. My frustration and anger minimized slightly. I wrote some vaguely inaccurate yet important words on the card. Please be aware grammar and punctuation do not count when free writing or art journaling.
“I don’t know what I want to say, really, about this flat out feeling, sad, feeling I’m having. Flat out feelings of sad are never good, afterall. They tend to return and repeat (on the vintage book page I used as a foundation for my card the word “boomerang” sang out.) a boomerang. I circled the word “boomerang” and stopped my pen from her dance.
“I wish I could take a snapshot of this feeling and make it disappear and get the fudge (only I didn’t write fudge) out of the way. But wait, restlessness helps.”
I sat back in my chair. Restlessness might not be “good” on its own, but it is a positive thing to make one stop and reconsider the choices one has made and continues to make.
In parenthesis, by the balloons on the card I wrote, (“So I should be saying thank you.)
Again, later, I think a different word than “should” might be more appropriate. Wording like “Gratitude for restlessness is more constructive” AND I also note, anger would use words like “should”. Anger would point her bony finger and incant “You should be saying thank you, ingrate!”
I am calmer now than I was when I attacked my kitchen floor. I have boomeranged back to my usual self.
The creative process soothed and quieted the anger and simultaneously allowed me space to be wholeheartedly angry. A chore I had been avoiding because a sensual experience and yet another piece of the process of making constructive meaning out of an unpleasant feeling - one I recognized as anger and frustration but which I masked in writing as “sad” and “restless.”
Finally, as I wrote this essay to tie the experience with a red ribbon, I wrote several variations of a closing.
It may have taken me several decades longer than I would have liked, but I am coming to know anger more intimately. I am allowing it to be a constructive partner rather than a destructive force I turn and run away from when I see her coming.
= = =
Sadness and restlessness do not pack the walloping punch anger carries. Sometimes we need the gentler family members to help us find the meaning that will take us where we are meant to be.
= = =
I stretch my arms up over my head and arch my back. I hear my voice say “Oh, that feels good,” and I wonder if that is all there is left to say? The creating, the writing, the retelling, the stretching, the restless anger and sadness - now, the creativity, has summed it up in “that feels good.”
For now, I’ll take that ending
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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in September 2015 and beyond.
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