30
Paint Nightlights

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

—Thomas Merton

I didn’t sleep well as a child. I worried about the sounds I heard, people coming into our house. Additionally, my mind was always going. That is still true today. Now, sleep is one of the few times I feel peaceful. My mind reels when I’m awake. I don’t know how other people’s minds work but I often wonder if they’re as busy and restless as my own. Some of this is good—ideas, thoughts, connections. Some of it is debilitating.

As a child I carried these sensitivities and I think they kept me up at night—wondering and wandering, and sometimes worrying. At night, while I was waiting for sleep, I would take out the nontoxic nail polish I got in a makeup kit for Christmas, and I would paint the nightlight that was plugged into a socket on the south wall of my bedroom. I would paint it and then wait for the heat from the bulb to dry the polish and then I’d peel it off in long strips like you peel a fruit roll from the plastic wrapper.

Then I’d paint it again. Wait for it to dry and peel. Paint and peel. Paint and peel. Until sleep arrived.

Those trained in Somatic Experiencing would probably tell you I was using the nightlight as an anchor, a way to orient all of the disorientation, a focal point. In the past, I’ve thought of this as sort of an example of my just being a super weird kid. Now I’m beginning to believe my late-night art exploits might have more to tell me.

Recently I realized I felt a bit of envy when I remembered myself and the nightlight.

What are you envious of? I wondered.

And the following came to mind: She is lost in her own world.

The nightlight-painting child inside me is lost in a world of her own making, creating something that interests her. There is no audience, no one to please. There is no TRY. She is simply delighted by the world she’s entered.

Within a few years of this story, I would be worried about belonging, where I fit in. I would worry about whom, exactly, I would sit with at lunch and who, exactly, my friends were. The prospect of appearing as though I didn’t have a tribe, a place, was troubling to me. At some point I would begin to feel like I was composed entirely of one million raw nerve endings.

But before all that was the six-year-old me in my bedroom, late at night, and I think she’s probably an important version of me to reconnect with, lost in her own magical world.

These days, I long for the time and space to get lost. Getting lost in my own world doesn’t always seem compatible with my current life responsibilities. But that doesn’t mean I give up. I just have to get creative. Luckily, I’m good at that. How can I become that little girl again, painting the nightlight, lost in a quiet world of my own making? How can I find my way back to her pure intuition?

The times in my life when I have been the most unhappy are the times when I’ve neglected that little girl and her longing to get lost in a creative world. She wasn’t looking for approval or applause. This was about something much more essential and true.

As a thirty-nine-year-old homeowner and mother of three, this feels frivolous, like I don’t have this kind of time to waste. Life feels significantly more urgent. But my feelings of over-responsibility are what begin to drown me. Yes, I’m responsible for my home. Yes, I’m responsible for my kids. Yes, I’m responsible for a whole host of things, but when those responsibilities become so heavy that I am unable to live freely and lightly anymore, when everything other than my responsibilities begins to feel frivolous and engaging in creativity is nothing but self-indulgent . . . something is off.

My hypervigilance is actually keeping me from connection to others and my life in meaningful ways. Isn’t that interesting? We feel over-responsible for everyone else and under-responsible for ourselves.

I’ve come to realize that the best way I can live, the way I so deeply long to live, is both lost in my own worlds and deeply connected. I am actually yearning—in all the best ways—for these things.

Currently, I’m letting my intuition off the leash a bit. I’m letting her run free with the intention of leading me toward worlds I’m longing for and neglecting. I’m talking back to that voice inside that keeps telling me how ridiculous my soul voice is and how much important time she’s wasting. I’m talking back to that Soul Bully who wants to strangle me with expectations and hypervigilance and over-responsibility. It’s no way to live.

Walking around the grounds of a gorgeous park when I’m on a tight deadline might seem like a terrible waste of time. But I’m seeing how the beauty and the creativity spark me and I actually have more energy to work and be and live when I have gone into these worlds that speak to me. I’m charging my own batteries. I’m allowing myself to be healed and inspired and spoken to. I’m getting quiet and seeing what surfaces. It’s pretty cool.

I think that’s why the six-year-old me keeps coming to my mind. She’s the unlikely midwife, helping bring dabbling and delight back into my world.

Reflection & Expression

What did you love to do as a child? How did you play?

For Your Brazen Board

Include an image of a child that speaks to you.