Slugging through

I find my thoughts very circular recently and I’m feeling trapped in them. I wish I had some clever line to describe it further. I tell myself that I’ve got nothing to say except that I work too much. And, if you are an avid reader of this column that comes as no surprise. But that’s really not the whole it.

One project hasn’t come together the way that I’ve been hoping. It’s about artists going through psychoanalysis. It chronicles seven artists’ work and how it changes through their problems and their therapy. I realize that the subject matter is making me very anxious and brings up a lot of stuff that I don’t like thinking about. And although the project is almost done, it’s been hard for me to find the last couple of hours to actually finish it. So it looms there, staring me in the face, taunting me as if I really can’t finish it. But that’s really not the whole of it.

At the same time, my latest “Candy Darling” documentary deadline, perhaps the most intense of my short career, holds the fate of the project. It’s an all-or-nothing, make-it-or-break-it screening that is scheduled for two weeks from today.

Every day that passes is a day less and it’s been hard for me to stay focused?on anything. All day, every day is spent in my basement office, back hunched over my computer, blinds keeping out sunlight. Blinking my way through the film, I move this part, change that part. (I’m so sick of Andy Warhol.)

Sometimes, I feel like everything makes sense, that it’s all coming together, but rarely. I try to hang on to those times. Unfortunately, they aren’t as frequent as the alternative.

Most of the time, I feel like I am absolutely nowhere. It feels impossible; the project is too big and I can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s like staring straight up at a mountain that I am supposed to climb.

I can’t seem to put my finger on what exactly is controlling the creative and emotional waves of high and lows, except to say that they are beyond me.

I’m looking forward to spring and spending more time outside. And to trust that a string of bad days does not mean an end to good ones. I wish that telling myself that I am trying my hardest was enough. But, that’s really not the whole of it.

I’ll keep you posted.