Pearls

Pearls are layers and layers of soothing ‘nacre’ intended to insulate the delicate mollusk from the irritant that has abraded it. At root, a pearl is a ‘disturbance,’ a beauty created by something that isn’t supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion. ‘How like art,’ I catch myself thinking. The pearl’s beauty is made as a result of insult just as art is made as a response to something in our environment that fires us up, sparks us, causes us to think differently. (Julia Cameron, The Sound of Paper)

These are good words from a book I caught sight of by chance as my daughters were pulling bird books from the shelves at the library. They speak of artistic creation in the largest sense. Ultimately one’s life is a work of art, for better or for worse. I’d like to do a better job of creating beauty out of disturbance, by which I seem to be plagued lately in various ways.

Cameron recommends three disciplines for artists: morning pages (three handwritten journal pages every day), artist dates (one weekly, by yourself), and walks (3 or 4 short ones and one long one weekly). The artist date concept probably isn’t within the realm of possibility for me at the moment, but the pages and walks are.

I used to be sure I was a writer, but lately I’m not so sure. In fact, on the whole my life has an undeveloped feel. I’m not sure what I am. But these three disciplines seem like good, doable ways for anyone, not just writers, to begin kneading the undeveloped dough of daily experience — or formulating a response to “disturbance” that might culminate in beauty.