It’s been quite some time since I tackled writing for the blog, even though I have in my notebook a whole list of topics and bullet points I’d like to think about…
Today the planets clearly aligned just right, or maybe completely wrong: everyone at home cleared off somewhere, and I finished all the most urgent tasks and treated myself to a bit of quiet so I can jot down a few of my thoughts. Honestly, there’s a topic that for the last year, or maybe a year and a half, has been chafing me quite a lot.
All of you who like to follow the Zoki.art scribbles probably delight in the gentle, cheerful and mischievous characters and the delicate, fragrant flowers. And surely many imagine what a gift and joy it is to have a job where you spend time with nothing but beautiful things. And those many are absolutely right.
I love my job, or, to put it more poetically – my mission, very much. I actually adore the hours when I can sit, in the pure absence of other people, listen to Debussy and Chopin and wash water over pigment and give it shape. I pretend the world around me doesn’t exist. That there isn’t a pile of unread emails waiting, a heap of orders to pack and a mountain of dirty laundry. It all sounds so ridiculously romantic, but it’s so insanely lovely!
And every romance is also a little tragic, right? As already said, many people see that final moment – a pretty picture, joy, warmth and a gentle feeling. The sadness of this romance is that in recent years I find it harder and harder to carve out, yes to carve out, time for this core activity of mine. Everything else becomes more urgent because, you know, obviously people aren’t going to wait!? Before I decided six years ago for the illustrator story, it was clear to me that if I wanted to do what makes me happy, I’d have to devote ninety percent of my time to tasks I like less – so that I’d have the privilege of those ten percent of time for pure creating. And all of that was completely clear and acceptable. “No biggie,” I thought.
No biggie suddenly becomes a biggie when those 10% start shrinking. And I feel like I’m losing my own self when I ask myself, “Wait, who the f*** am I now?” Because the answer illustrator was always close to me. But in the roles of shop assistant, marketer, warehouse worker, accountant, purchaser, administrator, strategist, negotiator and advisor I always have that feeling as if the dress is a bit too tightly tailored and it rides up on my hips and slides on my shoulders now left, now right. That it isn’t for me. Yet I still have to put it on. And the little jacket too!!! Some of those tightly tailored dresses I actually like a lot. For example the one for the flower waterer! What bothers me though is the feeling that the one that fits me best is more and more often gathering dust in the next room. And if I don’t soon clean it and pull it on, Hades will lure it into the underworld! And me, well, I’m not Orpheus!
So that’s basically what has been weighing on me for some time. And then I run through variations, whether I’d most like to be just Zoki or maybe just Art or even brand new Zoki Fart. Then my head starts crawling with worms from all the overthinking and I go cook lunch. I know, many would say ‘come on, stop whining’ and ‘man up butter cup!’ and I do stick to that too. But it’s good every so often to pour your soul out when it presses on you. Even if you only have a squat toilet available. Relief is relief. You wipe and move on. 😀
Z.
Leave a Reply