Signals

Thoughts, I think, are not our own. They are what we subscribe to. What frequency we happen to be tuned toward. And creativity — those ideas that surface in the dark, that tap on the roof of the mind — they are companions in this life. Guides, even. Looking to be made real, to be made seen, if only for a moment.

But my hand slips on the dial more than I would like to admit. And when it does, I know where it goes.

Toward the ones who praised me and whose approval I began to need. Toward the ones who doubted me and whom I never quite stopped trying to answer. And toward the ones who seem more luminous, more certain, more arrived in their own skin — and I want that so badly I let their signal replace my own. As though I have to pass through them to get to myself.

All of it static. Pulling me away from the clear frequency that was there all along.

Because when the ideas come, they are unmistakable. Like flaming-tailed comets landing in my yard when I am drifting off to sleep. Or like friendly ghosts coming up behind me — passing their hands through the images in my mind until something half-formed rises to the surface and asks, quietly —

Would you like to make me something the world can hold? I have been waiting so long. Invisible. Without a body.

I am so honored when they choose me.

Creativity has such grace for me when I lose the signal. It doesn’t keep score. It doesn’t experience time the way I do, which means it is in no hurry. It waits for the moment I wake up, for whatever stirs me back into alignment. And when I do, it doesn’t ask where I have been. It just taps gently and says —

I am here. I am here. Won’t you come out and play with me? Won’t you be my hands?

After a long season of static and borrowed frequencies, I feel like I can finally see clearly. Blue Hour: Sovereign was my homage to this. A companion that arrived when the dial was steady and the signal was clean.

Four works. The beginning of a continued series.

Blue Hour: Sovereign is sold out. There will be more work coming soon…