Wallowing, Female Mystics and Other Sundries.

oops, am I in your yard?, originally uploaded by camille94019.

I have been having a terrific e-xchange with Mikeofearthsea (http://mikeofearthsea.blogspot.com) about single womanhood, love and sex in this wacky fallen world we live in.

I don't want this entry (or my life) to be about finding that cliche "glimmer of hope in the catastrophe" nor do I want it to be about wallowing. Wallowing has been done so well in the past, I'd hate to have to compete with Dostoyevsky or Salinger.

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So yet again I shirk blog-entry writing by posting an email I sent to Mikeofearthsea this morning. And now I really have to get to work. He had been expressing sympathy for my plight and had written a very sweet shmail to me.

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Hey Mike,

Do not weep for us...  :P  There have been over-abundances of christian women many
times in the past, and somehow the faith keeps going and the women find ways of
moving on.  The huge surge in nunneries in the middle ages was a result of such a man-
shortage (wars and plagues and famines reduced the man-numbers so drastically that
huge groups of women had no choice but to band together and support themselves).  
We have a legacy of female mystics from that epoch.  If Teresa of Avila, Hildgard Von
Bingen and Heloise had gotten married, perhaps we wouldn't have their writings.

I am rereading "A careless rage for life" a biography of Dorothy Sayers (she wrote the Lord Peter Whimsey detective novels, she was also a fabulous Christian).  I can relate to her on so many levels.  She spent her 20's in a
hodgepodge of jobs, totally frustrated and brilliant (at least I can modestly relate to the
frustrated part) involved in some torrid affairs (she had loud opinions about sex and
wrote about it at length in her letters.. she even lectured about it), then she got married
to a loser when she was 33, and it was a total disaster... but she stayed married and
threw herself into her work until she died in her 50s.  Her story gives me pause... I'd
certainly rather stay single than get married out of desperation.  I think the real tragedy
are the choices she made, not necessarily her situation.

I am sensing a theme.  Maybe I should get some work done today.  I really detest
wallowing-- but with this semi-unemployment and stress about money, i am finding that art is a hollow substitute for security and love.  I have about 7 stories written and storyboarded and have absolutely no motivation to illustrate them (and no money to publish even if they were done).  My studio/room is a mess... wah wah wah wah.  I teach today, so I really ought to prep for that... argh.  I can work through emotional pain, and I can plunder that pretty well, but the whole question of "where is next months rent coming from?" pretty much steals any sort of magic I can conjure up.  Of course, now I am challenged to prove myself wrong.  :)

back to work,
C