Death: The ultimate muse for life
My most recent project, “29” — a series of abstract works — have been brought into the world because of dying. I discovered a small lump on my body. I tried to brush it off, thinking it would go away — but it wasn’t, and I had a propagating neurosis that it was cancer and it would shortly be the death of me. I set the soonest appointment with my doctor, which was a month away. For the first time in my entire life, I had the experience of stepping into space of death. Life felt so strange — everything felt so strange…and new, oddly like being a baby. Before this, I thought I was totally fine with death, but I always imagined that it would be instantaneous. I didn’t think I would actually have the time to consider and contemplate everything.
One thing that was a little bit heartbreaking (but I tried not to let it break my heart too much because stress is bad for cancer) was that throughout most of my life, my artistic energy was put into things I thought would get me reward and recognition, not necessarily what I wanted to make or felt I needed to make. I consider art “my thing”, but I felt slightly sickened by the sudden awareness that I wasn’t actually making my art. None of my creations felt like my own. I was inauthentically labeling myself and to have this realization dawn on me so abruptly this was difficult…because — it always seemed like there was more time. You imagine that at some point, there will be a day where the things that you need to do will be done…that is until the moment you realize that that day may not actually come.
One night in the midst of my anxiety-ridden month, I was lying in bed and I listened as words blossomed.
“I awaited on 29 plates when they came to be, they were all broken I was so delighted by seeing all the pieces scattered,there was no time to cry!”
I got up, used my salt lamp to illuminate the pad of paper next to my bed and jotted the words down. I don’t know where they came from or why, and I didn’t know why I was writing them down. I laid back down in bed and I held myself — a practice that I started doing intuitively. It’s like holding someone else, but it’s yourself — a very familiar someone else. Before this day, any motivational words that I heard, I saw no purpose in holding and examining in the light. The world tends to shun the idea of action when there isn’t a palpable payoff, and instead encourages creation only when there is a concrete reward.
Throughout the month leading up to my doctor’s appointment, I seized the opportunities when inspiration offered itself — which was more frequent than I had ever experienced in my life. I wondered if these callings were always entering my consciousness — but I was just missing them or worse, fearful of them. The ideas and inspiration poured in like rain — it was almost too much. By loosening my westernized dogma about reward-driven action, I was able to relinquish control and be a conduit for what was and what came through, no matter what it was, without judgement. By the end of the month, I had finished my series, “29”.
A month had gone by and I was in the car right outside at my doctor’s office. It was such a strange feeling — for which I’m not sure I have words for. Am I about to be prescribed with my death? I leaned on the center console and looked myself in the eyes. “I love you. No matter what happens, I love you. Okay? I love you”, I said aloud. The feeling was almost like being trapped in a gooey fluid. The reassuring words didn’t quite feel like how I’d wanted them to feel, like I was already embalmed — or like on the other side of a closed window — and all I could see was my mouth moving.
I walked into the doctor’s office and died.
Just kidding….but I did walk into the office and I found out that the lump that had taken over my mind and life was totally benign and would be gone with one prescriptions worth of medication.
Whenever I hear echoes from the rabbit-hole of apprehension and opinions of “the world”, I am reminded that my entire being-ness, my consciousness, my body — could all be gone in my next breath — annihilated like a machine. I step into the space of being dead. It’s a reminder that the things I make matter. There isn’t always a tangible reward for making them, but there is a knowing that this place has something it never had before and will never have again in the existence of this world or any world.
Words & Artwork by David Aragon
Originally published at www.papercutmag.com on January 13, 2016.
