My New Year's Resolution

Within a few hours of the end of 2017 I read something that I am bold to adopt as my marching orders for 2018. First, some background:

Sculptor Karen Swenholt’s work and life are subject of a piece in the Fall, 2017 issue of Image (Mark Sprinkle: Lost and Found: Karen Swenholt Unmakes Identity Politics). Swenholt has created compelling human forms that challenge our assumptions and complacencies. The article centers on her own self-image as a sculptor, and tells how the image which she had of herself was existentially challenged by brain injuries she suffered in an automobile accident. Those injuries “robbed her of cognitive, creative, and even perceptual faculties for the better part of three years.”

Fortunately, she is able to work again. And here is something she wrote as a result of her devastating experience being redeemed:

“There comes a time when [making art] may become impossible; when the gift is crippled, when the leg breaks and you will never dance like that again. Then the immortal grace of the silk-ribboned foot turns back to the decaying flesh it always was. The bunions morph from trophies formed in triumph back to only pain. It is a privilege to make art. Make it while you can. Make it if you can. Make it.”

Pretty sobering. Sobering like an enemy ship’s warning shot across the bow: do what you have to do now, or you may not get it done. Sobering as in challenging.

For several years I have been writing a little book about Ghost Ranch, the Presbyterian-owned retreat and educational center just north of Abiquiu, New Mexico. The manuscript has gone through dozens of iterations, and is far different from what it started out to be, though some precious original lines and paragraphs attest to the initial inspiration.

Ghosts and Gold: Stories from a Magic Place has gone into hiding and come out of it several times through those years. This past fall I revived it again with a visit to Ghost Ranch, aided by some encouraging words. I have big plans for this little book, but right now the biggest plan of all its to get it done. To make it while I can, if I can.

And yes, I can.

I think of myself as having a more than tolerable way with words, but as far, far from being an accomplished writer, or word-artist if you will. But I do not need to be an artist to welcome Karen Swenholt’s invitation to get this thing done. I just need the resolve to work it until it is the best I can make it and offer it to any who would receive it.

You can help, which is why I am writing this blog. You can encourage my resolve, by checking in with me (How’s the Ghost Ranch book coming along, Dean?), and then admonishing me to be true to my own resolve when I hem and haw and act as if I don’t understand the question.

I will thank you. I really will.