The year 2010 was a pretty big one for me.
That was the year I got married, and it also marked my 10-year-anniversary with Andy (that’s how long it took this country to get its shit together regarding marriage equality).
It also marked some more minor, but equally-fun anniversaries, such as the 15thanniversary of my first “tour†~ ‘The Friendship Tour: Chameleon in Motion.’ Ahh, memories of delusions and illusions, they feel so quaint now, and so crazy. Oh well, it was what I needed to do to fake it to make it, and if it went some way toward helping me build some confidence and genuine self-esteem, so be it.
By 2010, I’d realized how I’d been living out life as a work of art, which is fun for others to watch, but not always such fun to actually live. Around this period of time, I began to separate the writing and artistic work I did from the person I was, and differentiating between the two was paramount to becoming a better artist and more importantly a better person. So in many ways, ‘A 21stCentury Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour‘ was a bit of an after-thought in 2010, when my main priority was marrying Andy and enjoying the company of my new husband and all the good people in our life wishing us well.
That didn’t mean the artistic fire had been extinguished. If anything, it burned a bit brighter because once I was able to separate myself from my creative output, it gave me a sense of greater freedom. ‘A 21st Century Renaissance’ was a way of starting over again – and that meant going back to the very basic make-up of the universe and our place in it. To that end, the building blocks of the world were set on display: earth, air, light, water, fire ~ all with a pivotal role to play.
That focus on the natural world was part of this Renaissance, but I still liked to dress up and inhabit different characters. Set free from tying them directly into my own life, they could put on their costumes and do as they pleased. It was a new way of creating, a new way of artistic expression, and in that freedom was an exhilaration and thrill that had eluded me for a while.
This was a resurrection.
Of aspiration.
Of inspiration.
In some ways, it was if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
We each carry our own little worlds around, and they can weigh us down with worry as much as they lift us with wonder. When you let them roll off your shoulders, leaving them in the past and not looking back because there’s no longer a need to dwell there, the world rebuilds itself before you eyes.
A resurrection indeed.
{See ‘A 21stCentury Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour 2010’ in its entirety here. Also see ‘StoneLight’, ‘The Circus Project’, and ‘A Night at the Hotel Chelsea’.}
