Wearied and discouraged by the people around me and the length of the tasks before me, I cycled out to Image City Art Gallery as I had been planning to do for two months, bringing my portfolio from Mechelen along just in case there was someone who might take a look. Sure enough, featured artist Betsy Phillips was there between the final hours of her exhibition there and the opening of another elsewhere, and she took a generous interest in my work. Before I knew what was happening, I had spoken to a number of gallery members, including executive director Ed Vesneske and Croatian Rochesterian Dan Neuberger, and they signed off on my application and tentatively scheduled me for a panel exhibit in February. Heaven bless them.
Who should call in the middle of it all but Giancarlo, set this time on persuading me to change direction at the last minute. (Funny that I probably seem absolutely unspontaneous to him, when spontaneity is the modus operandi against which the requirements of the rest of my life struggle.) Fortunately, California Rollin' was just a few blocks away, and he made me the biggest sushi selection I've probably ever eaten in my life. It was such a treat to eat truly good food, especially after a week of shoveling take-out while running between tasks. I was so defeated by the end that even my dessert stomach declined the first opportunity to enjoy tempura ice cream in a year, excluding Thai Taste with JR in June. And it was also a treat to spend the afternoon talking with people who added more than the typically two dimensions that seem to form and cage in my world at Eastman.
But being in such a lively and vibrant place as the Village Gate, talking to someone full of energy and with a life beyond of music for whom I haven't found time in weeks, I felt a mantle of melancholy settle. It was strange to feel as if I didn't belong. It doesn't seem my world anymore. It should be. But if Eastman isn't my world and neither are the places I've been today, where do I belong anymore?
I thought this afternoon would be a relief. But I've been trying to find relief for days since finishing my Soros application. And no amount of relief seems to address the dissatisfaction at the base of it all. Every break puts me further behind in my work and makes me wonder who I can turn myself into at Eastman or if Eastman will dictate how to mold me.
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