I woke up at 3 a.m. in the middle of a conscious/unconscious nightmare, the lost friends, arguments, confusions, mistakes, “enemies” and resentments of a lifetime were rushing through my head in a steady stream. It’s obsessive, I know, I think, a part of the madness that has always lurked in my brain.

I work so hard at letting go, at embracing a more spiritual life, but my subconscious is my Greek Chorus, it is my memory and my truth, I can’t hide from it, it keeps from lying to myself, it never lets me off the hook, you can’t let go of what you can’t forget.

Look at what you are, it says, look at what you did!

Perhaps it was because I was sick for a couple of days, and slept so much, I was up most of the night battling demons and ghosts. I think something must be wrong with me, I told Maria, so many conflicts and misunderstandings. There must be something wrong with me.

I spent too much of my life being vigilant, guarding against the pitfalls and dangers and troubles that have so often followed me and  haunt me still.

Then I went on my blog to post the comments, which I always do first thing in the morning, and there was this astonishing post from someone named Penny Edmund, who I have never met and whose name I did not recognize. It seemed to come right out of my long night, out of my dreams, how someone I do not know could be so close, such a soul mate.

My first thought was, well, she doesn’t know me. It was Maria who said she knows you quite well.

But then, I read it again, and saw so much more.

“Having recently been at the Art Institute in Chicago,” read the message, “my friend and I have been discussing Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte. As always, it seems amazing that someone could paint something so immense and wonderful.
Today, in thinking about your blog I have come to compare someone’s memoir to that great painting. “What an amazing and challenging life,” I would say about that person. “How did he or she manage it?”

Reading the memoir is like gazing at that painting. Reading your blog is like sitting with the artist every day as he creates it, every joy, every frustration, every cramp in their hand and neck and back, every moment when you work up close and every time you step back and look at the big picture. It is being a part of someone’s amazing and courageous life.”

I read this to Maria and said I was baffled at being compared to the great artist George Seurat, famous for originating the Pointillist method of painting, using small dot-like strokes of color in works like “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” which Penny was referring to, and is shown above.

I think I get it.

I have always thought of my blog as a living memoir, a radical step on the edge in this new age, a new way of looking at memoir and thinking about memoir.

My blog is the story of my life. People always tell me they are surprised at how open I am, but isn’t that the point of memoir? To be open? If the blog were on paper, no one would think it strange at all, memoir is all about openness and courage. I never think I’m courageous enough.

And yes, my idea was to be authentic in the corporate and political age of lying, where speech – even the language in books –  is guarded and polished and screened by marketers.

That was the idea, really, sharing the life of the writer, the story-teller, the artist, the photographer, and the human being every day as I create it, every joy, frustration, every moment when I work up close and every time I step back and look at the big picture, as I was compelled to do this morning.

My wish was that everyone who reads it becomes a part of my life, amazing or courageous or not. The blog has evolved beyond my expectations into this new kind of memoir, and Penny captured it beautifully, although I would never for a second have thought to compare it to Seurat and his famous Pointillist painting.

But it’s true, the blog and my writing and photography has pulled me along into this life of the artist, constantly stepping back to assess the canvass, to capture life in La Bedlam. The blog is my Creative Mother, it pulls me out of myself day after day and shapes my existence as a creative person, with all of the chaos and confusion that entails. Why do I have so much trouble accepting that?

How is it that Penny, visiting an art museum in Chicago, can see so clearly into my life and send me a message that I need to hear and help me validate my chaotic and amazing and wonderful and painting and hiccupy and jumbled and painful life?

That, I suppose, is the blessing and also the curse of this amazing time we live in, I never lament the state of the world, it is glorious for me to be alive.