The blurry picture to the right is a photograph of a fuzzy polaroid picture of a watercolor painting of a perfume ad by L'aire du temps. I painted it when I was 16 years old from a simple watercolor pan and one small brush.
It is all that I have of a painting from a moment in my life when I dealt with profound disappointment by creating something beautiful. Many years later, when I looked at the ballerina, I thought of myself as being her, dancing in a dark room. But when I was painting her, I lacked that insight.
Today's article is about disappointment, creativity, and fulfillment, using the ball in Cinderella's story as a metaphor for life. What is this fairytale teaching us through its symbols? Read on for my reflections.
Have a super week!
Cinderella or Cinderfella: The Invitation to the Ball
Arriving anyway through creativity
Mother wrote and published her carefully formulated, scholarly viewpoints in essays. She taught Chinese literature and history in high school in Taiwan before we immigrated to the US. Later, she worked in the genealogical library in Salt Lake City, Utah, translating ancient Chinese documents and cataloging them for research purposes. My maternal aunt shared that our ancestors were wealthy scholars in China before the Communist Revolution
In any event, I was born with writer genes, and for much of my youth, I entered just about every writing contest I could find. Eventually, I was accepted to U.C. Berkeley where I hoped to pursue a career in creative writing.
Like Cinderella, that was my invitation to the ball. Also, like her, I couldn't go to the ball even though I felt I had done everything asked of me in order to attend. As the coach drove off, I was left devastated and desolate. When I got up and wiped my tears away, I decided I would wait to be a writer. In the meantime, I would be a psychiatrist instead. And that eventually led to this.
This article. This writing. This podcast. This sense of arrival. This ball.
Cinderella had a fairy godmother, and her magic wand could transform a pumpkin into a coach and her rags into a glowing gown. She received glass shoes that only fit her feet. I wrote about those glass shoes in another article called Obtaining Your Heart's Desire and the Meaning of Cinderella's Glass Slipper.
In ordinary life, we may feel far removed from a fairy godmother and her magic wand, but they are just metaphors for the power of transformation found in our own creativity.
In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron writes:
"The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity. Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as the creator but seldom see creator as the literal term for artist. I am suggesting you take the term creator quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities." (page 2)
There is the thwarted artist who felt disappointed over her inability to attend the UC Berkeley ball, and then there is the Artist who arrives at Life's Ball anyway through creative forces. Along the way, one must walk an authentic path. This is where the metaphor of the glass slipper comes in. You can read about it in my previous article.
In other words, we have the creative power within us that can transform our life's pumpkins into coaches and our rags into gowns. This process happens in spite of all the obstacles in the way and despite our belief in being powerless. Creativity can organize colors on a piece of paper or events on our calendar. One may take a few days to complete—the other, a few decades. The same force moves through these events.
You may take for granted that I write and have written 163 weekly updates. But I don't. It is one of the greatest miracles in my life. For many years, I mourned my loss like Cinderella, bereft of all hope for a better life—a creative life. The fact that I have come to this place, these words, without any invitation from anyone, just shows that we can create our own ball and have just as much fun dancing.
Whether you're a Cinderella or a Cinderfella, know that creativity can take you from disappointment to fulfillment, and no one can take that power from you. You are Creativity incarnate.
These poems below provide additional insights on today's topic:
You Are
The Ballerina
Have a great week!
The Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast (Ep. 6):
A Holistic Understanding of Antipsychotic Withdrawal
A review of the nature of psychosis and how to withdraw from antipsychotics safely. What are antipsychotic withdrawal side effects? What tools do we have to lessen withdrawal symptoms? What are the differences between conventional psychiatrists’ withdrawal process and a holistic withdrawal process?
Click here for the full episode available on Wednesday.
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Click on the picture below to listen to the teaser.