The Artist's Way Week Two - Recovering a Sense of Identity

Onoriode Otojareri

Multi-tasker that I am, last week I tried to combine an artist date with morning pages along with capturing a photo for the self portrait challenge. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had a free morning and decided to head downtown to Union Station here in Los Angeles. Union Station is one of my favorite buildings in the city because you get a sense of history, you can feel it within it's walls. It's also been featured in many films, and I love the mission and art deco architecture.

I had roughly a couple hours to walk through the building and surrounding grounds where I planned to take photographs as well as find a place to curl up and write my morning pages and was very excited about it all. I went to the little cafe and ordered an herbal tea and proceeded to the large, ornate waiting room which was gloriously empty this particular morning with only the sun's rays beaming in through the surrounding windows as my company.

This chapter in the Artist's Way discusses poisonous playmates and crazymakers who are defined as those who help distract creatives from actually doing something creative. According to Julia Cameron, crazymakers love to align themselves with blocked creatives thus assuring themselves that they are in the spotlight. The gentleman in the above picture illustrates this point for me.

As I was setting up my camera for my self-portrait in this up-until-that-point empty waiting room, this man walked up to where I was -- curious, no doubt, as to what I was doing. At first I thought he was going to take off with my camera (it is Los Angeles after all) so I got a bit nervous and distracted. He said he just wanted to watch so I took one photo, uncomfortably grabbed my camera and curled up in one of the large chairs to sip my tea and write.

He then asked if he could sit and talk with me.

I am a genuinely nice person by nature, probably too nice most of the time, and I looked up at him. I didn't feel threatened in the least. He didn't seem outwardly crazy and really if he wanted to steal my point and shoot camera then he obviously needed it more than I did was my feeling at that moment.

I told him I had come here to write and wanted to focus on that and he asked if I was a writer. The word yes just popped out of my mouth informing him that I was. He then said I should write about him; he had many stories to tell.

Admittedly I was annoyed by this, although I am not sure why. I put myself in a public setting after all, what did I expect? And aren't writers supposed to welcome this sort of thing? I usually love to hear the stories of others. Perhaps it was because it happened exactly as I was reading the  passages about crazymakers and how to spot them. Or perhaps it's because I live in a large city where no one talks to strangers and everyone seems to be guarded most of the time. Or perhaps it was simply because he was distracting me from what I came to accomplish and I didn't wish to detour from that route.

As if on cue, he then told me he wasn't crazy, nor was he looking for anything, he was waiting for his wife to come in on the Palmdale train and he just wanted someone to talk to and how people don't communicate enough. I actually agree with this, and told him I would write about him on the condition that he let me take his picture, not posed. I would just place the camera on the arm rest next to me, he could talk and I would take something candid.

He was in the middle of telling me a story about his time spent in London where he lived for 25 years -- he had a very strong accent so I believed him -- and that is when I shot the above photo. It's blurry yes, but at the same time I thought it captured something sweet within him.

He asked me how old I was and when I told him he stated "those who don't look our age are the ones who rule the earth." This made me laugh out loud, but it was sweet none-the-less. He told me his name was Onoriode Otojareri which means something to the affect of no one knows tomorrow. Ain't that the truth.

As I got up to leave I told him I would write about him and he rolled his eyes and said he knew that I wouldn't. So Onoriode, this one's for you... I dedicated an entire post about you being my temporary crazy maker and distracting me from a day of morning pages, only to create something else instead.

1) How many days did I write morning pages this week? oooh, not good. I only wrote morning pages four out of seven days this week. I am having issues waking up earlier than I have to normally to write them. I admit sometimes morning pages turn into afternoon or night pages. Shhhhhh...... don't tell anyone, it's so embarrassing.

2) Did you go on your artist's date? Yes. I took myself to a couple places, Union Station and Santa Monica to shoot some photographs.

3) Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Yes, a rather large one but I think it deserves it's own post and since I feel like I am not fully done with this chapter yet, I think I will stay here for a few more days so I can move forward fully ready to embrace week 3.

Comments

[windylindy]

Smiling, just got back from Mesquite!

Love you,

Mom

[onoriode otojareri]

I WAS GOING THROUGH THE YAHOO PAGES AND TYPED MY NAME IN TO FIND OUT THINGS ABOUT ME AND FOUND THIS ARTICLE, I CANT BELIEVE THAT YOU WROTE ALL THIS ABOUT ME, YOU ARE TRUE TO YOUR WORD , KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK , GOD BLESS YOU, AND STAY UP, REMEMBER THAT WE RULE!