The Befogged Crystal Ball

You know that tired where you feel all dehydrated? Blech.

But, what must be done, must be done, and I have to head in to SF in a little while to meet up with a lady friend/teacher of mine. After that, this afternoon, I’m heading to North Beach to live model for a friend’s friend. This is sort of a trial run, agreed upon in a safe environment – one where I feel safe at least, not that the modeling guild wasn’t, but this woman is a more known entity. I’m not getting paid – as she’s basically agreed to see me and see if I ought to try to pursue this more, and for me to see if I want to try to pursue this more.

I had a moment in February when I was still considering whether or not to drop out of the modeling guild – before I’d been on any gigs – when we had live models in our painting class. And it was just so cool. It’s just really cool. Here are these people, and suddenly, they’re art. It’s fascinating and enticing to me, and I called a friend and was like, I don’t know what to do – if I continue with the guild, I have to rent a zipcar to get to the outlying gigs (as I’d lied on the application and said I had a car – as I knew that’d be a requirement – but I don’t, and that was coming around to bite me). Paying the cost of the rental really cut in to any money I’d make modeling, and it was beginning to feel like an exercise in self will, rather than the attendant “ease and flow” that can come when things are a bit more “meant to be.”

So, I dropped out of the guild, having not been on a single job, but having had a lot of good learning from doing the audition as well as the training sessions. And my friend put me in touch with a painter friend of hers, female, who uses live models and would be willing to see if this is a good fit for me or not. Then if it does go well, so the line goes, she’ll let her other painter/drawing friends know about me.

We’ll see. The nice thing about this one is that there isn’t as much pressure. If I need to stop, then I will. If it’s too physically grueling, I’ll learn that. It’s really f-ing hard to stand still for 20 minutes, and then do that for 3 hours in increments. It’s not all standing hopefully – some is sitting. But the “good ones” can do a lot of standing, I think. But what do I know. We’ll see.

I’m also in the process of learning how to pull my life-line tendrils out of San Francisco and root further into Oakland, in a “bloom where I am planted” effort. So, I may or may not be going in to see my teacher-friend weekly any more. I don’t know yet. I’ve been seeing her for more than 3 years now, we’ve been through a lot, she’s seen me through a lot, and there’s fear and sadness about changing the nature of our relationship.

I went over a friend’s for dinner last night – here in Oakland, surprise! – and we were talking about how hard it is to end, or change, relationships that aren’t “bad.” There’s nothing wrong. No one is to blame. It’s just not working any more. My SF teacher and I have had the conversation before, that soon enough, I might want to find someone to work with over here in Oakland, but each time, I’ve said Nuh Uh, I still get so much out of meeting with her. Which is true. I still, to this day, get so much out of meeting with her. But the commute is a killer and it’s dragging me down. An hour and a half to get there, to meet for an hour, and then an hour and a half back is … not an efficient use of my time, and despite my trying to “make it work” and let it be “okay,” it’s just not. And, I’m finally becoming willing to take action around this change.

It is weird to change the nature of a relationship, from one that is more mentor/pupil to potentially just peers/friends, without rancor or dishonesty or blame. There just isn’t that, and so it gets to just be sad, but also freeing as I get to be honest about my needs and what I’m available for.

I’m not sure if I’ll “pull the plug” today. I don’t know if that’s the most nurturing thing for me to do today with the end of school coming, and this woman having watched me go through all that it took to get to school at all. But, I’m approaching the place of accepting that this is necessary, and that I’m willing to make the change, though I’m scared of what happens then.

As someone said to me recently, “I have a crystal ball, but I just don’t know how to use it yet.”