FEAR

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart. Saint Jerome

So I want to do this gig where I chat with folks whilst doing their nails and in return, they give me something they have been holding on to for perhaps a long time, but, they won't give me enough to connect the information back to themselves.

Am I nuts?

Who do I think I am to do this?

Who is going to want to do this?

Who in their right mind would permit me to take a 'valuable' piece of private information and publish it on the web?

Is anyone really going to be better off if I do this?

Are they really going to feel better for having done it?

More to the point right now, as I am still building this site and project, am I really going to go through with it?

Isn't this just another idea that gives me some fun and fancy for a while and then I gradually let it slip away, like so many others before it?

Aren't I going to be sitting at a table in some public place waiting for some stranger to interact with 'the show', and nobody is going do it?

Won't I just look like a fool?

Won't I just be an object of pity and derision, not to be taken seriously?

And then I decided to just acknowledge that I have a significant amount of fear and anxiety built up around this project already and, well, once I realised that, I just said to myself, 'You're kind of scared about this project Tawdry, aren't you? Yeah, I certainly am. Well so what?' Fear is just fear, and as one of my best girl buddies is always telling me, fears are not facts. It's no secret that this project both excites me and frightens me at the same time. Of course until Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures is much better known to me, and as the opening quote implies, you will probably see the fear in my eyes. Then again, I did feel a little fearful and anxious doing the photo shoot for Tawdry in Brisbane, but only initially. After a short while I began to relax and just enjoy the process and even began to find it a kind of actor's journey discovering who Tawdry is, in the flesh, as opposed to the imagined character that I had initially envisaged.

So, while I am in Wellington NZ, I will continue to scope out some venues for the next photo shoot and then as soon as there is a good day weather-wise, I do some more shots. And yes, I'm sure I will be a little scared, but in this construction phase, building up to the launch of the website and the first public performances in February, I am not scared enough to want to abandon this project. In fact, given all that I have learned over the last few months (with calamity visiting several friends and family members), life seems at the moment way too short to be wasting it through fear or by procrastinating.

But it is an interesting question, well to me at least. How much fear does it take to thwart one's dreams? Perhaps though, and more relevant for me, do fear levels ever subside when that fear is produced through or in and around things which we have newly begun to care significantly about. That is to say, I would have thought, the more one does things despite the fear, the easier it is in general to deal with this kind of fear. Not so. At least that hasn't been my experience. I still find myself quaking at the thought, and petrified by the action of bringing art projects to life. After twenty years or more of doing that, I had expected to be more resilient, even at this stage, impervious.

Well another friend who has quite a track record of making, nationally and internationally, said to me a while back, and funnily enough, with his so doing, he was giving me a valuable gift. It has been useful to think about it recently in the light of the feelings that this project has generated for me thus far, 'Tawdry, I've worked with some of the best in the world and they all get scared, but they do it just the same.'