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In my left hand, I held a Polaroid. In my right hand, a lit cigarette. The ember pushed into the clear, plastic coating of the photograph, creating a round burn mark and sufficiently melting the first layer to form a tacky epoxy. Polaroids were something I played with as a kid and always wanted to take more than I had. Cigarettes were something I played with as a kid and always wanted to smoke more than I had. Together, they took on a new meaning. The act of putting two things together and seeing it happen in real time unlocked a neurological pathway that has since become a constant theme throughout my life. A seed of understanding had been planted firmly in my mind. I remain fascinated by the way two separate things can interact and become greater than the sum of their parts. In a way, I couldn’t simply be told that the stove was hot; I needed to put my cold hand on the hot stove and feel real pain.
With my newly minted alchemy in hand, I proudly presented my object to a professor and classmates at the end-of-the-week critique. A high-concept, ready-made sculpture that fused photograph and object to create an entirely new third thing that spoke to the familiarity and nostalgia of both representative items in a way that was louder and more resonant than the objects on their own. My professor sent my mother a lovely email after I was suspended at the end of the semester, saying that I was “talented,” but adding, “talent doesn’t always translate into success.”
Shortly after the suspension, I went back to community college and took a creative writing course. Early experimentation with the idea of words creating imagery began to take root in the seed planted in the sculpture class. I was an avid reader, and my first assignments started out as mimicry of my favorite authors.
As the semester went on, that started to change. The imagery that came from my own voice—uneven, specific, sometimes strange—was what resonated most with my classmates and professor. I became obsessed with finding new ways to describe old feelings. Every metaphor needed to be a fully loaded assault rifle. Every simile needed to be a car at top speed colliding with an apartment complex not up to building code. All of my words needed to be bombs with short fuses that would dance around in your brain and then explode without warning.
It took a very long time and a lot of terrible practice to start finding a voice worth nurturing. My instinct is usually to describe chaos with combat. I fall into the trap of using violence as the primary means of description. It took a very long time to see that I was building houses out of words that would ultimately crumble. It wasn’t until I started sharing a message of hopefulness that I could really begin to see the seed that had been planted in sculpture class and found roots in the creative writing class begin to take hold. For years, I thought my experience in the universe that I exist in, entirely of my own design, between my two ears, was so impossibly unique, devastating, amazing, traumatic, heartbreaking, unbelievable, wild, and hilarious that no one could ever understand. I had no idea that a story of surrender was really a story about strength. I had no idea that honest bravery in storytelling could create a true human connection.
Maybe this tree will be a tree that only a few people ever get to see. Maybe this will be a very popular tree, which people make trips to and visit. Maybe this tree will flower in the summer and die in the winter. Maybe birds will make nests in this tree. Maybe this tree will provide shade in the heat. Maybe this tree will bear fruit. Maybe seeds from this tree will blow in the wind and find soil somewhere else and become more trees. Or maybe someone will see this tree. They will see this tree for what it is. They will see this tree and understand this tree. They might say, “This is a tree for me.” If who I am and what I’m capable of sharing with you inspires you to plant your own tree, or even just appreciate the ability to see a tree, then I have done my job.
I don’t know if I am a gardener, a writer, an artist, an idiot, a wild-eyed kid climbing fences, a lost young man trying on different outfits, or just a human being trying to figure it out. I hope that if you see my tree, you know it’s proof that the sun always rises, and good things take time to grow to their full potential. Be kind and gentle to yourself, you might just be a little seed in the ground. You might have taken root in soil and are waiting to break through. You might be a fully grown tree! Let’s be trees. Together we can make a forest.
