Kaitlin McSweeney
Artist / Musician / Writer
I live to the East and West of the Caldecott Tunnel and everywhere in between and elsewhere. I have asked myself why (do I do art, do I do music, why do I ask why), and the answers turn and fall and emerge again, but the need to create remains constant. For this I am thankful because it is becoming less about why and what I do and more about the strength of my desire to do it. That desire, when it is honest, when it accompanies growth and love, is the ultimate justification for all actions, for it stems from my desire to live with full body and mind, full experience. Turning in the direction of such a desire, I haven learned, comes with pain, but the pain always comes in passing, and is soon a sourceless echo in the shadow of some great beauty. For this direction comes with joy as well.
I’ve known this all along, but only recently am I becoming aware of it. When we are children we are vunerable, because we do not believe we are fragile. We embrace desire, laughter, life- fully because we know no other way. Until we grow and feel those pains, and the awareness comes in storms and rising light, blinding at times and soft at others and then comes the moment we first ask ourselfves, how will I live through this? Suddenly we see we are vunerable, we are fragile, we are bound to the same ends as the trees and birds and everything we can call beautiful. Suddenly we are precious. When we then, with the awareness of our fragility, of pain, of death and difficulty, continue on with the desire to live and create… that is courage, the ability to love existence with as full a realization of its perils as is possible, and perhaps in light of those perils, cherish it more.
