Thursday, November 11, 2010

Authentic Thursday


Blogging is a weird and tricky thing. Especially when you're not a journalist or even a writer. Why do I do it?
I think I started a blog so I could comment on other blogs, I needed a profile. Also, I was trying to create a separate identity from my painter/artist identity.
I chose a slightly unusual name "Femme Hesse". What does that mean? I made it up. I'm a big fan of Hermann Hesse and I'm female...so there you go. The title of this blog is "Naked Mind" a term I took from one of his books which describes a state of being...

When it came to separating myself from my art, I quickly caved and started showing my art here because it's easier to post a photo than to write something interesting and meaningful, at least for me!

I've titled this post "Authentic Thursday" which is something I intend to do on every Thursday, attempt to share something of myself in an authentic way...we'll see :)

If you notice over on the right is my profile which states "Life, art, spirituality, death." Those are the topics I had planned to write about when I started blogging, and I'm going to start doing exactly that. At least on Thursdays.

So let's get this show on the road! Starting with "spirituality" have I told you about my conversation with God? Probably not. And I won't be sharing that with you today because it would be best to lead up to that story with a little background history of my journey...

Please bear with me for a few weeks as I drag you through my early years. I willl eventually get more up to date with my sharing.

I was baptized Catholic as an infant, and raised by an atheist mother...isn't that quirky? Catechism on Tuesdays was my only exposure to the Catholic religion. My mom wanted us to have some religion, though she was turned off by the whole thing...

Ok, enough of that for now...let me tell you about my skin color. As a kid I had tons of freckles. My dad is from Irish/Scottish descent and I inherited his complexion. My mom, on the other hand, is Portuguese and has an olive complexion. I always wanted to be brown. I was a very discontented child.

I started smoking cigarettes when I was 12 or so. Oh and by the way, I was ALWAYS boy crazy!
Backtracking a bit...when I was 6 we moved to a community in San Diego called "Princess Gardens". It was a new housing tract.

It hardly looked like a garden, though it did have a natural beauty with the canyons and the hills all around it. Gradually the homeowners began landscaping and beautifying their property. My mom, well she tried. She planted ivy in the front yard. I don’t think it “took” if you know what I mean. The weeds tended to take over everything. We would spend our Saturdays watering the ground to soften it so we could pull the weeds. The only thing that survived in that soil was a goofy pine tree. It grew really tall as if to say, “you weeds can’t keep me down!"

Well, that will be all for this week...though I will share something from Hesse:

"Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. "
Hermann Hesse

eir darkness, their suffering or fears, but a drop of pure light, eternal cheerfulness...

4 comments:

TK said...

Princess Gardens sounds so dreamy....so divine....so blissfully lovely....I am busy imagining your family working ever so hard on establishing a garden with such an amazing backdrop as you had......today it is probably an OLD suburb!!!! Childhood memories are amazing aren't they...what would you do if you were the adult moving to Princess Gardens? I think I would pull up a chair and take in the beautiful canyons in the distance!!!

marĂ­a cecilia said...

Dear Susan, thank you for sharing something about you, is so sweet to know the self behind the art. We are very similar in two things, I also started smoking at 12 and H. Hesse was my really favorite writer, I started with him, then red to many related books and then had to go to India and experience by myself... went once,two and four times and stil want to be there lots more time...
Looking forward for thursdays...
lots of joy my dear
maria cecilia

femme hesse said...

Thank you both so much for commenting on this "personal expose".
I'm now encouraged to move ahead with my sharing!

Much Love,
Susan

Willy said...

Hi Susan
Thank you for the story about you.It is nice to read something about the artist, even about your skin color. So sweet.
Hugs Willy