good morning starshine

It is hard not to think about Whitney Houston today. It was all over the news and the grammies yesterday and today. Snippets of her singing come out of the TV and radio at all hours. People start the inevitable second guessing about what drives celebrities to self destruct, as if they all do. If, indeed she did.

I watched the news coverage of the red carpet at the Grammies last night. The chosen walk up to a area with the appropriate backdrop and photographers at the ready. They strut and stop, pose, practiced smiles that don't always reach the eyes. And the flashes are like strobe lights, like the northern lights, like lightning, like starshine, blinding. How do you not lose yourself in that white light? How can you stay real? I'm amazed that so many do.

I have groupies. Most folks that exhibit at art/craft shows have some. People who love you, love what you do, wish they could do it, want you to teach them, want to come to your studio and watch you, take your picture, yaddayadda. I only have a few, but they always show up and assume I know them as well as they know me. Sometimes I do, sometimes, I have to talk to them for a while before a memory gets jogged. I accept their praise, their affection, try to believe I deserve it but it always makes me a little uncomfortable Like I am a fraud about to be discovered, I dunno. But I digress.

After a groupie takes her leave, compliments dispersed, package in hand, I feel a little happier, a little brighter. It builds me up, makes me remember why I do this. There is a spring in my step, a sense of being in the sunlight. I am an artist. Take that all you people who walked in took a quick look and left without a word. Humph!

Now multiply that by a million, a billion, a gazillion! Add magazine covers and TV shows. Become a household word. What does that do to your head? If a sweet woman in a "hello kitty" sweatshirt can put a spring on your step, put sunshine on your face, just imagine. Incomprehensible.

Maybe drugs dim the burning sunlight just enough? Never been much for drugs, myself. I have trouble taking the ones my Doctor prescibes. But maybe?

There have been times in my life when I have envied the success, the money, the beauty , the poise, the life of others. Not any more. We all find our own sunshine in the end, our own light. I am not destined to find mine on a red carpet, in front of a backdrop with hundreds of photographers calling out my name. I'll take the little white tent, diffused sunlight through its plastic windows, the occasional, whispered, "beautiful" as someone touches a finger to one of my creations.

It is enough. I wish I had always known that it was enough.