Hiding

I seem to be hiding, well not obviously hiding but, symbolically speaking.

I have spent way too much time with a project that should have taken a week to complete but instead we are looking at over a month now...and I am putting myself up against a wall to the deadline.

It is like I am finding distractions or something.

Remember how I told you I had signed up for a figure drawing class. Well I pretty much have found an excuse to skip it almost every week since I first signed up. Too tired, uninspired...not wanting to go. I can figure a myriad of reasons not to go, and

we are talking about a class that is for MY PLEASURE.

Well I dragged my ass back to class this week, it probably helped that the instructor decided that the punch card had an expiration date and my penny wise self decided that $50 for a single class was too much, so I better go and get my monies worth.

I was the first one there, and then I was in the car ready to talk myself out of staying,
waiting to see if anyone else was going to arrive, and then they did.
So I went in, got a spot and cleared my mind...
I was going to draw, it was good for me...
it will clear this desire to procrastinate...
buying dresses online instead of work on art pieces isn't gonna swing anymore
and this will help me reintroduce myself to my inner workings.

The model arrived, she was young and appeared to be a dancer maybe...
she had long legs and arms and was stretching a lot.
The classroom filled with people and drawing boards.
She remained clothed and once the posing started it was obvious this was one of her first gigs.
She stood, bent and then sat.
She was not dynamic, not inspired, not practiced at posing.
She wasn't able to hold still for even the 1 minute warm ups
and
I think she had a crush on one of the male artists in class,
as her eyes (then head) kept turning towards him.
I was less then inspired and starting fighting with the "flee, run from here and hide" voice in my head.

When it was time for her first "long pose", 20minutes, she proceeded to curl into a fetal ball on top of the table and fight falling asleep.
She hid all her lines, and shifted multiple times.
She was hiding from the artists gaze; it was clear to me that she wanted to disappear.
*
I ended up doing blind contour drawings for the rest of the time.
(blind contour is an exercise in looking. You only look at the subject and keep your pencil on the paper and draw what you see, never looking at what you are drawing until you are done.
note image above)
I drew multiple pieces and then started to simply write what I was seeing,
I was loosing my fight with the "run and hides"
The class had started with the teachers ipod playing the whole first side of Strange Days it was mixed with the sounds from the next door studio; which was playing rehearsal music for the troop of ballet dancers, classical piano pieces. When the instructor realized the slurry of sounds, we had heard it for half an hour. She turned off her music and it was strangely quiet, but for the looped classical music now and then.
I made it an hour...I told the teacher I got a text and needed to leave.
this is what I wrote when I was not drawing:

The dog entered the room and serpentine through the easels
eager to greet every artist in the room.
The room was quiet but for the sounds coal, ink and brush on paper,
or erasers pulling coal from paper.
I can hear the almost muted sounds from a nearby set of headphones.
The sounds of ballet instruction bleeds through the walls-
the thumps of dancers landing on floors is synchronized.  
The model, despondent, laid on a piece of foam, on a counter, on top of cabinets
illuminated by three stainless floodlights.

I felt it was best I leave, as I was fearful I would start to grimace or simply stare at the wall or her the rest of the time. That would be creepy and weird, I couldn't be those things.
 So I went home and spent the night wrestling with my choices.
The ones I was struggling with for the timeline,
the media that was mocking me,
the desires I wanted to recapture.
I might be hiding, I admit it.
Is it bad that I am hoping this respite turns out to be a metamorphosis?
 is that to much to ask of myself, of my destiny?
If I am the master of my destiny, can I not want that?
Or is wanting a bad thing?
I am new at shaping my life, I normally didn't put much thought into it...now it seems that if I don't pay attention it will be shaped for me in my absence.
That is a big deal
How do you run towards something?
When you are fearful that it might make you feel exposed?