comfort zone

I took a peek at Facebook today and think I may need to take another week off. I missed it at first and I have some beautiful artwork I’d really like to share, but I can’t tie together all the angry, sorrowful threads that stem from the situation in Ferguson. Last week someone posted a graphic on Facebook that read, “The more you stay in your comfort zone, the smaller it gets. The more you leave your comfort zone, the bigger it gets.” Right now I’m stepping out of my comfort zone by filling an order for 250 books. I’m an organized person, but I don’t have much experience as a book distributor, and after lugging 300 books home from my office in a broken suitcase, I have no real desire to haul boxes of books to the post office. But I did it today, and I’ll take another box tomorrow until my new hand cart arrives later this week. I don’t want to be a publisher; I’m doing this because I feel I have no other choice. But if I’m going to do it, I’m going to try to do it right. That means making mistakes and learning as quickly as I can so I can keep moving forward. I’m negotiating a contract right now for a picture book and it feels *so* good to be treated with respect by this publisher. I have a tendency to withdraw and I can live in the world inside my head for days on end. That’s why I consume so many hours of television and radio news—I know I need to stay connected to what’s happening in the real world. And as an artist, I need to bear witness. PBS just aired a segment on perceptions of racial bias in the Ferguson situation; not surprisingly, most whites feel race isn’t an issue and most Blacks feel that it is. My impulse is to pull back, to avoid all those who refuse to face reality—including those Facebook friends who post pictures of cupcakes and nothing about Gaza or Ferguson. But if I practice avoidance then I can’t be too hard on others who do it too. Maybe art is the bridge between us…