From my journal for May 28, 1996. I had a dream of a crippled artist who has only one leg.
So what can I say about the crippled artist part of myself? She’s vivacious, attractive (I seem to remember dark eyes, curly dark hair, a sort of French demeanor) and talented. She’s not able to move very well but she can express herself elegantly. She can tolerate being pushed around, she doesn’t want to be treated as a cripple, she wants to be acknowledged for what she’s able to do, not pitied for what she can’t do. My conscious attitude toward her is one of condescension and protectiveness. In this dream she’s letting me know she doesn’t want that, she wants a relationship of equals.
I hear her voice saying “I don’t need to be protected. I need to be given space and materials in which to express myself.”
I think about my need to be protected from the airplanes. Yesterday I used the walkman very effectively — when I went out with the dog there were several planes — I didn’t wait for it to get bad, I just started the tape immediately. Perhaps it’s this matter-of-fact attitude toward my disability that the cripple is looking for. Certainly it seemed to work — no hopelessness, no self-pity — just getting on with what I was doing.
She says she doesn’t need to be protected, I say I do need to be protected. I wonder what the issue of protection has to do with my early trauma — which I don’t know about yet — or my difficulty being creative.