DIY History | Transcribe | Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries | Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

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Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

Page 193

to paint. Paint as I must according to my small capacity and within, the determination my own humble boundaries. That in itself will be quite adequate - and more - to fill the short hours and the fleeing days. That will be fully sufficient for one lifetime of work.
As for the demands and the pressure of life - position; now, institutions, greed - well what about them really? I propose to be wholly without their pale and keep out of reach of their grasping fingers. I am quite apathetic to them and I hope they can be kept impassively so. For hence forward the world shall be my own special net; not I the tool of the world. This is my personal declaration of independence. For from now on I shall snap my fingers and go imperturbably - we hope - in my own way. Selfishly, if it has to be thus. In the future, moreover, adjustment shall be entirely according to my own needs.
I shall have to be enabled to live on my own side of the fence planted in soil fitted + favored to individual nourishment in ample space so there will be no danger of becoming root-bound. Here I may be permitted to thrive unmolestedly in the sun and showers of peace and serenity in a quest of the heaven that comes through the exciting manipulation of pigment through the finger-tips. I shall ever resist becoming unravelled to the whims of an over-zealous octopus of society, for I realize fully that this would mean complete strangulation. To go back to the herded state of existence in which the strings were pulled vicariously in every direction at the same time, by anyone and everyone, inconsiderately or unintentionally can not be thought of. The [illegible] puppet organism, was literally torn asunder and can return no more to such an existence. No longer am I fitting my strength against a pitiless society.
I need to be however, despite this being tugged from every side that I strained forward, toward a very definite objective. But then for a while the sucking under-tow became periously swift and the aim was lost sight of altogether. It seemed as though my very reason for being had been swept right out from under me.

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to paint. Paint as I must according to my small capacity and within, the determination my own humble boundaries. That in itself will be quite adequate - and more - to fill the short hours and the fleeing days. That will be fully sufficient for one lifetime of work. As for the demands and the pressure of life - position; now, institutions, greed - well what about them really? I propose to be wholly without their pale and keep out of reach of their grasping fingers. I am quite apathetic to them and I hope they can be kept impassively so. For hence forward the world shall be my own special net; not I the tool of the world. This is my personal declaration of independence. For from now on I shall snap my fingers and go imperturbably - we hope - in my own way. Selfishly, if it has to be thus. In the future, moreover, adjustment shall be entirely according to my own needs. I shall have to be enabled to live on my own side of the fence planted in soil fitted + favored to individual nourishment in ample space so there will be no danger of becoming root-bound. Here I may be permitted to thrive unmolestedly in the sun and showers of peace and serenity in a quest of the heaven that comes through the exciting manipulation of pigment through the finger-tips. I shall ever resist becoming unravelled to the whims of an over-zealous octopus of society, for I realize fully that this would mean complete strangulation. To go back to the herded state of existence in which the strings were pulled vicariously in every direction at the same time, by anyone and everyone, inconsiderately or unintentionally can not be thought of. The [illegible] puppet organism, was literally torn asunder and can return no more to such an existence. No longer am I fitting my strength against a pitiless society. I need to be however, despite this being tugged from every side that I strained forward, toward a very definite objective. But then for a while the sucking under-tow became periously swift and the aim was lost sight of altogether. It seemed as though my very reason for being had been swept right out from under me.