You can’t always get what you want
I (WILL) GET OUT OF MY EFFIN’ WAY
I was drawing in my graphic journal this message/reminder for myself :
“TODAY I WILL FORGET WHAT I THINK I NEED. I (will) TRUST WHAT COMES & I (will) GET OUT OF MY FUCKIN’ WAY”
And I thought it could be a cool picture to send to my Graphic Journal Club and in this newsletter.
So I decided to take a cool picture, I went to my dining table and begin to arrange my journal in a way that I could take a picture of it for you to have it.
And ,while I was there, I saw this beautiful rose in a vase on the table and decided that it could be so fancy to put the rose on the side of the page to get a nice picture…
I thought I needed the rose to have the cool picture…
But as soon as my hand grabbed the rose, all the petals came down
So I found myself holding a rose without any petals while all the petals were scattered on the table
Then I decided to put all the petals in the picture and I guess it’s even cooler with the petals.
See? We don’t always know what we need. And being open to the surprises of life make life less miserable to live.
of course it’s not always easy! (It’s SIMPLE but NOT EASY)
Because generally speaking we never know what we need and we want things out of fear, scarcity or even trauma.
-we think we want money but what we actually are seeking is feeling safe because we didn’t felt safe as kids. So maybe we just need to seek the safe options instead of the lucrative options .
-we think we want freedom over a relationship but what’s it’s actually happening we are traumatized and we fear intimacy. And we need to hear that we can be loved as we are.
– we think we want that one person to love us even if that person doesn’t love us back but what we need is this person to leave us so that we can finally learn how to feel whole (and find a person who actually want to be with us).
what we need may be painful at the beginning because we are so fucking stubborn on what we want.
OMG I’m going far … I’m not even a professional of all those things! . Maybe it’s not like that for everyone but At least for me it’s (been) like that.
like Mick would sang back in 1969:
No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you’ll find
You get what you need
And it’s so true, we want what we think we need but we don’t have a clue .
One last example (I didn’t plan to talk about this but here we go) … for my work as an Artist* it’s often the same.
sometimes I say to myself “from now on I will prioritize making comics/books over tattooing” but then I go to comics festival and it feels exhausting while I miss the lightness and comfort of working in my tattoo shop.
or like in this moment, I planned a guest spot and NO ONE book an appointment
I swear to DOG
N-O O-N-E!!!!
WTF?
A little back sorry:
I planned one week of tattooing in Paris in June (from June 12 to June 17) and for the the FIRST time since I’ve been guest-spotting in Paris (since 2012!!! ) as I was saying:NO ONE BOOK AN APPOINTMENT.
I don’t mean I only have 1 or 2 appointments… I mean NO ONE.
3 people wrote me and then ghosted me. 2 wrote and then cancelled the appointment.
WTF?
this is the first time … I must admit my Ego is still crying. And self doubt got me insomniac for a few week (the old good “I’m not good enough” in loop in my head)
the thing is that I must go to Paris anyway because of a medical appointment (to check on my TOP SURGERY result, which are awesome BTW) on June 13 so I had my train tickets already
THEN I discovered that on the Friday (June 16 if you follow) of my Parisian guest my Daughter is doing a live show with the Choir (in La Rochelle, not Paris!)
So, first thing first I changed my homebound train tickets. Making the guest available dates smaller… Ok. So I had less day to book. I can do it?!
I posted again on instagram things like “only 3 spots available, Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday! Don’t miss this opportunity!”
STILL NO ONE
whaaaaat???
then it hit me: let’s do something else out of my forced Parisian stay
AND, I asked on instagram if someone would recommend me a cool bookstore to organize a book signing of PLAY WITH FIRE and the very cool BD NET NATION themselves booked me for the Thursday June 15 for a book signing!
so, is it that I thought I want to tattoo but I needed to be in Paris to sign like millions of jillions of copies in a wave of fame????
Ahahah let’s see! for now I’m so happy. I will keep you posted if NO ONE shows up (ah!)
No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you’ll find
You get what you need
by the way: I still have one spot available for tattooing on June 13 (after or before my medical appointment) and on June 14. If NO ONE will come I will go to the Louvre.
thanks for reading email.
take care
bien à vous,
Nicoz
*Artist= at my level means: someone who work and make a living with *artistic* jobs (for me is drawing for tattoos and illustration + drawing & storytelling for my comics)
down here few things I should have written/link instead of talking about… I don’t even know what:
IF YOU ARE IN PARIS ON JUNE 15
I’ll be signing PLAY WITH FIRE en français de 16:30 à 19:30!
passez me voir et amenez moi des cookies
IL MIO LIBRO TRANSFORMER IS OUT
Se non l’avete ancora fatto accattatevillllo (reference anni 90) anche dal sito di Oblomov:
https://www.oblomovedizioni.com/libri-transformer.php
AND IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN GETTING TATTOOED BY ME
Well, if you aren’t “NO ONE” and you want to come in France get tattooed I’m using a platform reservation. The site gives the choice between french and English, once you clicked on “proposer un projet”
https://encre.me/strangeland-x-nicoz-balboa
La Rochelle (Always) / Paris (June 13,14) / Rome (July)
I MOVED STORE
now it’s happening on my website, here: https://www.nicozbalboastudio.com/store/
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