(Or, the true story of a Fairy Princess Ballerina.)
For those few folks who know me, they will immediately wonder what I’ve been smoking. After all, I have the well-earned moniker Grumpy McGrumperson. But, this year I decided to do something a tad different. Something to, “keep ’em guessing.” So, Voila!
Maybe I’m just getting old and realize that sometimes we just gotta let our inner Weird out for a walk.
Or, maybe this is the true Me that I’ve spent my whole adult life stuffing into a box that is acceptable to everyone…but me.
“Burn!” cried the mob as the book pyre blazed in the night. “Death to Infidels; heretics; free thinkers!”
Death? Books can die?
This sentiment seems to be making a resurgence in some parts of the world. I mean, it’s never really been far from us. The some churches still believes that Harry Potter poses an existential danger because of the whole witches and wizards thing. At other times books that some so-called authority deemed ‘subversive,’ (re. Doesn’t agree with my opinion), have been collected and set ablaze as a public rebuke to anyone who might harbor similar positions.
But, books are not ideas. They may, at best, be the vessels in which ideas travel. Ideas, though, are by their very nature untouchable. And, incurable.
Ideas are like a virus that spreads by getting inside of a person at a cellular level, invading and capturing the minds of those who are exposed to them.
Ideas become a part of a person’s DNA. They are, by nature, invasive.
Yet, not foreign.
Not harmful.
In fact, they can produce vitality and health in those who harbor them deep within their hearts and minds.
Ideas CANNOT be stopped by destroying the vessels that carry them.
Even if those vessels are living, breathing human beings.
That, too, has been tried. How many “heretics” have been burned; fed to lions; hanged; drowned?
And, yet, the ideas live on.
“But,” some say, “ideas can lead people astray! They can put a person in harm’s way!”
Astray? NO! Emphatically, NO! Ideas may open our minds to other ideas. They may cause our minds and hearts to grow 2 sizes larger. They may make us more empathetic. But, astray? Nuh uh.
Ideas are what make us humans in the first place. They are the engine that pushes us forward.
Yes, ideas can also give some people reason to hurt, maim, or destroy. But, it will also be an idea that counters those who would act in that way.
Ideas are like a virus. They will infect us. They will change us.
The question that remains is, how will we embody these ideas? How will we live in a world where Ideas live, thrive, and yes, Infect?
The Western mind had been trained to see things in Binary terms. Right/Wrong Good/Evil White/Black On/Off
But, what if the Universe doesn’t work that way? What if there can be Right/Right?
In most stories people who lead so-called “double lives” are generally cast as immoral. Or, at the very least, amoral. They can’t possibly be virtuous. In fact, theirs is a life defined by vice. It is vulgar and without any redeeming value.
The story that I plan to work on this year during NaNoWriMo is one in which I hope to look at the possibility that Right isn’t always quite Right. Perhaps there are degrees of “Rightness.” And, what happens when someone finds themselves with lives that exist in two different realities must straddle that gulf where what is Good and Acceptable in one reality may be entirely different that that in the other.
Can that person be called Virtuous?
Or, would that person be a Victim? Victimizer?
I don’t know for sure where the story will lead. That’s one of the cool things about creating worlds and stories to populate them. They can take on a life of their own. Perhaps, to the mountain peaks. Perhaps, into Alice’s rabbit hole. The journey should be interesting.
For who truly knows where Light ends and Light begins?
Yesterday I wrote a bit about the role that Emotion and Passion can play in the creative process. Yeah, they can be good motivators. And, if Passion is properly channeled, as in having a Passion for the work rather than being driven by some external event, it can be quite helpful. I mean, how many times have we stopped doing something that we once loved to do because we “lost our passion” for it? Lord knows I have! At one time I would strap on a guitar and it would stay there for up to 8 hours! Simply because I was passionate about learning and playing. Now? I think it’s been at least 2 years since I opened the case.
That example kind of points to where I am going with this post.
This morning during my daily quiet time I opened my journal to write.
Crickets.
There was not one thought or idea the came to the front of my brain demanding to find its way on to the blank page. This seems to happen way more often than when so-called “inspiration” strikes.
So, I wrote that down.
“I got nuthin'”.
These are the times when we creative folk need to show up and do the hard work of, well, creating. We can’t count on some great inspiration to ignite our passions so that we can create that Great Magnum Opus that we all know is just waiting to be birthed from the fertile soil of our imagination! Yippee! No, these are the times when we just need to get down to business and create something. Anything. No matter how bad or uninspired. Write! Play! Dance! Whatever the expression that we have, we need to use! Yes, it’s true that, as Thomas Edison said, “Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” For those of us who aspire to create stuff, the ratio may be more like .5% inspiration and 99.5% perspiration. At least, that’s how it feels to me sometimes.
Creating things, whether cobbling words together, making music, or building a bat house, is all hard work. And, it takes discipline to stick to the tasks we’ve been given.
Especially, when it’s Just Not Happening, we need to Make. It. Happen.
I noticed something over the last few weeks. While I’ve been emotionally on edge, I have also experienced a creative burst. I have written poetry, blog posts, and journaled more pages than I have in ages. Is there a direct correlation? Maybe.
I stepped back a bit and viewed that last year as well as the recent weeks. I noticed that since about this time last year there has been an uptick in the number of words that I’ve produced. Last year I complete a first draft of a novel, over 50,000 word. Journaling has increased. I’m currently half way through my third journal since Jan. 1. Blogging hasn’t grown as much as other media, but the amount of content did increas over previous years.
So, why quibble over these things?
Well, for one, I’m a Creative and we kinda keep track of things like this. I mean, we need something to obsess over, right?
Another reason is so that I can track patterns. I take notice of periods of greater output and try to see if there’s something different that I can use to keep producing. Yeah, there it is, pure analytics. Sheesh! That hurts my brain.
What I noticed is that nothing keeps the creative juices flowing like simply putting in the time. For NaNo last years, I had to get over 1,600 words per day written in order to complete the challenge of 50,000+ words. That requires showing up every day and leaking words onto a computer. It’s hard work. But, it’s good work.
However, passion and emotion play a very small part in that work. It’s nose to the grindstone stuff that keeps the process moving.
So, what about the recent spate of words that I link to raw emotions?
I think that while the work itself requires discipline to actually do something, passion like I’ve recently experienced can act like rocket fuel. It super-charges the creative juices so that they start to boil and roil and toil with added intensity. That’s all well and good. I think that any endeavor can use that kind of boost. The problem, however, is that rocket fuel burns hot and fast.
And, it may burn you.
Badly.
I think that I got a bit singed here recently. Its blisters are painful.
But, I can’t let that be an excuse to back away from the River of Creativity that runs through the Cosmos. I still need to get my toes into the flow and do the work.
Who knows what kind of nuggets I can find in that river? Hopefully, shiny ones.
Today’s Tuesday. Yesterday, well, that was Monday. And, I didn’t post anything. Sorry if the 2 of you who actually visit here missed me. But, I was unable to write. Not because I was too busy with other tasks. That’s never really stopped me before. If I have something that needs to crawl out of my brain and onto the Internet, Well By Gawd, I’m gonna get it out there! No, I had different impediments. Stuff that does, in fact, keep the crawly stuff locked up inside. First, I haven’t been sleeping well. And, Sunday into Monday I was working on about 5 hours. That’s after weeks of maybe 6 hours on average. My mind simply said, “Nope. Not thinking today. And, there’s nothing you can do about. Nya Nya Nya.” And, my mind was right. There was nothing gonna shake any words loose. The other thing happening was that I was an emotional wreck. My mind said it was too tired to write, but, Hoo Boy, not too tired to race around like a squirrel on crack. I could not have put two cogent thoughts together if my life depended on it. Thankfully, it didn’t.
So, what’s going on?
I’ve shared a little bit about the journey that I’m presently walking. Emotions, Passions, Thoughts, you know, all that sensitive artist kind of crap. And, I have to tell you, this journey is fraught with all kinds of pits and obstacles and beasties and such. But, it is a journey that I must undertake. Now. At this time in my life.
I’m finding that with all of the hope that I had earlier in life to embody Mr. Spock from Star Trek, I am too human. My emotions leak all over me like the oil pan of one of my old cars used to leak all over my driveway. And, these emotions can be just as much of a sticky mess and hard to clean up. Maybe, harder.
I’ve discovered that I am hyper-insecure. As I look back over my life and look deeply into my heart, I have always been like that. I fear rejection, for sure. More importantly, I think that I fear not being accepted.
So, I push for responses that might give me a glimmer of hope that you, (whoever that is), might give me that I’m not the waste of skin that I feel that I truly am. I say and do things that we both will regret. Not because I’m a creep or some narcissistic boor. But, because I’m afloat in a sea of doubt surrounded by the dense fog of uncertainty.
Now, some shrink may look at me and say something about how I must have felt rejection when another child was brought into my childhood home. Mom and Dad had to set me aside so they could include the newly added soul. Or, they might say that there is a hidden memory and wound from being given up by my birth mother for adoption. Lord knows I’ve heard that before.
Or, maybe, just maybe this is how I’m wired. Nothing broken. No wounds or hurts. It’s just part of my Melancholic personality type.
Honestly, I don’t know where the roots of insecurity lie. Don’t know if it’s even important to know. The fact is, this is where I am and I need to deal with it.
Deal with it? What’s that mean?
Hell, I don’t know. Fix it? Heal it?
Learn to embrace it and live with it? Maybe, someday be able to celebrate it?
I honestly don’t know. And, I may, (re. Probably), never know.
I do know, however, that I am what I am and that’s all that I am. So, the journey continues.
Have you ever had one of those moments of clarity when suddenly, as if and epiphany, various and discordant seeming thoughts coalesce into a complete image?
No?
Nor have I. But, this morning as I was quietly sitting in my office, dark except for the light of a few candles, I began to put some pieces together about who I am that I’ve only seen as disparate thoughts, now here; now gone. I mentioned in some earlier posts that I’ve been doing some much needed introspection. It’s much needed because I think that over years and decades we become immune to the passions and voices that at one time helped to form us into the people that we now are. Some people refer to this as “adding baggage.”
So, I’ve been taking an inventory of sorts. I began to recall memories from as far back as I can. It seems that “helping” my dad build a fence when I was 4 yrs. old is one of the earliest. Part of doing this kind of exercise is to look for patterns and triggers that may provide clues to why I am who I am today. It can be an interesting and fun endeavor, to be sure.
But, the overarching “Why?” for taking this path may be more problematic.
You see, it begins with the assumption that something Must Have Gone Wrong at some time. Because, I am obviously broken and in need of repair. At least, that’s the impression that I’ve been given by people around me. Including, and especially, those closest to my heart.
So, the introspection became a forensic investigation. I was a sleuth looking for clues of a crime that I surely must have committed. Else, why am I like I am? If I had not done something wrong, taken a turn when I should have gone straight, then I would have turned out much differently. (re. ‘Better.’)
Well, I haven’t found anything that stands out. I’m beginning to think that I never really did.
That fact has been the result of many different thoughts, feelings, and memories that I have sorted through. And, continue to sort.
I found that in this world that seems to be established as one where there are Round Holes and Square Holes, I’m a bit of a rhomboid. I will obviously not fit into a Round Hole. I don’t care if it’s a circle, and egg, or an oval. My harsh, straight-line corners won’t allow that. I won’t fit into a Square Hole, either. I don’t have the requisite right angled corners for that. I am, what Lewis Black might say, “askeeeeewwwww.”
That’s all well and good. It helps me reconcile myself to myself.” “Hello, Mike? Meet Mike!”
Where the rub comes, though, is when others can’t seem to get past my Rhomboidishness. They think that in a world with only Round and Square Holes someone like me is an aberration. I MUST BE BROKEN! So, they get out the saws and the sandpaper and go to work on fixing me. They don’t realize that all they are doing is destroying who I truly am.
For most relationships, I can simply walk away. They don’t ‘get’ me, whatever that means. And, I really don’t have the time nor need to deal with them.
But, if you want to know me. If you want to be with me. If you want to Love me. Well, be forewarned.
Because, if you think that you will ‘fix’ me, then we are headed for a relationship in which neither of us will be happy and both will be frustrated.
I wrote before that I must echo the wise words of the old sage, Popeye: “I am what I am and that’s all that I am.”
I’m tired of trying to make everyone else happy at the expense of my own. Selfish? Ok, if that’s how you want to view it.
I, however, see it as Self-Preservation with a Hope to Flourish.
I’ve had a hard time sleeping recently. I don’t know why. It could be lots of different things that conspire against me to keep me awake. I can fall asleep initially OK. But, I awaken several times during the night. And, I find that those are the times when I find it bloody near impossible to reclaim my repose.
But, sometimes a fruitful thought arises out of the mists of frustration. This past weekend held one of those times.
I woke up a tad past midnight Sunday A.M. Got up and walked around a bit. Then, lay back down. As I lay there, hoping and praying to find my way back into my dreamscape, a kernel of an idea began to germinate in the, now fully awake, fertile soil of my imagination.
Some time ago the priest at the church I attend had asked if I might be willing to share a homily. (That’s ‘sermon’ for the non-liturgical set.) I told him that I would give it some thought. I’m pretty much a newbie there and have yet to become a confirmed member. I took his request seriously. I’ve found over the years that people like him seem to have a sense of things that I many times miss. So, I tend to listen when they speak. As I considered things, an idea began to develop. I chewed on it a while. Then, set it aside because I decided that if I was to share anything I would wait until after my November confirmation. Then, probably, wait until after Advent and Christmas. No hurry to develop those nascent ideas.
Well, it seems that my brain decided a different tack was in order. So, while I lay awake this past Sunday A.M., the idea grew and developed into a full-blown message ready for harvest. Of course, everything that people think in the middle of the night seems like a grand masterpiece of rhetorical genius. This was no exception. I probably lay there for 2 hours rehearsing that thing over and over and over in my mind. Finally, I had to say STOP! There were things that I needed to do Sunday A.M. that were to begin at 5 A.M. Sorry, laying awake until 2 wasn’t helping.
But, the foundation was laid. I spoke with the priest after the service to let him know of my intent. He smiled. I think he knew that I’d eventually figure out that his request was a good and necessary one. Yeah, we’ll see how he feels afterwards! ;o)
Perhaps, I’ll share some of these thoughts here over the next while. Throw them against the wall and see what sticks.
For now? I just wanted to share a bit about the processes that my troubled, over-tired brain takes as it decides to drive. Good stuff sometimes grows in there.
National Novel Writing Month starts in a couple of weeks. I participated last November and completed my first ever 50,000+ word manuscript. Yay! Of course, it’s still in a first draft that’s been sitting on my desk for 10 months. But, that’s not the point. The point is, I created something. I originally used the working title of “God, Who Are You Really?” I had hoped to create a fiction that reflected the personal journey that I had embarked on at the time. Little did I know then that novels tend to take on a life of their own. This one decided to become rather independent at an early stage. At times it felt as though I was simply the stenographer recording the story. By the end of November I had completed the task and was sure that I had the next best seller, albeit in embryonic form, in my hands. But, like all writers that I’ve read who share their own process, I knew that at best I had a rough idea of what might be a poorly written story. So, there it sits. Waiting for me to perform some kind of literary CPR on it so that it can Rise Up From The Ashes like the might Phoenix that it is! Or, something like that.
Anyway, all that to say that this year’s NaNo is fast approaching and I really have no idea where this story will go. Hell, I don’t even know where it’s going to start! Hopefully, by November 1 I’ll at least find that starting line.
During this NaNo I hope to share bits and pieces of the story as it is birthed. Perhaps, I’ll share snippets of the process as well. While many writers say that the writing process can be a lonely one that is fraught with difficulty. A saying that is attributed to Ernest Hemingway states, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” But, I found last year that I was not alone, bleeding at my computer. I had the good company of my characters. I was with them as they found themselves thrown into a quest that they never asked to be a part of. I shared their fears, and ultimately the death of one of them. (Although, when I do rewrite, I’m thinking of being like God to him and resurrecting him. We’ll see if I ever do get there.)
So, while I read that so many folks taking part in this years NaNo are panicking and feeling all sorts of pressure and angst, I think that I’ll have an opportunity to meet some new friends. Maybe we’ll sit and have coffee. And, who knows to what wonderful worlds we may travel together and what amazing experiences we’ll share!
Some of you might wonder why I chose a verse about something that happened on the 5th of November when today is October 17.
There are methods to my madness.
As I’ve shared recently, I am doing the necessary Confirmation stuff in order to become a member of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. For the sake of today’s post: Episcopal = Anglican. i.e., Church of England. Why does that matter? Well, like any good student, when I began Confirmation I picked up one of the history texts I used in seminary. I wanted to review the roots and formation of the Anglican tradition. As I read through the timeline from Henry VIII through the 17th century, several interesting characters and events panned by in the fast-forward view I saw.
One such event was almost glossed over by the historian-author of my text. He wrote that in 1605 an attempt to blow up the Parliament building while King James I officially opened that year’s session of Parliament. As we saw just a few days ago when Queen Elizabeth II opened the current session, that task has historically fallen to the reigning monarch.
As I read that, I remembered the 2005 movie, “V for Vendetta,” where a future dystopia gave rise to a similar character who ultimately succeeded where the original, Guy Fawkes, had failed. The verse at the top was created in light of Fawkes’ original attempt.
What I found in the historical account, and in subsequent wars and violence in England’s history, was how religion and state were so deeply intertwined.
You see, when Fawkes tried to blow up James and the Parliament, Roman Catholics in England were a severely persecuted sect. They were abused socially, economically, and personally by a government that was predominantly Puritan Protestant. The king, himself, supported the Puritans. (As an aside, I found it interesting that King James I, yes, THAT King James, the one who sanctioned the King James Bible…you know the one that so many fundamentalists tout as the One, True Version because God speaks in archaic English…THAT King James was Gay. Yep. Just sayin’)
King James I
Anyway, Guy Fawkes was Catholic. He and his co-conspirators thought that they could effect some kind of political advantage through an act of terrorism. Or, maybe they just wanted to tell the Puritans, “Hey! Payback’s a Bitch!”
When I finally got through the timeline to Voltaire and the French revolution, I had one of those moments where a light bulb comes on and you say, “Ah ha!”
The people who framed the U. S. Constitution where contemporaries to many of the events that rocked England and France. They had first hand knowledge of how society could very quickly run off the rails when Religion and the State got into bed together. And, they certainly wanted to prevent that happening in the nascent United States. So, with the wisdom of Solomon they knit together a guiding document that would weave non-sectarianism into the very fabric of the country.
Over the years this has been described as a wall of separation between Church and State. It is a High wall. It is a Good wall. It is a Necessary wall.
For those who try to say that the U.S. is a Christian nation because that’s what the Founders intended? Sorry. You’re Wrong. It isn’t and they didn’t.
The Founders knew the dangers of mixing Religion with the State. Guy Fawkes could have been a reminder. Perhaps, in the back of Jefferson’s mind was a little verse…
