1. This is the 3rd time I've started this post over. Sometimes it's hard to ice a cake. You keep smoothing it over and over again, and it only makes it less smooth. At which point you should just start eating it, and say, "Fuck you, cake."
2. Today, when I was waiting for the very friendly Starbucks employee in Adam's Morgan to retrieve my lostandfound cell phone from the vault, I picked up the Sunday edition of The New York Times. Which costs $6 apparently. And I responded to the news articles with a feeling of dread and horror and the feeling that I will not be able to survive much longer without finding a consistent creative outlet for dealing with the tiny and massive tragedies that announce themselves to me on a daily basis. I actually love the ritual of a daily gratitude journal, but I think it needs a shadowy counterpart where I can store and alchemize the horrors. I'm thinking a scrapbook kind of sketchbook, but it just makes me disappointed I don't have the basic skills of an artist. Then I could sketch the sadness instead of just farting it awkwardly onto the page. Or maybe poetry would be better. Or a combination of both.
3. Sometimes I forget who I am, and today I remembered that I am very little when I am not a creator. Not writing is like forgetting to eat or sleep. I lose my functionality in other realms - like relating and socializing, doing constructive work in the office, having good judgement about food and cleanliness. Writing makes the wheels stop turning too fast, and reminds me that I exist, the world exists, and I can be in it.
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How do you decide which world horrors affect you? Because, well, you just can't live life being equally traumatized by every world horror. Right? Not a good idea to shut it all out and become cold to fellow man, but at the same time, what good am I if I'd paralyzed by horror all the time? And what good am I if I just feel it and do nothing to help? I think I switch back and forth between ignoring and paralysis. How do I find my way to helpful action?
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I think I'm at a point where I realize my filter is so broken that the only resolution is to be a poet and allow my brokenness to alchemize horror into art. I can't bear the question - how much to sense/block or how to respond with helpful action. I can only hope that art can work as a laxative to let the poison flow through me instead of blocking my insides. I will add that I am thinking prayer is the only way to reach for art. Without it I am very heavy.
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