on creating

I pulled out some of my old high school journals recently and skimmed through them, and although much of it is the same boring woe-is-me teenage crap that you'd find in anyone else's old notebooks, I am slightly impressed by how much of a handle I had on shit. I mean, I may have been in the throes of adolescent misery, but some of my attitudes were kind of spot on. For instance: "and now we are useless slugs incubating in this place, growing fatter and lazier with each passing day." Huh. I'd forgotten how pessimistically honest I can be until I found this stuff. And check out this nugget of poetic depression, circa 1996:

"today,
because the sun is too numbingly bright
and because the air is too breezy and light
and because all the people passing by
seem to be buzzing and bumbling like flies--
i'll remove myself from the burden of existing
and do my time imprisoned in this place
at my own pace.
i'll lie perfectly still in the warmth of my bed
and dream today in slow motion;
as i have not the energy
to move with the seconds,
i'll let them do their work alone.
so now i am sinking--
like a stone tossed softly
into a murky pool of gloom--
and my heart is working lazily
to keep my blood from running cold--
and i am comfortably,
although somewhat bitterly,
alone.
i've lost all my momentum here,
can i really be the only one?
i occasionally recall
that life is flowing by without me,
and what was a secret escape
now seems doubtful in my haze....
is mother nature simply weeding out
another weak daughter?
i've lost my will to wake up tomorrow,
and i pray i'm not the only one.
the sun has gone down for a nap
and now the night is damp and dark--
i've peeked out through the curtains
and the deathly quiet, still air is such a blessing;
the sultry summer air soothes the dull ache in my chest
until i am almost convinced
that i can survive outside my reverie.
i almost slip out of the delusion
that i am a human defect--
that i was simply born without the energy
to propel myself through the days
(so many, many days!).
and tomorrow when the sun rises again
my heart will still strain to breathe,
to live.
i'll drown in my own bed,
and i can't be the only one."

Zoinks, Scooby! Those are some intense words for a sixteen year old, right? But how funny that almost 15 years ago I was feeling very similarly to how I feel occasionally now, but I was better able to articulate it then. And that can't be good! My brain is supposed to be getting sharper, wittier...isn't it?! Why have my creative juices dried up, and how can I can them back?! I desperately want to feel the urge to create like I used to, although those rare times that I do get the inspiration to create I can't seem to get anything OUT; it gets congested and stuck somewhere and dissolves as though it were never there.

So I need to cultivate my inspiration and my execution. I'll start small with a daily excersize like writing one page of something, ANYTHING, and then move on from there. I think some kind of class could really benefit me right now too; a photography class, for one, would really wake me the hell up right now (I think). I've always had what people have called "an eye", and there's something soothing about viewing the world through a lens (or in my case, digital screen) and seeing your vision transformed into permanent evidence of a Moment. I wish I had more talent for visual arts-- drawing, painting, sculpting, and whatnot-- but unfortunately it just isn't so. I've tried before (trust me, I'VE FUCKING TRIED!) but the results are crushingly pathetic, and similar to the style I imagine a vision-impaired preschooler would embody.

One time Noa asked me to draw her a dragon and after I was done trying she narrowed her eyes at me and accused "That's NOT a dragon!" So there you have it.

ETA: I haven't been posting as much here lately as I used to, or as honestly for that matter, and it's part of the creative "congestion" I've been experiencing. It gets so bad sometimes that even when I do post I can't seem to find the energy or words to respond to you mamas when you comment on my posts. I NEED SUDAFED FOR THE BRAIN!