It's September 15th and a drastic drop in temperature has brought fall upon us in Cleveland. Not the wood stove burning, I can see the leaves turning kind of fall, but a brisk walk to work in the rain kind of fall. I'm starting to notice why people complain so much about the weather, especially downtown. You don't really get to reap the benefits. I miss the crisp central new york autumns, and runs where I could go almost two miles breathing in the deep comforting aroma of wood stoves. I miss apple picking and the hearths in homes I know.
Of course there are things I appreciate about this city too. For a city, most of the time, the air is clean and refreshing. The restaurant below my apartment has a wood-burning stove and once and a while I get to smell home. Every so often though on a run, I'll get a whiff of the distinct odor of despair. It smells like piss and death, not exactly something you want to drink deeply of as you approach the two mile point. It's like this little reminder as you're chugging along, thinking you could really start to like it here, that it's Cleveland. Your family is hours away, your friends are spread out across the country and despite the fact that you've been here eight months, you still feel like you don't belong.
The thing about all this is, it creates a city wrapped in contradiction. And while it's certainly no walden pond, it does supply it's own depths of creative inspiration. The people are a study in and of themselves. If you weren't raised here, you probably moved here for a job, but it surprises me just how quickly they not only adapt to but adopt the city they live in.
It's not what I ever thought I'd be doing, writing search engine optimization by day and blogging or journaling at night to get my creative fix. At the same time, it's better than what I expected at this time last year. When you go from no job, to writing for a living, you don't exactly have room to complain. And to be honest, for the experience I had coming out of college, I'm lucky to have gone a total of zero days on the unemployment line.
9/15/11
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Just tell me who I should be
Did you ever have an album speak to your heart where you're at? I mean Joshua Radin has a tendency to put my feelings into words so perfectly it makes me angry I didn't think of that analogy. Jars of Clay & Derek Webb remind me that Christ loves me even though I'm a flawed human being. And Fleet Foxes album, Helplessness Blues, beautifully sums up my apprehensions about growing up. About creating something good and beautiful before I'm old. My anxiety about growing up revolves around two key areas of my life: My art and my family.
I worry that I'm not talented enough to do what I want. That I have all these thoughts in my head but an inability to express them as I want to. That I'm 23 and Keats is dead and I haven't written anything I'm proud to show my parents, let alone the general public. I struggle with a common theme for the Christian writer, being real and truthful and hopeful all at once. Percy did it,O'Connor did it, but I'm certainly not Percy or O'Connor. I can't seem to reach those depths and I'm not sure what I need to do. Maybe I need a sponsor, someone who pays my rent and simultaneously acts as a muse, or at the very least lets me live vicariously through their experiences. There's a line in helplessness blues where he says "If I had an orchard I'd work till I'm sore. And you would wait tables and soon run the store" and I think how that life would agree with me. And then I think that I don't have the guts to do that...and no one to tend the orchard with me...which brings me to my next point, family.
In Montezuma, he writes "and now I am older than my mother and father when they had their daughter. Now what does that say about me?...oh how could I dream of such a selfless and true love? could I wash my hands of just looking out for me? -all of this with a wistful, lyrical sway
I'm not older than my parents when they had me, so it's not relatable verbatim. But it's the principle of the thing, the idea of caring for someone more than yourself and the question, if I've been so self-focused for so long, how do I move beyond that?
and how do meld my desire for art (living as a starving artist to focus on my craft) with my desire to have a family (to be a wife and a mother and care for them more than myself...and to work at a job I like but maybe don't love, to provide)
I worry about turning into Adrienne Rich or Virginia Woolf...unable to reconcile my craft and my family and then I think-that won't happen to you, you aren't that talented. If you were, you'd have stuck yourself out there by now. You wouldn't have the double major, wouldn't have alienated a part of yourself, wouldn't have skipped out on the honors thesis and grad school to get a job you like that pays well. You would have dived headfirst, regardless that the pool is four feet deep, and sucked the marrow out of life only to spit it back out in the form of your art. You would have been dedicated, and even if you didn't figure it out right away, you would have spent hours after work writing and scribbling and making an effort to create something of worth, of magnitude.
See that's the thing, Hemingway, Sayers, Fitzgerald, Ginsberg, they all worked at jobs they liked, but didn't love. But they wrote furiously off the clock (and sometimes on) and eventually they quit and adjusted their focus. I wonder if I'll ever be able to do that. Don't get me wrong, I write more than this blog. And right now, I should be working but I'm blowing it off in the hopes that something good comes out of this.
And the thing is, part of what holds me back is my desire for family, for the family I have to be proud of me and not feel like they have to support me-because they would, without too many complaints too- and for the family I might someday have to be supported and have a mother with a reliable schedule and food on the table.
I'm sure this is a re-occurring theme on this blog, but it's a constant struggle between head and heart, And often enough my head wins out, which in turn reinforces the idea that my heart doesn't care as much as it should, or just isn't good enough and I'm afraid there's too much of a disconnect between what I want to do and what I can do.
I want to create writing that is beautiful and poignant and true. - I can't seem to write a story without a damned happy ending
I want to write something that will lead people to a better understanding of God, our world and each other. To take them through hell & the fire of purgatory into paradise. - I write plays that apparently would be best served in a "church setting."
I want a true character, I want to write someone who is related to, hated, loved or hell, even misunderstood - sometimes those are the best. -My life experience creates a wall and I can't take them past it and remain believable. Maybe this is a cop-out. Maybe I could do it. But every time I try, I fall flat. I don't stop trying, but I don't feel great about it either.
Maybe it's all a phase. I'm only 23 and Keats isn't exactly a fair standard. Maybe five years from now I'll look back on this and laugh, and wish I didn't have the experiences I had, but smile to think I thought I wouldn't have them. Maybe I'll be able to create a character who loves and has their heart broken. Or a story with a happy ending that's still true. They do exist, they're just harder to write. Maybe I'll fall in love with this city and stay here, or finally escape to Boston or Philly or someplace out west.
Maybe I'll find the encouragement I need and Maybe I'll let my heart win for once.
I worry that I'm not talented enough to do what I want. That I have all these thoughts in my head but an inability to express them as I want to. That I'm 23 and Keats is dead and I haven't written anything I'm proud to show my parents, let alone the general public. I struggle with a common theme for the Christian writer, being real and truthful and hopeful all at once. Percy did it,O'Connor did it, but I'm certainly not Percy or O'Connor. I can't seem to reach those depths and I'm not sure what I need to do. Maybe I need a sponsor, someone who pays my rent and simultaneously acts as a muse, or at the very least lets me live vicariously through their experiences. There's a line in helplessness blues where he says "If I had an orchard I'd work till I'm sore. And you would wait tables and soon run the store" and I think how that life would agree with me. And then I think that I don't have the guts to do that...and no one to tend the orchard with me...which brings me to my next point, family.
In Montezuma, he writes "and now I am older than my mother and father when they had their daughter. Now what does that say about me?...oh how could I dream of such a selfless and true love? could I wash my hands of just looking out for me? -all of this with a wistful, lyrical sway
I'm not older than my parents when they had me, so it's not relatable verbatim. But it's the principle of the thing, the idea of caring for someone more than yourself and the question, if I've been so self-focused for so long, how do I move beyond that?
and how do meld my desire for art (living as a starving artist to focus on my craft) with my desire to have a family (to be a wife and a mother and care for them more than myself...and to work at a job I like but maybe don't love, to provide)
I worry about turning into Adrienne Rich or Virginia Woolf...unable to reconcile my craft and my family and then I think-that won't happen to you, you aren't that talented. If you were, you'd have stuck yourself out there by now. You wouldn't have the double major, wouldn't have alienated a part of yourself, wouldn't have skipped out on the honors thesis and grad school to get a job you like that pays well. You would have dived headfirst, regardless that the pool is four feet deep, and sucked the marrow out of life only to spit it back out in the form of your art. You would have been dedicated, and even if you didn't figure it out right away, you would have spent hours after work writing and scribbling and making an effort to create something of worth, of magnitude.
See that's the thing, Hemingway, Sayers, Fitzgerald, Ginsberg, they all worked at jobs they liked, but didn't love. But they wrote furiously off the clock (and sometimes on) and eventually they quit and adjusted their focus. I wonder if I'll ever be able to do that. Don't get me wrong, I write more than this blog. And right now, I should be working but I'm blowing it off in the hopes that something good comes out of this.
And the thing is, part of what holds me back is my desire for family, for the family I have to be proud of me and not feel like they have to support me-because they would, without too many complaints too- and for the family I might someday have to be supported and have a mother with a reliable schedule and food on the table.
I'm sure this is a re-occurring theme on this blog, but it's a constant struggle between head and heart, And often enough my head wins out, which in turn reinforces the idea that my heart doesn't care as much as it should, or just isn't good enough and I'm afraid there's too much of a disconnect between what I want to do and what I can do.
I want to create writing that is beautiful and poignant and true. - I can't seem to write a story without a damned happy ending
I want to write something that will lead people to a better understanding of God, our world and each other. To take them through hell & the fire of purgatory into paradise. - I write plays that apparently would be best served in a "church setting."
I want a true character, I want to write someone who is related to, hated, loved or hell, even misunderstood - sometimes those are the best. -My life experience creates a wall and I can't take them past it and remain believable. Maybe this is a cop-out. Maybe I could do it. But every time I try, I fall flat. I don't stop trying, but I don't feel great about it either.
Maybe it's all a phase. I'm only 23 and Keats isn't exactly a fair standard. Maybe five years from now I'll look back on this and laugh, and wish I didn't have the experiences I had, but smile to think I thought I wouldn't have them. Maybe I'll be able to create a character who loves and has their heart broken. Or a story with a happy ending that's still true. They do exist, they're just harder to write. Maybe I'll fall in love with this city and stay here, or finally escape to Boston or Philly or someplace out west.
Maybe I'll find the encouragement I need and Maybe I'll let my heart win for once.
Dead Air
Apologies for anyone who tries to follow me. I tend to enjoy writing in my moleskin more, especially after typing all day for work. I also forgot my password, which is connected to my old email, which I don't have access to anymore. Crises averted. Fear not I will try to write more :)
I'm currently sitting at my "kitchen" table, a glass of smoking loon cabernet sauvignon to my right and an open window to my left issuing in the scents and sounds of Cleveland. My apartment is finally clean - with the exception of a very cluttered desk that I will eventually take care of, someday. Dad was here last night and so I made a real breakfast this morning, grilled muffins and all. It's amazing how the little things can make us happy. We only really got to spend two hours together, but I'm so blessed to be in a city he visits often for work.
I just got very excited at a post having 166 page views, till I realized it was probably just because I quoted Epicurus - ah well. So it goes. (secretly hoping for Vonnegut searchers to be sucked here - google wouldn't like that)
I'm just home from work and sitting down to more work. At least I love my clients (most of them). Currently writing for my favorite - a post about pairing wine to your meals in the woods. What does this do to me? I crave escape. Dad came back from hours of meetings yesterday and after a hug hello he exhumes (exhaustedly), squeezing my shoulder, "Go to the woods, Megan!" If only.
I was home two weeks ago for columbus day. I walked out on the pier alone in crisp fall air and felt this incredible burden lifted. A sense of elation and peace washed over me and I knew this was what my soul had been craving for months.
I like to think I enjoy city living. Walking to everything, craft beers, foody restaurants, indie concernts, and being two blocks from NBA basketball and off-Broadway theater, there are some incredible benefits to downtown living. But fresh air and trees aren't among them. On top of that, the Chinese food isn't all that great. Writing for one of my favorite brands that celebrates the outdoors makes for a rough night of "what ifs" sometimes. What if I locked myself away in a cabin and just wrote a damn novel? What if I'm not supposed to be here? What if I moved home to spend more time with family? What if I moved south like my brother? What if I'm no good at anything else? What if I'm not even good at this? What if they don't like me? What if I just said "screw it" and went fishing? As you can see, it spirals. There's something about the drudgery of city living that leaves us unfulfilled, craving adventure, desireing to suck the marrow out of life.
The closest I get to nature are the flies that somehow always manage to find my 6x24 slot of open window. I'd like to say I killed ten thousand with one blow but they aren't as lethargic as I'd like...nasty little buggers...
Anywho, that's just a smattering of life and feelings at the moment. I really have to get back to work now - but I hope this is enough to hold ya'll for a while!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)