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.
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