I need something to push against.
An alcoholic father, a vindictive ex-wife, drug addict son. All have provided tensioning. The pull against the grain to keep the neck of a guitar straight.
Running underneath all of my writing is an angst. An exploration, yes, but a worry, a loose tooth, shaky ground, unrest. It is ease and leisure that gets me in trouble. When I’m fighting against the man, the ex, or the addictions, I can maintain balance and gain momentum. Momentum against something I don’t want rather than toward something I do.
It seems the act of writing biographically requires a sense of importance, a message I’m trying to translate from my life to yours. My experience to illuminate yours. My losses to prevent yours. My divorce to end all divorces.
In my quest for the perfect partner I have eliminated some fine contenders. I will eliminate more. I will be eliminated. Write sing draw rest. Onward I go, hi ho, hi ho.
Maybe the next push is against the idea that a woman would complete me. Perhpas the new perspective should sound more like, “A woman to share my time and ecstasy.” Spiraling ever higher upward. Taking each lesson, each failed partner, as a new line in my topo map for the road ahead.
Maybe I shoot for several good years. A great year. A happy release. Back to the solo climb of my own. There is no woman that can complete me. I am incompletable. I am learning to court and date myself. What is better alone? Where would a partner fit in? What can I farm out to ancillary support staff? Massage. Therapy. Sex. Um… Wait.
Is my muse an illusion established and cultivated between first and fifth grade? My thin hippie sister with dark hair and dark skin providing all the parenting I would need for the early elementary years, until she was shipped off to boarding school. I try to push against the stereotype she established in my bloodstream. I married the perfect proxy and it nearly destroyed me. Just before the marriage she jumped off a bridge. My sister. In a protest of sorts. Her life, not mine. Dead. Creek bed high dive.
She created the persona. Artist. Exotic. Dark. Damaged.
Like me.
Tensioning something healthy and wholesome against my more base erotic interests.
