Even though we can’t see it, the sun is not gone. Even if it feels like Winter will never end, the fires will never be put out, the proud history of our country is heading into an extremely dark period, even so… I can promise you, the sun is still there. Similar to my son, he too is unseen, unheard, and yet I imagine that he persists because I have not heard otherwise from his sister or his mother.
Even if you can’t see the sun it’s there.
Wandering in the desert of love alone, I am noticing many new things. I am less interested in average. I am not shooting for average in my life. I am moving all of my chess pieces forward. I am engaged. I am content. Therefore, the great quest would be better postponed. Until the sun arrives, perhaps. More likely, I need more time for curing. Recalculating. Recalibrating.
In my verbose “hello date” it was obvious to me that I was cresting a wave. It might have been the coffee, the cold, or the excitement. I have come to believe that my writing is a bit like my conversation, somewhat pressured. I am rushing to get the data out of my head in onto the page. I am learning that this process, here, writing, is more soothing and effective at processing my joy, fears, hopes, and frustrations. I had a girlfriend who listened. Listened with her heart. Reading a tender chapter would often bring us both to tears. Today, it’s just me and the sun. Well, okay, the two cats, Sid and Hunter, but I don’t have to read out loud to them, they know.
In my moment of calm I still have the desire to flee. Expatriate. All I would miss is my daughter. And tennis. The cats would have a hard time, but they would make it. They would come along for the ride.
I would rebuild myself in London in the same way I have reconstructed myself time and time again. The weather is worse. The food is worse. The women, the tribe, the culture? Unknown.
The expatriate fantasy is alive. I don’t think it’s very practical at the moment. I am tethered by my need for money, need to work for others, need to survive and find the time and energy to write. I have all that here. What’s the call toward the twilight hour in a foreign city? Can’t I have that for a week, alone, and then return? Yes. What is the ache in my soul that aspires to flight?
It’s not a partner. Perhaps it’s enrichment, of myself.
“I lived in Barcelona for a few years while I was getting established as a novelist,” sounds really good, right?
The mysteries of my memories are unfurling in my writing. The past is being prompted and primed for additional bursts. It’s the future, the “next” that I seem to be craving. Forcing. Trying to push the river. I want a perfectly empowered loving partner. I want a reader, a writer, a passionate person. I want to say, “Wow.” The same wow I get when I look at my creative output over the last year. I think I’m a lot. I want her to be a lot.
Trying to imagine Lance Armstrong (still in the saddle) and Sheryl Crow being married. Who’s ego would win? Who was more beloved? Needed more exposure? I guess, I have a sour grapes approach to fame at the moment. It would probably fuck me up.
Okay.
Kurt Vonnegut published three or four novels in the first 15 years of his writer’s life. He still worked his day job. Twenty years in or so, he wrote Slaughter House Five and the universe opened up for him. He taught at Iowa, Harvard, he became untethered from the demands of making money. His efforts freed him. His creative genius was celebrated and gave him the space and time to create without limits. He still used a typewriter until the day he died, limiting his output somewhat. Perhaps his process benefited from the two-factor authentication. As he sent his typewritten manuscripts in boxes to his publisher. Editors marked up pages. Books were designed, strengthened, and released with some regularity once he caught the zeitgeist.
Oh shit!
I see it.
I’m not looking to escape! I am looking to be let go. Discovered. Released.
In many ways, my unlawful and unplanned firing from the corporate job untethered me in time. I no longer had daily standup meeting with my team. I no longer had to suffer the fool sk8r boy manager. Anxiety became more of a friend, a challenge, and a pivot.
It was the events outside of my control that unlocked a new layer of my creative drive. I suppose those energies and fears are still part of my fuel. I want out of here. Out of this trap of work hours for money for time for food and shelter. I want work for words, for time, for love, for poetry, for song, for HER TO SHOW UP.
Do I have to go out and create my lover?
I’ve been trying to build a perfect partner for fifteen years. My first two wives were quite beautiful and damaged. Unavailable women appear to be my taste. I can unlearn that. I can recenter. Perhaps recant my need for the fractured artist as muse. My self-awareness says I’m still chasing my older sister’s ghost. Thin, tan, creative, hippie. I’m all but one of those things. And I’m working on the fourth.
Alone but never alone again. The two cats have made a nest under the red comfy chair. Some of the lining has been penetrated, creating a little cave for them to curl around each other, against the cold, against the sun, against the lonely night. One, Sid, is poof queen, resting warmly on my foot on the poof. I don’t know if it’s first come first serve, or if they have a system. “You had it earlier this morning. Let me have a go.”
At the moment my cats do not talk back. There is certainly some telepathy, but no words. I’m certain they are not interested in a drugged trip to a foreign country. Maybe I’ll be like Hemingway, leaving estates full of cats all over the globe.
Somewhere I read that Neil Young has actually realized every one of his creative demos, fragments, and ideas. I suppose towards the end of his life, Kurt, had also run out of grand ideas. The brain, the body, the wit calms down over time. How many more years do I have to jam? All the books and songs and ideas I have to illuminate. Can I reach a peace in my own skin with being undiscovered? Will I die with bitterness if I’m not famous? Do my kids care? If anything, they’d prefer my “single dad” stuff would just go away.
Alright.
If there’s No Exit. If time is actually the currency. Energy and imagination the fuel and motivation. What am I lacking right now? Fame? Fuck that. Fortune? Well, a little less worry about money would be great, but I’m warm and in a nice place at the moment, while it’s freezing outside. I have a cat on my foot, purring. I have a mind bursting with neural connections and inspiration. I lack for nothing.
Girl.
Okay, but…
…
Leaving and leaving nothing unsaid are different ambitions.
