The Tugging and The Vision

I am watching fall blue out the faces of houses and cement sidewalk slabs, rain clinging to the air, my own eyes hoping it will just let go, fall just beyond the coffee shop windows, make the world slick with shine. For the first time in a while I'm enjoying my music, particularly Ellery/ Dividing the Plunder. Tasha and Justin Golden (the band members) have always sung a story so like the one walking the often puddly floor of my heart.

There's always this deep longing in the lyrics, something stretching out the emptiness in me, helping me explore all the rooms that feel stark and gray.

I feel so unsatisfied lately, and I worry that I'll never go where I want to. That I'll never write or help other people acheive their creative goals. I want to feel meaningful, like the hours of my life contribute to the vivacity of fellow human beings. I want to pull all the people who feel meaningless out of hiding and help them make their lives, and make things, make art or journals or poems or paintings that give them hope, some sense of originality, of, "I can do something and it has never been done the same way."

I want to help re-invent what makes a person valuable. There are such superficial criteria out there for people to measure themselves up to. It's absolutely ridiculous. I hear people talking about how a man isn't clean shaven and I think, "What if he spent the past three days concocting the most brilliant screen play, if he couldn't sleep, could barely eat because characters were on his brain, jumping new dialogue, movement into his every thought? What if he was helping someone, or organizing his books, or making music, or learning something new?" Why does a clean shaven face mean a damn thing?

I wonder if it's possible to escape such talk. If we can jump first to conclusions of gradeur. If instead of assuming the old homeless man is a mere deadbeat, considering him to have done great things, and met such horrible circumstances that he really does need society's help.

I know that we're taken advantage of, and that so often the book's cover actually says something about the book, but that doesn't justify superficiality becoming the rule. Too often, we apply the most convenient of our explanations because it makes us feel superior, as if we're justified in our plastic-sour talk, our choice to turn away smugly.

So yes, these days my desire to be a part of something colorful, supportive, substantial is immense. I feel tugged deep in the soft wells of my organs. I feel a cloud of dream swelling at the tip-top of my skull.

And I start to compose a vision. A workspace. A schedule. A plan. I found this wonderful wonderful book on amazon called, Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd, and though the title is a tad bit cheesy, the book is written very well and provides a lot of insight and practical guidance for the creative individual who longs to make a creative professional life for herself.

The book has me attmepting to come up with a clear, concrete vision for my future career. I am holding onto all of my ideas, idyllic as some might be, in order that I might acheive as much of that vision as possible. I know life and God and relationships and children intervene, but I'm just trying for the best, clearest picture I can get of what I want, and working toward that, so that maybe, someday, I might come close.

What's interesting is that the ideal so often is not to sit at home and do nothing...to watch television and eat as many potato chips as their are channels and commercials and talk show fights. Tyically, after about a week of that, we're ready to do something, to create a life for ourselves. Armed with a bit of the vision already--that I want to write--mostly poetry--and help others actualize their creative/emotional selves--I am attempting to clean it up and put together the stepping stones of the path.

While I'm here, the biggest struggle is satisfaction. It is so hard for me to rest where I am. It's easy for me to do nothing, to stare off into space ninety-percent of the day, but while I'm staring I'm spinning wheels behind my eyes, doing the maddening work of worry. I need to be able to sit for five minutes and be okay where I'm at. Breathing. Catching up with a friend. Allowing myself to be hugged while I'm being hugged.

Sometimes there's so much to undertake. Satisfaction. A vision. Vivacity despite the emptiness I find inside myself when I am without a definite plan. I'm working on it, and working on getting quiet for a small space in the day, finding out that I'm worth something even when I'm not making it all work perfectly, when I'm undisciplined, when I'm alone without anyone to say whether I'm good or not.