The first shelter we find ourselves under in youth is cluelessness. We’re not supposed to worry about the changes, yet. We’re supposed to enjoy the simplicity while we can, before they say we can’t anymore. Followed by that is the part where we figure it all out, the guided tour. School days are spent teaching us math while we’re learning people, and keeping us from becoming the bad element. By the time you’re wrapping that up, you’re supposed to have been working on something else this whole time: your future. You never feel prepared for it because they were telling you to focus on other things, and all the while insisting you shouldn’t always do what they tell you. Pretending to nurture and foster creativity as long as it plays by their rules.

And then you hit your early 20′s, you’re excited just to be where you are in the game. Because that’s all it has been until this point, another game. But you feel that same drive and that same purpose, without the cynicism that your parents feel, and the world is your oyster. But you fall behind, you step and stumble once and the game isn’t fun anymore. At some point someone took your game and made it feel like work. And you can’t buy what you want, you can’t leave when you wish and you can’t start over. It’s too far gone.

And before you know it, the only thing you have left is your emotions and that’s supposed to comfort you. That’s supposed to easy your fall from glory, from potential. When really, without all that build up, our emotions were always all that mattered. We have decided at some point that the meaning of life is more than just simply living, but living well and fat and rich. Our kids grow up defining themselves by their toys and our old die doing the same.

Firstly, there’s the obvious: The way you smile with kind, genuine eyes. The way your coffee-colored hair seems to envelop me every single time I’m near it. It swarms and blocks out the light, blocks out the noise. Your skin, unbelievably smooth and has a light shine from almost every angle. Those little things. Those are a solid start.

The way your hands tend to find mine when we’re walking, that always impresses me. I don’t know how it works out, but it just clicks. We mentioned that as far back as the first few dates: it just fits. Physically, there’s no awkward tug of war. We’re like two spoons in the silverware drawer, we just kinda fit together by form and by function. You don’t try to one up me, you have a humility that extends far beyond just your own self-image. You approach the world with a sense of timid wonder, like you’re just happy to be here. Happiness, that’s the pin on the head. There we go. Forget all that other stuff, happiness is what I liken to you. You see, I had a friend tell me I didn’t write much anymore. She said I must be happy. She’s right. Funny how my art, struggling and sickly as it usually is, can never bear to see the light of joy. It shrivels when I have a full plate of things that satisfy in a different way. And you, my dear, you feed my hungry soul.

You aren’t just happy. I mean, it’s not just your emotion. You actually exude happy. You create happy from parts of you that aren’t even trying. You make happiness from scratch, even when you’re kind of blue.  It’s something my life is not used to, even after two months I feel like one day it’s just not gonna be possible anymore. That’s a sign, my writing would tell me, that I’m taking it in as much as I can. That I’m not taking it for granted.

Writing taught me that when you stop fearing something will leave, you’ve stopped deserving it to stick around. Comfort is stagnant. But you defy that rhetoric. You’re comfortable, you’re sweet, and you take everything and turn it on its head. I’ve been writing since the hormones hit, it became my religion. Diaries and midnight posts became my soul mate and then you showed up out of nowhere and drew back the curtain to the rest of the world. So, yeah, I’m not writing as much. But that’s because I’m getting my fix elsewhere, with a beautiful drug that kisses back.

And I still don’t get my drinks for free, but tell me: is this so bad?

.Steve

“I don’t really know what it is about her.” I begin, after the small talk has dried up. “I tend to find myself in these circumstances a lot, and my usual approach is to cut and run. I know this about myself.” I tried to imbue this with a sense of acceptance, having made peace with my own shortcomings a long time ago. I never had a guru to follow, but I know my limits and my struggles and I’ll take them over anyone else’s.

There’s an old story, I think it’s a Jewish parable but I could be making that up. The story speaks of the Suffering Tree, a tree that appears to all men as the end of the world nears. They are invited to take all of the burdens that have weighed them down and hang them on a branch of the tree. They then circle the tree, together, and are invited to choose another man’s troubles to replace their own. And as they circle the tree, the men grab their own burdens and continue along their way to God with what they know and what they’ve learned to bear. We take with us our own faults and our own failures, and I see no reason not to own up to them in life as well. She knows this; she wouldn’t ever argue I was being to hard on myself.

I know she won’t focus on the tone, and will take it for what it is because it’s a dance we’ve done before. The conversation had started innocently enough, with a small question and answer session about work and what we see in the world today. A big part of why we can talk so freely with one another is we make quick work of exhausting the common and the mundane. But eventually we get down to the thick of things: one or the other asks how things are with the opposite sex, usually resulting in getting to the entire reason we came out here today. It helps when there’s booze, and I freely admit this. There’s no conversation that can’t use a little clarity and courage, and the wine tasting seemed like a good enough excuse as any.

So I took the chance, and brought up the girl. The new one. The one that’s in some ways very like the ones before, but in some ways so unlike what I normally go for. I continued. “But for one reason or another, I find this one seems to be holding on. I mean, worth holding onto. I think I want to see where this one leads.”

Having bit her tongue with patience, this is usually where she gets to wind up her engine and slap me with some knowledge. I can see it in her eyes, a thought process beginning to brew. Even though she didn’t have all of the answers, she knows well enough to help say the things she’d want to hear were she in this situation. And that’s why this thing works, this confidence and wine.

“What about her makes her stick on? Is it purely scientific, or is there an X Factor that you think she’s bringing to the table; something there hasn’t been before?” she expanded, making sure to hit upon a few phrases she clearly knew would add kindling to my inner turmoil.

“I’m not entirely sure, again, but there’s something different. I always wanted a girl who was worth saving, to be the one who could save her. But I think it’s saving me some effort if I can start with a girl who is pure already, someone I don’t have to save. Someone who can, it would seem, save me.” I see her eyes dart as they follow the train of thought. I struggle, sometimes, at getting what I want to say to sound to others how it sounds in my head.

“So what you’re saying is she’s innocent, she’s a safe choice? That hardly seems fair. You just don’t want to let her go by and see it as a mistake to have placed a different bet.”

I knew what she was getting at. I mean, I can’t let it piss me off, but I knew she’d go after this point hard. I had a history of struggle with the idea of settling and I don’t think this is the same thing. A long time ago there was the common misconception that I was waiting for the right one, the one that excited me to the point that I couldn’t sit idly by. I believed this to be true, and made it apparent to others that I couldn’t be bothered unless she was the one. Over the years I discovered that many, if not nearly all, of them were exciting in some degree. Too many, in fact, so many that I had a hard time choosing. Unfortunately by this point I’d thrown to the wayside many whom would have been seen as suitable. Who could have been great. Mistakes, as she knows I’m reluctant to call them, that could have been avoided if I’d made safer choices and not risked it all for the seemingly impossible dream.

“It’s not that she’s safe, though she is and I think that’s purely dependent upon context. But it’s not only that she’s safe, but as I said it’s because she’s not some troubled soul I have to save. So it’s not the safety, it’s the not saving.” Struggling again.

Usually my wordplay was evident even in my rambling, inane points. It’s a skill learned over years of late night movie talk where points were made and awarded by the strongest phrasing. The wine wasn’t helping either. We both glanced around and at a few televisions as she thought. It usually took a second to decipher what I was saying, but this was different. This seemed to be a process of morals in her head, one I knew all to well. She’s asking herself if she could give advice she herself was reluctant to follow? It gets harder as the years go by to give advice, mostly because you fear your tactics haven’t been doing you so much good at all. How could they possibly be anything but sabotage to another?

“Seems to me…” she started and paused. This was a point made in an air that meant finality. If Katie was going to help me with wisdom and sage and at any point appear to have even and inkling of what she was doing, this was when she intended to do it.

“The way I see it is this: it’s clear that you’re indecisive about this girl. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe indecisive is a step up from the common dismissal you’ve made a trade art of. But there’s another side to this coin, another opinion and decisiveness that matters: hers. In order to be scared about where this could lead, you have to know whether or not she’s willing to lead it there with you. So talk with her about it, talk with her about what you think could be worth talking about. Maybe it’s much ado about nothing, or maybe it’s the push you need. Just… talk.”

Wine and confidence, it’s all it takes to remind you just how unintelligent and yet brilliant we all are. Public education clearly failed us, but there’s a wealth of knowledge just innately born within as a result of our pilgrimage on the road of life. And if we can’t provide answers for ourselves, and God knows none of us can half the time, we can help take our experience and offer it as a source of advice for others. There’s something to be said about having a guide, someone to tell you the answers in life they’ve only just discovered. But for those who lack the sometimes enviable but often discomforting blinders of pure faith, having someone to walk it with you is the next best thing.

And with that I’ve created a very sporadic approach to my art at times, which lets me pour as much as I can of myself into the segments in hope that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Which isn’t always the case, it’s often disjointed and erratic. But then we have a story or a script that comes together in a way I couldn’t have planned if I tried. It just clicks, it has a certain x factor that every creative person is striving for. Interesting, really, a quality found in almost every good story and yet it remains elusive to most. Even the good writers are in a zone only a small percentage of the time. The rest of the time we’re trying desperately to work ourselves into the zone, and feeling worthless and talentless. At least that’s what I’ve come to believe from the artists I’ve known. We paint to be happy, we write to be deep.

In the army of the creative, the writers are the commanding officers. We care about the overall struggle, we’re trying desperately to change the flow of the world around us and to move people and minds. Painters, at least the ones I’ve known, are much less concerned with redefining the status quo. They instead just want to take a trip inside their own mind and their own heart, to get it out physically in a way that words could never do. I once told a girl that I write because every S looks the same, I know how to make an S and what I can and cannot do with it. Using those limits I can stack letters to make words, words to make sentences and sentences to make structurally sound ideas hit the page. She didn’t say as much but I came to the conclusion that if I use letters for such a deliberate purpose, she must have a similar identification with painting. If I had to guess I’d say she uses inks because they seep where words can’t go, they can drip between the crevasses and get into places we thought were watertight.

So imagine those days when our fool saw a piece on sale. He’d spend a week at a time daydreaming about the sacrifices he was willing to make just to own it, just for it to be his. There’d be rationalizations of what he could live without, and what he could steal. He’d mortgage his whole existence so that he could own this piece of art. But it never happened, because he was born with what he’d always have. No more, no less.

One day, near Christmas, and as he’d become known and befriended by the shop owner, he was given the greatest gift another person could ever give him: he could borrow a piece for a few days. The shop owner had seen his tattered wardrobe and his demeanor and realized that he could never own it, but in an effort to do a good deed would let him hang one piece on his wall for a few days while the shop was closed over holiday. So the man chose one he had admired for some time, a painting of a beach and a couple. The blues were strong, as were the blacks and grays. It was a summation of the sobriety of love and the expansiveness of the world around us. And it was called Scene of Love. This would be perfect and, for a brief time, his.

And this holiday was what the man had always dreamed. He would spend hours admiring the work above his mantle, drinking a tea and pretending he was the rich man he could never become. But as were the terms of the agreement, it had to be returned. Spring began to approach quickly and all he could think of was his art, his Scene of Love, and how it was for a short while only his to behold. So now he’s back in his day-to-day life, no happy ending. Barely ever an ending at all, really. He still walks by the shop every day and admires the walls, admires the works of love and of sadness and in between. At the end of each visit he makes a special effort to stop by the piece that had been his and remember what joy he’d had, and the pain of letting it go. He’s seen other buyers approach, ones with the right money or the right sway, the ability to truly appreciate the art in an academic sense. But it would never again be his other than to admire from afar, and one day it would be gone off the wall altogether.

That’s how it was for me.

Writing, for me, is an extremely selfish act. I bury what I can beneath the poetry, but really its all meant to be interpreted. It’s there for other humans to read and understand, if they choose to. If they get that chance. Otherwise I’d write in symbols, I’d paint. I’ve never been able to paint. I told Her once that I’d tried to. Words are a better paint for me, keyboards are a much more ergonomic brush. Apples to apples, and whatnot. So when I’m writing for these posts, most of which begin in a darkness only Monkey and I can ever reach, I tend to address them as letters. Which has over the years incredibly injured my ability to write stories. I narrate the story I’m living, god awfully boring as it is, but I lost the ability to tell what other people are experiencing. And I’m slowly losing the ability to create those experiences from scratch. Time to stretch those broken bones and see if I can save what I can of my artistry. Or it’s office work for me.

There’s going to have to be a change, this is true. I have beat that point to death on this page, that how things are now is not how they need to be. But apart from all of that, the change isn’t going to be easy. It’s not going to be a quick win, I won’t be published the minute I hit save on what I think is my final draft (it won’t be). What it’s going to take is all of that just to get to the starting line, and then there’ll be a whole new race to run and an entirely new bout of unmotivated diatribes complaining about how I’m waiting on a change to come. It’s frustrating but we have no other choice. Life is a series of shitty moments sprinkled with good times and joy. So when the bliss of inspiration and motivation comes along, you had better not let it pass.

Expanding upon something I mentioned to a friend tonight, I think there’s a misconception about struggling in the world. And it’s natural for people to not like the idea of struggling and working hard just to keep afloat, it’s reactionary logic. But it makes sense. My belief about it is a little different based mainly on the fact that for every moment in my life I’ve been angry or scared, felt that pain I can’t describe or cried my eyes out over circumstances I can’t change, for each of those moments that we’ve all dealt with I let myself get completely involved in them. I let go, and let the moment take me over. And if you can do that with suffering and detriment, then you can help yourself do that with joy as well.

There are times in our lives, times past and many left in the future, where we’ll be sweating and our hearts are racing a million miles and we’re scared. There will be times when you’re so clueless as to what you have to do to make it all better you’ll just sit there with shortened breath saying “No, no, no, no” until things subside. And in those moments, if we just dive in headfirst, I think we’ll understand the good parts better. We’ll appreciate the bliss. Because then, next time you’re over the moon smiling, shortened breath but this time screaming “yes, yes, yes, yes” then maybe you’ll let yourself get just as lost in the moment. And in the aforementioned repetitive sequence of shitty moment after shitty moment, the longer and stronger those random blips of joy can be the better your life is. Or so I think.

It was about this time I met a girl, the first in a series of them, that would prove to be a muse for me. I was just starting to discover the sexiest, most dangerous and prettiest words for things and she walked onto the scene like a key for a lock. She was poetry, all I had to do was find a way to put it on a page. I did that for years, speaking of her and to her through poems and turning phrases. And to her credit it was never easy, not like the research papers and the exams. But I focused all of my intention on it until I started to get lost down the rabbit hole I’d written. It didn’t help that she thought the words were beautiful, and that just lit me ablaze. It was dangerous to follow my muse so intently, to write about each glimmer and each flicker. Spending too much time staring way too close can sometimes make you insane. Luckily there wasn’t much I could do about it as far as a romantic follow-through with the relationship.

What happened after that, I can’t say. I guess I just kind of lost steam with even trying to hide behind a guise. There was really no specific date, but eventually I just became obsessed with myself and my predicament. I stopped writing poetry and began to focus more on ego instead. Started wearing out the letter I on the keyboard, other letters feeling a little jealousy by the time it came to click post. Introversion is still one of my faults, it’s still something I can’t control. I’ve had many muses over time, many women who can float in and change how I view the world. But there’s always a lens before the subject, there’s always that intention to focus on myself. My narcissism has always been center stage. So the white blank page shows me there is room for the story of other things, of other people. And yet I filled it up talking about myself, as the sickness commands.