Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Where We Go From Here Is Up To Twister

The spin of a little plastic dial on a brightly painted square of cardboard can leave you in traction. Remember that. I can't forget it. Fate. Destiny. Supposed to anything. Free will. It is my professional opinion that the way these things work is that everything begins with a grand flash to jump start the rolling forward, and then things roll forward. Forward rolling along, the thing rolls over this and that live wire, some of which spark and send the thing careening in some other direction. Some of which are duds and the thing goes about never noticing them at all. Life. Aside from these sparks, catapulting the thing this way and that, there are other things to bump into and they also change the thing's course. Pool balls on a trip-wired table lumpy with land mines. Life. Explosions of joy, explosions of rage, explosions of pain, explosions of compassion, running this way and that just trying to hold on, hold still. Luckily, we are sticky. Sometimes some other thing attaches and rolls along beside for a while. But where we go from here is up to...what? Who?

You don't have to believe I am any good at what I do, but I still get to do it. You cannot stop me, no matter how much you'd like to. Throw your wish against my back, I don't care. The subtle suggestions are the worst. Somebody comes out and says to me that they're not really into what I do, I can either explain or accept. Fine. Move on. Somebody ignores my contribution altogether, somebody laughs behind their hand, somebody rolls their eyes, these things are flaming fucking daggers ripping through the stitching, okay? I have no choice, I am only a ball on a green felt field, rolling. I listen to the rythms, the rumble, the keening inside, and in the interest of self-sustainability, I roll in the direction that affords me a healthy level of pain as opposed to the pain of slow eeking suffocating death. Can you smell the difference, even in the dark? I can. For me, I can. So I tell a story that very few really care to hear. I press a button and nothing happens. I dig a hole and watch it fill in with water. Nevermind, it doesn't have to make sense.

I am leaving tonight on a journey of self, since a friend of mine said she's been taught that all artists should write their experience. I can dig that. I've been reading a lot of artist magazines lately, and I think the worst part is the interview. Interviews are the worst! I feel like we, as the theatergoing public, would all be better served if we just read first-person accounts, autobiographies (not ghost written), diaries, travel journals, etc. There's so much to be said for the perspective of the individual.

As an artist, I am excited to read about other artists' experience, especially female, especially those embracing their hue (bleu cheese and chalk all the way to wet midnight soil), especially people with skin disorders, especially people who are radical of thought, especially those who have chosen the wilder path. I can't speak to everyone personally, so it would be nice to read what they were thinking when they traveled to a certain place or did some thing or met some thing. I don't need to know how they constructed a thing, or even what they were thinking when they constructed said thing, but the life one must wake up and face every day is a hard one, even swimming in all this joy.

I want to know how another person dealt with being laughed at. If you answer, please don't be dismissive. I wouldn't ask if I didn't really want to know.

2 comments:

  1. Life. An ugly struggle of joyful-torment. I'll write at you later regarding your latest post, and your latest query. I've recently revisited my JEN ZONE (blogger/google) site if you care.

    Sincerely, JenJ

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  2. you know, i wish i had some great, wise story about how i brilliantly handled some jerk laughing at me, my efforts, my ideas, my art .. but i don't, i can only tell you what i've practiced that has helped me lived a life - not immune to, but indifferent to such happenings. i absolutely believe and practice and hope i never forget that, "what other people say about me (my art, ideas, etc.) is none of my business." otherwise, i'd be in the corner of a dark room, curled in a ball crying. seriously.

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