striking the balance

creating for process v. pleasure, channeling feeling, getting closer to god

When I started writing “the spiral path” I didn’t realize it was about my breakup. I thought it was the fun quirky story about dating three guys named Ben.

But they were the rebounds. The repetitions. The unconscious patterns in my relationships with men flashing before my eyes.

But in some way, they were all a fractal of my last relationship. I can’t tell this story without telling that story. Once I realized this, I have been experiencing an immense amount of resistance to writing.

Part of this is because now when I write, I feel like I need to work on “the spiral path.” This is dumb. I need to just keep the flow going and write about other things too.

But I do want to finish the story. But I don’t want to go there anymore. To the history. The trauma.

I am tired of story. The stories I create. I just want to BE.

Yet — there is an alchemical power of story.

I often feel that I have not processed an event, an experience fully until I can tell the story like an epic poem, or a song — paired down to the essential pieces, the gut punches, the cosmic winks, the detail & symmetry — so that the essence of the thing is felt, and not weighed down by the rambling of my mind.

And so in writing “the spiral path” this is what I am attempting to do.

Strip down the story.

Carve it. Shape it.

Gut it. Cut out the shit.

Make it mean something.

Tell it in my tongue.

Feel it in my mouth, my hands,

my heart.

Make the story

my own,

so that then

I can

let

it

go.

___________________________

I have a complicated relationship with writing. I was always naturally good at it in school, never thinking much about my English assignments and always getting A’s.

But I didn’t start writing poetry until I became obsessed with a junior boy when I was a sophomore, and we would exchange poetry via AIM. I never understood what his metaphors meant. I sent him poetry about him without making that known to him, as a Scorpio (Sun + Venus + Mercury) would.

I wrote songs first. Similarly, to try and get attention. There was a desire to be seen. To show my bleeding heart to the world. I was intensely sensitive and needed somewhere to put all that feeling.

But it feels like maybe I turn to writing when I am in avoidance of music. It’s like writing is my side bitch, that sometimes I treat better than my wife.

When I quit music in my early 20s, I turned to writing. I got an English degree and an MFA in Creative Writing. It was a way of letting my voice continue to open and flow in a way that I really needed at the time. I taught writing for over 5 years. I don’t think it’s fair to just call it my side bitch.

So sometimes I think I just don’t know how to hold the complexity of my creativity. I don’t really get to choose what I create. Sometimes it comes out as a poem, and sometimes it comes out as a song. It all depends on what materials are around me when I sit down to create, what the vision requires.

Because the truth is I am a visual artist too. I just wrote and created my first official music video. And I actually have years of experience as a video editor. Creating with moving images is like painting dreams.

I feel like this is about setting the riverbeds. Choosing the channels.

I just need somewhere to put all this feeling.

___________________________

Yesterday I met up with a drummer to play music together. He listened to my demos and was interested in playing them. I showed up to a graffitied warehouse out in the boondocks, and panicked for a moment that I was going to get murdered, until I met this person and my defenses fell. You can just tell when you meet a resonant soul.

I walked into the most beautiful studio and rehearsal space I’d ever seen. Gorgeous wood floors, big windows, and every instrument you could imagine. Electric guitars, basses, a Wurlitzer, amps half as tall as me, microphones. I felt like Belle when Beast shows her the library. When the drummer turned his back to me I dropped my jaw and grabbed my belly and my chest, hardly able to contain my excitement.

I got to sing and play unlike I’ve been able to in a long time. There’s something about amplification. I want to be loud. And when I get to play like this, something else takes over. There were several moments as we played my music together for the first time that I felt the Muse take over.

When this happens, I am not making conscious decisions about what I’m singing or playing. New things happen, spontaneous things happen, I feel like I’m following a thread, I’m catching a wave, I hear it as it comes. The song sings me. I feel it rise from my root and up and out of my throat, into my hands. I am surprised by what comes out. It feels like I merge with God when I flow like that.

I can’t stop thinking about that studio. About how that electric guitar felt in my hands and against my body. And how my lips felt against that microphone.

I trust whatever happens with this person & this collaboration, or not. I’ve learned the hard way that we cannot grip to anything.

But I touched my Beloved again yesterday, inside of myself.

And there’s no going back from that.

___________________________

We must learn to strike a balance.

Creating for pleasure and creating for process.

Expressing our pain and expressing our joy.

Sharing our music and sharing our poetry.

Writing the longer story and dumping our brain out.

Singing what we know and singing what we don’t know.

Finding the channel.

It’s always a choice.

I am learning how to not care about the outcome,

and instead, to ask:

What will bring me into my body?

What will bring me closer to myself?

What must I let go of?

What will bring me closer to God?