booandbunny

Something’s happening inside I can’t control. I can’t label it. I can’t harness it. I’m trying to write my way out of it but nothing is coming except stories of vampires.

Joy vampires.

Sucking the joy from my veins.

So if I know they’re there why don’t I fight back? Kick them off? Do something? Maybe if I just let these tears come I could close the wound on my neck.

Maybe if I locked myself up with the blankness of my new journal I could get something out. Why do I always pressure myself that it has to make sense?

It doesn’t have to make sense.

It could just be one long freaking run-on sentence that describes what I think is the sea creature pulling this ship down into the depths and asks, without editing itself, why in the world I let the sea creature hold on when I know a good whack with the ore might break its knuckles and cause it to release me and I could sail back toward my sweet island of characters I’m waiting to explore and turn my back on all the feelings I’m best served when I ignore them.

See, one long run-on sentence, not that run-ons come any other way but long.

So, it’s holding on to my little boat, and yet it must be hunted. And I don’t know what else to say, but I had to keep from slipping off my plane again … that’s where the creature’s friends team up on me. Down there, in the disconnected, disinterested crowd that is life with moms from school and moms who are neighbors and all these women judging each other because, really, they’re judging themselves.

Pulse racing.

Heart racing.

Head aching.

Where is that creative beast?

I hear you calling me.

I feel your hunger.

Why won’t you come when I call you?

I have food … somewhere.

If only I had you here, we could each whack the knuckles with an ore and then row for our lives.

Disconnected.

Disinterested.

I think I’ll take a nap. That will shut up all the other stuff.

Until I wake up.

So instead I start singing and the tears start coming. This song always makes me take a breath. It’s a prayer, but today I hear more. Even though it’s a song from church, this time it’s me talking to my own creative self and my own creative self begging to be heard.

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known?
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you tend to cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare, should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoner free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the Leper clean, and do such as this unseen
and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
Will you love the you in you if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

And in typing it here I once again am soothed. In the bit of “The Artist’s Way” I attempted I was struck by Julia Cameron’s connection of our creative selves to the ultimate creator. So is it really wrong to see my creativity where others see their creator?

Sometimes distant.

Sometimes near.

It knows me by name.

And takes me back when I ask.

Sometimes I embrace it.

Sometimes I scream at it.

It knows me by name.

And forgives me when I ask.

I think I’ll keep singing. Maybe let the tears run at last. Maybe I’ll find my creative beast before dinner, feed it, and we can take a few whacks at those knuckles. Perhaps if I give it cheesecake it will do the rowing for our lives while I write those vampires out of my head.

// posted by HoBess @ 5/18/2006 10:42:00 AM