“Trying to tear her down was your first mistake. ‘Cause little do you know, she wasn’t built to break.” – Grace VanderWaal
I approached the gods and I was found wanting. They sent me back here, for more practice.
That’s OK. The trees are awfully nice, especially at the start and end of each day. And I get to sing songs with my daughter — honestly, we’re both terrible, but wow is it fun to try.
I’m not sure if they sent me back with the capacity to make more pots. I mean, it seems like they would have; I assume I can, since that’s been a part of me for almost as long as this has been a me. But I really don’t know. I can imagine, if the terrain suddenly shifted, morphing that impulse and those skills and desire into music, or cutting up and drawing on bits of paper, or writing, or who knows what else The OA might sprinkle on the path, luring me to some as-yet unimagined destination?
But this version of me? I dunno. Sometimes it feels like I channeled so much of the despair through clay that it’s too hazardous to return there. That those well-worn repetitions and modes of thought are permanently entwined with the bad loops; that my former (just barely) salvation could now be a route back to my undoing. Is this just the normal procrastinating stall before diving in, or is this one different? I’ve never dove back in with a new brain before. I probably will; and later I’ll probably report back that it was good and fine and I’ve found some good new things there to chase. But right now — at 6:02 on a Sunday in the northern hemisphere and winter — I’m not sure. It seems a bit too much like the risks I used to take without knowing they were risks.
OK. I’m gonna get my 2nd cup of coffee and reset here. This night isn’t quite over, and I’m not convinced that this is a smart direction to start this day. Hold on a sec…
[OK, I did an Instagram checkin, too. Because I am a solipsistic jackal, like all the rest of you. But the overnight returns were good. It’s crazy to fuck around with some pencils and graph paper and an X-acto knife for a little while and then make an impression on a dozen brains I admire to the ends of the world. I mean… what the fucking what how does that happen? MORE LIKE THAT.]
[Oh, also have a good streak of posting a lyric from a song I’m listening to at the start of each day to Ye Olde Dreaded FB. I like that almost no one ever Likes them. No one but me; because I fucking love them, man. These sounds/sounds/words are the cheapest life support system our civilization could have conceived of, and it’s right there, now, on an infinite tap, straight into my soul via these weird little white knobs that hang around my neck. Imagine.]
OK, loop back. That opening paragraph sounds like I attempted suicide and fucked that up, too. Clarity: I didn’t. More clarity: I didn’t make the attempt — have never got closer than imagining a long walk in the snow with no destination, on one very cold night years ago. And I really don’t know what any of that metaphor means, or is trying to say. I really don’t. It popped into shape, fully formed, as I was doing my too-early music-supported back-stretch hoodie-on lie-down routine. The thing that helps me transition from waking at 5am to being a respectable (?) human at 5pm.
{Oh, and shit! Man, do I want to recount that subtle suicide joke my buddy made yesterday, in my IG comments; but it’s too much to out him for, and I mean, that stuff is not funny, Scott. No; not ever.}
Well, OK. So much for plans. I think I’ve been avoiding this ‘space’ because I foolishly made a plan for it and announced my intentions, back in that bizarre rush of October and November. Nothing kills flow like predicting it’s continuity. Or expecting it. Dummy.
But hey — on the plus side, it looks like I still remember that ‘“I’m not clay.”