Sunday, September 02, 2012

big dreams, scary moments


 
I don’t know where my ideas come from. I used to think I dreamed them up but sometimes when I take a long walk, they jump me in the street and drag me away. I resust, of course. But I know when they stick when I can’t stop thinking about them. Unfinished songs -- bits of lyrics and imagery and feeling -- spilling all over my clothes and making my hands sweat. A twist to a one act that I would never have considered if I hadn’t gone down that street and run into that guy and had that conversation. Hearing an argument and writing it down compulsively.  Sneaking away from a bunch of screaming, cavorting friends to sing a strange melody into my phone. How ever do they want me, pretty much.

Tuning into all of this is where the fun begins. Having the discipline to organize all that flotsam and keep chipping away at all of it until it grows into art – well, that’s fun, too. What am I saying. Nevermind my student loans, hanging from my neck like an invisible noose. When things are purely creative, it’s a fun life.

And now, as everything shifts –body weight and waiting games and weighty matters, summer into falling into the back of my closet, the sun moving away from me dejectedly – I am starting all over again, as usual. Twitter – yes, Twitter – has presented several challenges that are going to clean me up and out just in time for me to be bright and shiny and new in time for the new year.

Joan Crawford was right. Everything is discipline.

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