on a good day, i think i've been
learning a few things.
part of my sadness of the past few years came from a sense
of abandonment, i think. i felt i had done a number of people a number of kindnesses over the years. the part of me that has been sad was because i thought that those kindnesses might be returned by and by.
i thought i was mourning their absence, and the injustice
of it all, but mow i think what i was sad about was the dashing of my expectations.
we are who we are, we do what we do.
i gave because i had the inclination and the capacity to do so. it was not an investment to expect a return on. there was no contract specifying reciprocity, ergo any expectations etc etc.
now when i give, i'm clear about that, and it's all good.
as winter's been giving it up for spring over the last few months, i've been wrapping my head around the idea
that my "life" is effectively over.
it sounds very dramatic, but it's not, really.
my past is a done thing. in my present, every day
is very much like another and i don't have a future,
in the conventional sense.
i've applied for a few things and made some overtures
over the last few years, to no great effect. i had planned
on being one of those colourful crotchety elders in the scene, but there's no real place for me where i used to play, or in the greater cultural continuum anymore.
sad? maybe, but not half as sad
as being the only one who cares.
IMHO.
what else do i know? not much.
i'm old. i'm broke. i have what's called a mental illness.
my personal habits - like my perspectives on life, the universe and everything - range from the distasteful
and/or suspect to the out of fashion, illegal and/or
too far out of the box.
i write about it sometimes and sometimes people notice. likewise with the photographs, the comics and other stuff
i am curiously compelled to create.
if you were to ask me what's happening, the best i could probably come up with would be the the rather intense
ten minutes i spent watching a woodpecker working
just a few feet away the other day.
i'm getting back into gardening, which is not the easy
thing here it was in Vancouver. after taking so many photographs of nature here, and staring at it and
listening to it, i'm finally ready to get my hands dirty.
and put down some roots, i guess.
which brings me, at least, back to that whole "my life
is over" thing, and why it's no big deal. because
i've never been so free.
after thirty years in absentia, i'm spending quality time
with my mom while she's still with it and into it.
i've been there for my Dad as he headed off into his own orbit, and when my brother needed somebody around
who wasn't freaked by cancer and death.
what's happening in my life really is that woodpecker.
i have nothing i'm late for, i get maybe one email a month, when the phone rings, it's never for me and i'm a virgin
of tweets.
it used to bum me out - expectations were not being met!
but lately, it's occurred to me the lack of attention to what
i did or what i do is some kind of freedom.
space. the final frontier.
i produce "stuff" at a remarkable rate. on a good day,
i create a dozen comics, a couple of photos worth
keeping and maybe the bones of a song
or a chunk like this.
it adds up, and maybe something will come of some
of it, or maybe not. the only reason anything's ever
happened within a mile of me was because i was lucky
at bringing crews together.
i am (as ever) open to suggestion and possibilities,
but i don't wake up with any expectations...
and the beat goes on...
*
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