Song and Dance

I hope everyone had lovely holidays and began the new year fresh and fit; I'm afraid I keep up better on Facebook than I do over here; it's quicker, I've tricked myself into believing. I'm going to start posting my short, vague statuses from Facebook here, something to try, the theory being that it will help me find a balance between too little and too much.

I keep starting posts that quickly get out of hand, trying to fill in all the blanks and express all the hopes and frustrations and create reason and sense where there isn't any. I thought around the new year that I'd do a quick rundown of 2009, especially the months I didn't post much (and sadly, that's more than half), but "brief" ballooned into "bulky" and I couldn't find a way to trim it down. I feel so much, and I have so much to say.

Seriously, I have at least 20 unfinished, unpublished posts that just go on and on and on, and even though there's some lovely language and information I'd love to share, I also fear I'm guilty of sharing too much. My reasons for blogging have to be different now; I'm so different than I was when I started this over five years ago, and a lot of what I had to say I had no one else to say it to. The returns from the blogosphere have been amazing, it's been great to have a way to keep in touch with friends and family when we haven't had time to actually get together, and I've loved (as I've stated before) being able to go back and see where I was, what I was doing, and how I was feeling. I think I'm emotionally healthier when I use this outlet, even though I have someone now I can't help but tell everything. He doesn't seem to mind; in fact, I he seems to like it. But he also likes reading me here. It's where he found me.

I have a hard time focusing. I have come to the conclusion that if I ever run out of artistic mediums to explore, I'll simply drop dead. So I'm working on a way to combine them all, believe it or not. The basic concept is that when I find a creative outlet I'm mad about, suddenly every other thing I've ever tried is as obsessive as it was when I first discovered it, and since childhood I've discovered myriad modes of artistic expression. I write; I draw in pencil, charcoal, and pen and ink; I paint in watercolors, oils, gauche and acrylics; I play several musical instruments; I take photographs; I carve wood; I crochet; and now, friends, I kid you not, I'm making jewelry. I discovered simple silversmithing and PMC precious metal clay, bought a kiln and some steel blocks, hammer, and solder, and went to town with the abandon I use to attack anything creative. And it's as rewarding as everything else. And suddenly everything else is rewarding in whole new ways. And while I was watching Coraline tonight, I had an idea.

I've been trying to conform. Imagine! I've been trying to tailor the things I create to meet the appetites of a society that is almost completely homogenized. The same movies come out over and over, the same music plays again and again, the last novel I read I swear I'd already seen, word for word. I went to Kansas City for a week after Christmas and dipped my toes in suburbia, where everyone eats at chain restaurants and sees the same movies and wears the same clothes from the bland stores at the mall (except for the remarkable few who have somehow managed to carve out a unique life of creativity and inspiration; some of those are Brent's friends, thank goodness).

And I got to thinking: it's the people who don't do this, who can't stand this, who run in the other direction screaming and spewing creative works in the wrong colors and styles and sounds (Tim Burton, Stanley Kubrick, Poe, Michael Jackons, Georgia O'Keefe, et. al.) who we really admire. Who really live. And I thought about the only line in the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women that really should have been in the book: "... you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life?" And I'm a little grateful to have spent nearly a decade in a small town where I was protected, for the most part, from the mainstream. I've had the Internet and magazine subscriptions, a brief foray into cable, healing time with family, a short drive to a decent-sized city, and plenty of time to simmer in my own creative juices.

Anyway, in 2010 I intend to let go. I am plagued by self-doubt; anyone who knows me knows that. But I'm 30, I'm clever and able, and there's no reason I can't produce whatever artistic whims lead me to without caring about what people think. So here goes.

This should be interesting.