Dear heart, furious mind!
I feel a tornado inside of me. I wake sometimes in the middle of the night
to the sound of my rib cage rattling... like the bones of an old house sensing
the coming storm - like steel quivering at the threat of a faraway train. You
know I only write when the the pen is on fire. I worship this dignified
understanding in you.
In February, Winnipeg violinists caressed
their glorious instruments behind me and flooded my soul with unutterable
wonder. The Art of Time Ensemble let me drive their magical chariot through an
enchanted forest of songs. Cognitive
Science dug its way into my cerebral cortex and the Symphonies of Beethoven
cozied up next to it. Such strange bedfellows, what paintings will that
marriage spawn?
My parents had birthdays, my sister was
reliably hilarious and my brother taught his son how to slam dunk. His 2-year old son. Friends came and friends left. I
kissed and got kissed. Ah life, life,
you feast!
I've posted a whole universe of new
vitamins because art has been whipping me into a frenzy of late ... it is a
sure sign that the hard learning has occurred, the desert has been crossed, and
now it is time to strengthen and prepare for the telling - the showing - the
shining forth.
During the desert stage, I shrivel and
allow my mind to almost consume me. It
is like a fast of sorts. My limits are tested. This is when all the raw pearls are forming -
the living, trembling songs. At the edge and the end of the cycle, something
draws me back to life. Something
tells me to turn around. In 2003 when
I lived in the cabin it was the mice coming indoors for the winter. "Get outta here!" they whispered
"You've finished your task! "
In Paris, it was the mysteriously perfect
timing of unexpected places becoming available and leases running out... but
also the very strong sensation that the city was no longer hostile toward me,
that the giant riverside trees were actually nodding respectfully to me as I
walked by.
Then there is the slow delicate process
of extraction. Younger Sarah tried to
yank the pearls out as fast as possible.
But impatient hands do damage. I
learn this with each year and each album.
The scratches on the pearls are those unnecessary structural changes,
instrument choices, production goo, vocal edits, etc. etc. And they take you
further away from the white hot glow....
The gentler you are, the more original
truth that little thing retains. I find it so very hard to patient.
At the "shining forth" stage -
the butterfly moment - what was shriveled then expands and stretches back into
its fullest from. I am reminded of the
Incredible Hulk exploding out of his clothes, but that's perhaps a tad extreme.
How about a dried up plant soaking up the rain and becoming green and supple
again?... Eat up, get strong! the world
urges. And there is "food" everywhere I turn - brilliant young
painters, transcendent performances, music that can dissolve even the most
stubborn apathy.
Hence my overflowing "Vitamins"
entry, and after such a drought...
My precious listener, this journal is not
for the every whim of my flitting neurons.
It is not to tell you what I ate for
breakfast or what cool people I hung out with. There will be no photos of
anyone with sunglasses on indoors. Like you, I live in books, in weather, in
the burning, crackling force field between us and the street folk who slipped
off the edge and into the abyss of madness. I live in the yearning for 'god',
or more so, the need to dismantle the distinction between It and You and Me and
Everything. I live in the ironic ache of love.
"Try to love the questions themselves" Rilke wrote to the
young poet. When I first heard them, I
tucked these words inside of me, right between the lungs. They are an
inexhaustible treasure.
So this journal aims an arrow. It aims at
a wider, deeper truth. The tip is aflame and the archer might be bleeding, but
I am certain the act is noble. May it never degrade into dull reporting. May it
always dance dance dance its way into your teeming, open meadow-ed heart.
Ever yours,
SS