How long is it acceptable to ruminate about a subject, without making any progress, before you have to admit the answers just aren't there? For two weeks, I've wanted to revisit the topic of my art, and how I am gaining acceptance with what my particular role is. I keep hearing little throwaway lines here and there, and I think, that's it, that's what I needed to tie it all together. But I still keep putting it off. It started when Will Smith was on the Tonight Show, the new version, and he was offering advice to Jimmy Fallon on his first night. He said something that really struck me. He essentially said that you've got to remember that your art is a gift to people, to help brighten their lives, even just to get through a day, and when artists get in trouble is when they start to think it's all about themselves.
I've struggled many times with feelings of inadequacy, when I think about how light my subject matter is. But I don't want to drag anyone down with the news of the world, and I certainly don't want to ignite a firestorm over politics or religion. I refuse to be more inflammatory than to take a side for sporting events. That's not what I'm about. I want to comment on the small moments, and I believe that I can find parallels to the human condition in my vignettes, even when I fill a post with gardening victories and cat adventures. I keep these short, so it only takes a couple minutes to read and look at the pictures. I hope that I am delivering at least a few minutes of peace every night. If I can lower your blood pressure for five minutes, and give you a chance to take just one deep, relaxed breath, then I have done my job well.
I am still working on that ghost story I started in November. It's never far from my consciousness, although it is not progressing very quickly. While I was gathering influential statements to write the above, comedian Chris Harwick informed me (and thousands of others) that two Kardassian sisters wrote a book. He screamed at the camera, "hey, frustrated writers, now you have no f-ing excuse!" I felt properly chastised and shamed.
I keep hearing birdsong, in real life and on television. I assume that it catches my ear mostly because my text notifier is a chirp, but I think I'm particularly drawn to it now because it's almost spring. I want to throw open the windows, and be able to leave them open all day and night (not yet). I love listening to my cardinals serenade me and taunt the cats. Today we had to watch the birds through the windows only, and that made me the least popular human in the house. I shut the door on two cat heads today (not all the way), preventing escapes on the heels of the dogs. I was listening to another comedian today, John Fugelsang, who lives in New York City and takes his cats out on walks in a stroller. He said, "Cats think they run the house, and you have to show them how low on the totem pole they are, and this will put the fear of Homo sapiens back in them." Oh, silly man. You're just toting them around in a sedan chair like all good nobles throughout history. Don't you know your place?
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