Maudlin

Maudlin. Why I spend time in such a state is both a mystery and admittedly my own fault. I think too much. Things bother me. I dwell. Realization should grant power over the situation, and often does; rational emotive therapy and all that crap. However, the reality is that I’ve always felt deeply. Whatever it is cuts right to my bone. Delight, pain, rapture, despair, stillness, loss, hunger, satisfaction…. if boredom can be experienced passionately, I’ve done it. Makes for inspired artistry in times of creativity, or just a mess in the absence of muse or diversion.

So when that bittersweet sentimentality creeps in and lays heavy on my heart, it tends to settle in and stay a spell. Like a bad relationship, it’s symbiotic. We feed each other an addictive diet of romanticized sorrow that circles back and spirals around us, steeling a bond that shouldn’t be. It lurks behind my outwardly comic demeanor, visiting when I’m alone, unoccupied and unsuspecting. It colors my pallet with deep purples and midnight blues, pushing my brush into the pigment again and again to darken the circumstance.

And I know it. I feel it happening. Like watching the drama unfold in a seven hundred page sixteenth century novel, I am strangely removed, yet intimately involved, in the plot of my own life. This duality is an enigma, almost as impossible to convey as the feeling itself. Eventually, something unknown will pull me away and for a while I’ll be free. Until the next time.

I knew the bride when she used to Rock 'n' Roll

Sometimes it's hard not having kids. People seem to be waiting for an explanation. With women having babies later and later in life, well-meaning friends tell me there's "still time." Uh, no. Truth is, outside of when I was about four years old, and then a very short window of time in my early 30's, I've never wanted to have children. The maternal instinct just sort of passed me by. I have a niece, I have friends with kids, they're great and I love 'em, but it's not my gig. Maybe I'm too selfish, maybe I'm too bi-polar, maybe it just wasn't meant to be. About the only instinct I've ever felt strongly throughout my entire life is the need to be creative. And what is creativity if not a birth of sorts? Writing, painting, drawing, photography, gardening, cooking and especially music; the outcome of this, these are my children. But unless you are some famous, childless artist or rock star, people just don't get it. Not everyone can be rich and famous; not everyone should have kids.