I’ve spent more time these past couple of days tweaking the layout and format of this site then actually posting anything of substance. Ironically, this just happens to be a major theme of this site – it’s amazing the amount of work one will do to avoid work. Still, I shuffle on towards…something. This very “something” is what I intend to explore here.
Many years ago, I considered myself an artist – a musician and a poet. I wrote all the time, and dreamed big dreams. Problem was the dreams remained exactly that…dreams. Through a series of events, personal choices, and many painful growth experiences, I walked away from that. I pushed away that small, unsure voice inside, and did other things. Oh sure, I’d strum a guitar every so often, and make half hearted attempts now and then to scribble some words down, but I never did anything with it. I became what has been called a “Shadow Artist” – I surrounded myself with creative friends, encouraged and supported their work, but never did any of my own.
The past few years of my life has resulted in huge changes – my professional career as an engineer has taken me to places I would have never dreamed of, and I’m very proud of this. But I’ve known a lot of turmoil and tragedy as well – divorce, deaths, the loss of friends, and many other struggles too personal to discuss in a public forum. I’m still reeling from all these changes, and they’ve led me to ask the single most important question in my life of myself – “Who the Hell am I?”
For me, now is a time of self examination. Now is a time of reclaiming that small creative voice, and making it my own. Whitman asks:
O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless–of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light–of the objects mean–of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all–of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest–with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring–What good amid these, O me, O life?Answer.
That you are here–that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
And this is where I’m at – the reclaiming of that creative voice, so that I might contribute a verse to the powerful play. I love what I do professionally, but for far too long, this has been the only thing that defines my life. This isn’t enough. I want…I need to create, to write, to play, to sing, to prance about on stage. To take my time, my experiences, my dreams, my life, and touch others with it. To learn from life, to heal from it, to sing it sweetly in joy and sorrow.
It is this process of reclaiming my small creative voice that I wish to explore here.