responding

A package came with the mail and I picked it up at my family's house. I knew what it was, because an employee of Rotterdam airport had phoned me a week ago to tell me he'd found my Moleskine notebook, the one I lost about four months ago, and had finally gotten around to sending it. Something enthusiastic in his voice made me think he probably read it. And why else would he go through the trouble of sending it after months? I wondered if he'd written something inside but he didn't.

The notebook is a little time capsule. It has paint stains from when I was working on this room that I now have a history with. It has notes for the story I am now not-so-succesfully trying to pour into a script form. It has career goals I have now thrown out of my window. It talks about silence, while I am now all about the music. It features earlier internal soul-searching & discoveries that I am now starting to accept, saying, -

"Life hurts a little tad bit too much these months, for all the change, for the loss and the gain, for the realization of some dreams and the giving up of others. In this process, words are my sword and my shield. Words are the tool with which I carve my way through stone." ... and also - "Sometimes, I think writing helps, as a remedy to life. Then I doubt it."

Do I know what I am writing about? Do I know where I am heading for? Do I know what step is next? No. But I am here, and I'm gonna give it my best shot.* I stumbled on a blog that has an icon saying "seriously, if I knew what I was writing about, it wouldn't be called blogging, would it? " Lastly, here's a quote from the book I am reading: "Art does not come from thinking but from responding."

I am becoming more responsive, more responsible, too. I am thinking less, acting more, sharing more. Quoting other people just a tad bit less and saying my own stuff just a tad bit more. Caring less if a stranger reads my notebook. Dancing for no reason more, accepting invitations more, talking to clochards on the street more. Listening better, accepting that some things are just not possible more. Creating more trouble, sticking with my beliefs about this world, standing up for the truths I want to create.

I am here. I am giving it my best shot.

PS. Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows talks about art & passion in the following beautiful rendition of Rain King.



... "I belong/ in the service of the queen,/ I belong/ anywhere but in between/she's been crying/ and I've been thinking/& I am the Rain King."...

* A paraphrase/quote from Hansel in Zoolander, the movie I quoted at all random times for about a year. ;) Old habits die slow.