Reflection and brunch at Paul's Bakery

"I believe sometimes we aren't always in charge of everything that we do creatively.  We submit to things as we're going on our own journey."  Madonna

I have continued to have a somewhat 'up, down, up, down' existence lately, trying to change my attitudes to things, trying to alter my perspective and, above all, stay in the present.  But there's something about the human brain and the way it perceives time that can mean you can't out-run your personal history.  You can try to focus on the present, but what do you do when an old song comes on on the radio in a cafe or shop?  Music is that powerful that the things you associated with a song from the past can come flooding back at you.  

If music is the industry you're involved in, your work is continually informed by the past.  Songs that refused to let themselves be finished sometimes come back and ask to be looked at again.  Ideas started with no funding to finish get overlooked for other things you can afford to complete and the result is thread after thread of notes and pictures, vocal melody lines and chord sequences pulling you back, just when you hoped you were finally moving forwards.

Thankfully, by escaping to Paul's bakery for brunch this morning, I'm only being reminded of quirky French singers and they haven't started playing Maxime le Forestier yet, so I'm safe.  I needed to get out of the house.  As a writer/self-employed person working from home, you soon realise that getting out of the house from time to time is an absolute necessity and one that cannot be avoided purely on a "but I need to save money!" basis.  It doesn't work.  The extra productivity that comes from getting out and eating elsewhere so you don't have to deal with the washing up afterwards saves untold time and energy.

   

They've spruced up the place too, which is lovely (though my photo came out blurred) and they've now got nice chairs that remind me of the antique ones my ex-Swedish teacher has in her converted barn in the middle of nowhere in northern France. So I feel more at home now.

And what's really ridiculous is, the architect has had some good news on the job front, so I really am going to be going on a US road trip and I really will get to stay in San Francisco and see the Golden Gate bridge and see the sea and be free of Europe for almost a month, starting in Chicago in a month's time!  It is really happening.  And it really is my life in which this miraculous stuff will be taking place....I need to pinch myself!

Maybe the songs will come back, unhampered by debilitating emotional attachments.  Maybe they'll call me back in a new way.  Maybe I'll even write some interesting stories about my encounters with people there.  I'll certainly take some pictures to have proof.  

Things are looking up.  For now.

Perennial problems and lime trees

My meet-ee brought me a sort of cutting from the Czech national emblem tree today.  The lime tree.  Its tiny flowers smelled sweet and it felt like a little romantic gesture, in an innocently platonic setting.  It was sweet, though also funny (both 'ha, ha' and peculiar) to start the day like that.  But I soon got into the swing of being disciplined and back 'down to earth' but I think the miserable-looking sky helped with that.  If it had been sunny, maybe I would have been more inclined to be rebellious and just talk, if not run away to hold the meeting at the zoo or something, instead.

I'm becoming more reckless and stubborn though, I've noticed.  I just want to do things 'my way' and I just haven't the patience for someone else's agenda.  I want to be able to take some days off, even though my bank balance would urge me that this is VERY UNWISE (if it could talk) because I need to have time to do some reading, and of course, writing, but above all, I need THINKING time.  I need the luxury of sitting and thinking and wondering what to do and being able to choose my creative methods for the morning and pursue them.  Then I can find out afterwards if they were a good idea or not.

This is what I had to explain to another meet-ee today.  The fact that most creative people don't know exactly what they're setting out to achieve when they start on a painting or a poem or a song.  They start with a little idea and follow it to see if it will take them anywhere interesting.  So if you read poetry with the hope of uncovering the 'key argument or opinion' of what the author was trying to say, you could be missing the point entirely.  Maybe the author didn't really know until she finished it.  Perhaps the goal became a mixture of several things, not one clear-cut landmark.  My poor meet-ee had been berating himself for 'not understanding poetry'.  Surely the point is, it depends which poem, and which mood the author was in when they wrote it, that will determine if there are indeed specific 'points' to be uncovered and 'understood' or not.  And if you end up berating yourself for 'not getting it' then maybe that particular piece of work just isn't for you.

I think perhaps I am simply too tired to say anything more definitive or, alas, interesting than that.  It's that perennial dilemma: is a boring blog post better than no post at all?  Probably not.  Just like getting bills and bank statements does nothing to fulfil the desire to get some 'post' in the letterbox addressed to you, so this blog post is a dismal disappointment.  Sorry, that's all I could manage on 5 hours' sleep.

Keys, doors and House

Watching the deterioration of my writing is a little disheartening.  I used to enjoy language and take great care over its use.  But now I am reduced to 'write something in half an hour before your brain shuts down in protest at this continual sleep-deprivation you keep inflicting on it.'  And all because I want, no need, to do something creative, to keep proving that you cannot make me give up on the notion that life for me at least, must contain some sort of higher purpose, some vocation.  Even if I never get paid a cent for it. 

I am deeply sorry, however, that I cannot be more like a 'normal person' (whatever they are) and accept relationships (boyfriend, children, good friends) as 'enough'.  This has a detrimental impact on almost anyone who comes into contact with me, because I'm always striving for something that I probably won't ever reach.  All the things preventing me from having a hope in hell of achieving something meaningful affect me more, indeed, depress me greatly.  And that's not fair on people who don't have as great demands or hopes.  (I honestly don't know how they do it.  I wish I had the key to that door.)

As for children, I think everyone knows my feelings on the matter by now, but if I hadn't made it clear enough, I caught myself saying, 'I'd rather die than have children' the other day.  I mean, really, that's how I see it.  Getting pregnant for me, would be like a date for execution.

I brought this up with the architect, again, because one of my meet-ees is pregnant. It terrifies me to think of this sweet, thin, tiny woman having her body taken over by a parasite that will stretch her out of all proportion and make her go through unimaginable pain just to have the 'privilege' of being responsible for another human being besides herself for the rest of her life.  Why does this not terrify other people?  All I can see is how small a frame she has and what pain she will have to go through while her body takes on this little alien.  It's absolutely horrific to even think about it. 

But, apparently, only the miserable Dr. House and I seem to see it that way.

Losing my resilience

That's twice in a row now.  Waking up in the wee small hours with tummy ache.  I'm floundering again under the strain of this unrelenting timetable which keeps changing on me weekly, keeps demanding I think entirely of others' needs when none of my own get a look-in.  I'm desperately trying to cling to anything creative that I can, but I feel like someone keeps ripping it out of my hands, just as I feel I've got a comfortable grip.

I fear I don't have the resilience this time.  I need to be able to at least sing my way out of it, but the blocked ears and headaches are returning and I'm battling that on top of sleep deprivation.  I'm almost on my knees now.  What is this?  Am I meant to surrender?  If so, who the hell to?  And what then?