I think after Mexico I may have blogged myself out, hence my silence over the past week. I'm still not feeling much in the way of inspiration for writing, but there are a few things I want to mention in spite of that general sentiment.
I've had an emotional week, not sure why. I can't seem to get through a movie, many songs or even a cheesy Folger's commerical without getting weepy (no, Freeburg - I did not really weep at the coffee add where Dad lets daughter know he's already covertly given "lucky-man Todd" the engagement go-ahead).
I woke up to an NPR interview of Michael J. Fox discussing his new book on Saturday morning. Something about it just hit me and brought me to a few tears. My grandfather suffered from Parkinson's to start, so when I hear Michael's voice I imagine someone I knew having those same struggles. I was amazed by the wisdom that he has for someone of such a young age. It seems that managing an illness and making it through day-by-day must impart a type of wisdom only those who have been there can comprehend.
He was talking about failure and he said that everyone experiences the hurt and confusion brought about by it. He said, "we all have holes, but the key is to not let them become voids". This hit me particularly as both a reader of Kerouac and as someone who has experienced lengthy periods of clinical depression. Kerouac spoke frequently of "the void" in this writing. It seemed for him that it was both a state of mind and also some kind of abstract post-zen-buddhist image of all the world's nothingness leftover in a dark pit that sucked him in. For Kerouac, I believe "the void" was both appealing and destructive. I know from my own experience that when this hurt becomes a void, it can be appealing and is most certainly destructive to the positive parts of myself that I spend time carefully building up.
Wisely describing the other end of the spectrum, Michael also said, that whenever we attempt to fill these holes up with ego, material things, addiction, whatever, we will always be unsatisfied. He said we should worry less about filling those holes, but rather let life fill them up for us. That it's through experiencing failure and living life organically that we become who we are supposed to be.
Somehow I'm writing all this and I can't help but think it's Michael J. Fox's words all interpreted-up by my current state of being; endless seeking. But nonetheless, there was something in his metaphor that touched me deeply. I think it highlighted the delicate balancing act we play between being completely sucked in by tough emotions or feeding them until they become little monsters in ourselves we no longer recognize. Living organically in between and letting life fill up the holes, is wise but not easy advice. We've all got our little wounded sticking points.
Some additoinal emotional overload over the past week relates to the movie Crazy Heart, which Ryan and I went to see at the Value Cinema last night. Even if there is a twinkle of redemption at the end for the down and out alcoholic loser of a country-star played by Jeff Bridges, the theme song, The Weary Kind, will rip your heart out. The song is beautiful and thick with regret, the movie is full of Southwestern landscapes that made my heart ache a bit for Arizona and Jeff Bridge's style reminded me of my grandfather who died nearly a year ago. This ain't no place for the weary kind/this ain't no place to lose your mind/ this ain't no place to fall behind/pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try...
Goodness, somebody should pump the Lady Gaga, feed me several ring pops and give me a whole stack of US Weeklies to read before I think too much.
Later on, vegan muffaletta and updates on vegan-life week one.
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