July 10, 2013
My friend these forty-eight years and fifty to come is reserved but possibly this is because he is so exquisitely aware of and compassionate with his audience. If you can lift yourself to the place where he responds, appropriately, to the dynamics and currents of the moment, you will hear him, clearly and cleanly like a gift.
Is it not true that everything we do, all the sounds we utter, each move we make is designed to signal a thought – to communicate? Most are unaware of this and favour instead the heavy sludge of daily complaint to the fine turn of a thought, a phrase, a reference that might lift laboured conversation to the place that …fireflies inhabit.
Demons vs Memory; he/she who has more Grace, wins.
I recently worked all night long, alone with my 49-year-old demons, to make something beautiful. We had twelve hours before the deadline, starting at 7pm. It was inexpressibly difficult and clumsy; a fierce battle of wills waged in a field far away from the golden nugget I’d thought I was seeking. Their arsenal included everything I’d ever done wrong in my life, no matter how subtle or appropriately catalytic. The only weapon I had was a healthy form of ego-depricating humour, and humility, which turned the tide in the final battle, to my utter astonishment.
I woke the next morning feeling beaten and brutalized by Our Fight and went to a nice birthday breakfast. My Demons came with me, as they do. I realized, with the effects of my all-nighter still resonant that in that birthday full of the terribly unintentional distortions of Family the only thing I could do was … um … try to make a clumsy internal peace and um… move to another place less habitually toxic… keep my head down…
and try not to be pulled into, try to make make peace with the heavy collection of family demons who’ve all been firmly consigned to Our Too-small Basement. Like a tide, they Will Rise, if bidden by emotional moons.
clumsily, I left at the right moment, so overall I think I hope I won over my demons. This is good, because I can no longer remember the details of their rage and its origins so I’d lose if challenged in a Family Fight. Or if I were enraged enough, in an unguarded moment I’d set them loose with the power of a thousand thousand raptors to wreak death upon the Multitudes. Did I mention that I am by nature intolerant? Loosing my demons, therefore is a thing to Avoid with Great Intention.
I just sent the awkward result of that night’s recorded audition thousands of miles over the internet to people with Criteria, whose job it is to measure what I did.
Let the chips fall where they may, and thank you for writing what you write, my friend.