Between Projects

Sometimes I get sad and I don’t know why. This happens to everyone, of course, and can be caused by anything from hormones to weather. The idea that sadness is a problem – that you are supposed to be happy every minute of the day and if you aren’t there is something wrong with you – is a particularly American mania, and a destructive one at that. I try to ignore it.

Still, when sadness persists, and no cause from my life or psyche rise to the surface, I start to wonder.

The first clue was music. I’ve been voracious for music lately. This weekend found me on the floor surrounded by gigantic sleeves of largely forgotten CDs. I was going through old music and loading it on to the computer so I could listen to it again. I listen to music on the train, while I’m working, even lying in bed in the dark. When the right song comes on I feel an almost physical relief (“Thank God!”) as the music washes over me.

The second clue was the homeless guy. I was on a Bolt Bus to Philadelphia when I saw him. He was laughing and rolling on the ground. He talked in a constant happy stream to himself or some imaginary partner. Why he stuck out to me from all the other homeless people I see I couldn’t say. Maybe the real sense of joy radiating off him made the pathos more acute. Was he mentally ill? Addicted? Probably both. In the moment, however, explanations didn’t matter. All I could think was, “Somebody’s brother. Somebody’s son. Somebody’s great love.” I almost started weeping right there on the bus.

I’ve never been able to describe why I write. The real answer, the only answer that feels honest, is that I am compelled to. I need a place to put all these feelings and thoughts I have, a place to reckon with them. Writing creates that place. I am forced to be honest, even unsparing in that place, but it still remains safe. I always want to go back there.

When a long, consuming writing project ends, that safe space disappears for a while. More terrifying still, I have to take the thing I wrote in that warm safe place and send it out to be judged by the world. It is a prospect that fills me with dread. I feel exposed, a little raw.

That’s why I need music.That’s why I cry at the homeless. The world is just a little too much for me to take when I am between projects.

The next project will come along soon. It always does. I anxiously await its arrival. Until then I will listen to music and cry at the homeless, until the whole process begins again.

Comments

[Rolando Teco]

1.

So beautifully said, Johnny. Thanks for reminding me of what this is all about. :)

[Erma Duricko]

2.

Right at this very moment, somehow you wrote my heart.

[David Licata]

3.

"When a long, consuming writing project ends, that safe space disappears for a while. More terrifying still, I have to take the thing I wrote in that warm safe place and send it out to be judged by the world. It is a prospect that fills me with dread. I feel exposed, a little raw."

Good god, is that ever the truth. There some kind of grief thing that happens with me. Or maybe it's akin to sending your child off to college (not that I'd know). There's a what-do-I do-now-that-you're-gone feeling.