…of ideas on my part, but rather, a lack of space and emotional energy for all of the things I’d like to make real. I think he is right. I will make the necessary space.” I feel like my sadness has stolen away my creativity and all of the things I used to enjoy. I think you are right and brave to make space. Thank you so much for waking up something in me, I feel a spark for the first time in a long, long while.”
Dear, dear new friend—
You make me believe in the strange power of the internet. Sadness is a creeping sickness. It lives underneath everything, like dust swept under a carpet. It makes things lumpy and wrong. We cough and sneeze and don’t know why. Sadness has been proven to make people physically ill. Depression causes physical as well as emotional struggle. It is the worst sap of creative energy. I come up against this constantly, especially when wanting to make things.
I think I may’ve found an antidote for the ones like us. Sadness won’t leave, even if you want it to. So live in it. Feel the worst depths. Then speak them. The biggest hurt can become the connective tissue for healing when spoken. Words, images, music, whatever you make, is a scar of survival. It can seem impossible to produce anything when sadness overwhelms you, but that is why finding what makes you want to move forward again is so important. Take in as many talismans of strength and beauty as you can. You are what you eat.
Cheers :)
This just makes me think of how we need to start brainstorming a new tour logo.
hello?
There is a slim chance I may end up working as a counter girl in a tattoo parlor. Dream life = shop girl by day, artist 24/7. Mohawk whenever I feel like it. I will be happy with anything as long as I can pay my bills, but seriously, this job was made for me.
Top Ten Tips To Stop Rape. Genius.
Metric - “Stadium Love”
Soundtrack to purging my room of all (or at least most) accumulated crap. I have bank statement on my floor from a bank I don’t even use anymore…
CAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSAAANNNNNDDDDDDRRRRAAAAA
Abe stole our glasses!!
I decided it was time to get real. Ever since I moved to Providence, writing (and all of my art) has been slow going. I don’t feel settled here. For whatever reason, I’m always running myself ragged, trying to make other people happy. I spend more time in Boston than I do in my own bed. No more. I made myself a list of ruthless goals for personal happiness in 2012 while working at the cafe the other night. I know I can be happy at whatever pay grade, living anywhere, as long as I have the time and energy to make art. Saying that out loud changed everything. What do I care if I work in a cafe for the rest of my twenties? If it gives me the time to write novels and make paintings and win a first book award for my poems, so be it. There are sacrifices to be made for art. As long as I can pay my bills.
All that being said, I’ve started in on a few serious projects. The first is a chapbook I’m going to send out in the next month or so called “The Coffin Letters”. The bulk of it is poems written in the space between my father’s heart attack in 2010 and his death last year. A lot of them are particularly brutal, and I’m not sure how such a downer of a book will be received, but I know they all belong in one place and I am dedicated to getting them published in that format. (You can read the first of them here and here.)
The second project is a revival of sorts. I’m return to my novel in earnest. Fiction takes such a massive amount of time and energy, but I know I can soldier through and use this year to finally finish a book already three years old.
Come at me 2012!
Time Travel by Davis Ayer
