Is anybody out there? Does anyone read this? Is the writer of this blog casting words into an oblivious void? Here is a poem about loneliness and isolation, courtesy of yours truly:
Hardly movement much at all
Standing water in the sink
Imagined voices down the hall
Wasting energy to blink
A ponder after my old friends
Forehead lighted in a nook
Evermore our story ends
In every place I look
After this expression of creativity and personal feeling, it seems appropriate to do away with the formality, sustained through every blog post until this point, of avoiding first person pronouns; you and I are friendly enough now, I believe, to cast off such pretenses.
So what then is the business of this blog post? Is it only to bemoan the solitude of authorship, and shoehorn in a few of my verses? Yes, but not that only. You see, for practically the whole of my life, I was referred to as a “creative type”, and it served me well. It served me in that there were always glamorous stereotypes after which I could model myself; and I had a heading and direction as I pursued a career through college and beyond; but most importantly, it provided me with an emotional outlet.
I was so labeled because of my natural inclination to produce creative material; however, my parents, teachers and friends calling me “creative” reinforced this identity and instilled a desire to self-actualize it. This, in combination with my given propensities, resulted in a habit of creative production during the loneliest periods of my youth; I say, it saved me many times over.
But what of all those “uncreative” types? Where could they turn in their lonely moments? During lunch, when I was alone, waxing poetic on the bench in the garden behind the high school library; where were they? Could a game of kickball reveal one’s soul to oneself?
If one is a very great lover of kickball, perhaps. But if over three decades of living has taught me anything, it is this: no person is “uncreative”. If there is a God, there is a Soul; and if there is a Soul, Art is our map to it. And there is art in all of us.
Write, use paints, sing, make music. Show everyone or show no one. Art is a most wonderful way to know the world inside of yourself.
If your soul is full, you are always in good company; even when you’re alone.
