Hurricane Hits Holiday Hopes
Okay… so Gustav wasn’t a hurricane when it hit us, but I’d lose that wonderful alliteration if I had to call it a tropical storm. Artistic license? In any case, we didn’t go on our short holiday trip as planned, because of Gustav. So all my plans to write and blog didn’t happen. I think I was depending on some sort of a break to get some momentum for paper playing. At this point, I think I’m going to have to accept and adjust to the reality that I’m going to have to do this project while doing everything else. I can’t really “stop” anything in my life to facilitate this.
A part of the challenge is that I like uninterrupted hours in order to really focus my attention on a task and they’re really hard to get right now. So I’m going to have to find a way to carve out one hour at a time and make the most of it.
A River Ran Through It
By “it” I’m referring to our house. We live in a section of a house that has been divided up to make several “apartments”, but I do mean a river ran through the house. Gustav was spectacular. There’s a way, when you live in a hurricane zone, that the thought of facing a storm while it’s still classed as a tropical storm brings you a weird comfort. You think of it as a small, weak thing, compared to the wrath of the hurricanes you’ve lived through. But Gustav was a slow killer. I’ve never seen so much rain. I didn’t understand how water grows and changes and how suddenly it can make its move.
I saw the water just after it started coming in under our front door. By the time I could call Sam it was halfway across the room. You can try to fight water but it will win in the end. You find you keep making concessions. You give up the living room as lost and try to refortify in the bedroom. You keep retreating as it keeps advancing and you find yourself fighting for the lives of the few dry square feet of floor left. Our shower was the dryness floor space in our apartment when Gustav was done. I have however managed to salvage some good metaphors which I might be able to pour into my writing (pun unintended at first but milked on second thought). I understand some things about water that I didn’t before. I have a healthy respect for it now. To be honest, before Gustav water as a metaphor had become for me… well… a bit dry.
Where From Here?
I’ve been a bit distressed about the lack of momentum for paper playing. I’m dealing with that by continuing to trust God that I wasn’t wrong about trying to do this and trying to do this now. So I’m managing. I’ve had what I consider to be some good and important ideas about the project. I’ll blog on those soon. I’ve also jotted down what I hope will become some good lyrics. There are some ideas that are less welcome than others. They don’t paint the pictures that I want to paint. They don’t look to me like I want to be seen. But they’re true. I think a part of my becoming a good artist is a growing willingness to live with truth and not hide it. So we’ll see where that goes.
This week I’ll steal some time from myself to have some important conversations about the project and related things. I’ll also start blogging about my philosophy as an artist – as far as its developed up to now. And this week I will write.
