A good friend and I had a long conversation last night on the telephone. A couple of different points were established that I think are blogworthy:
1) This was probably the biggest eye-opener for me- "normal" people (we must accept this term "normal" as the whole, majority, most people- to get this rationale) don't feel like they want to scream loudly and flail their arms wildly and in the middle of some public socially constructed arena, do something completely and undeniably inappropriate.
Really? Am I the only person to whom this wild gesture of toxic release appeals? Sometimes I feel like nothing I can do (not the usual vices of painting, poetry or even sex) will liberate me from myself like this imagined scenario I know would. Being a rational human being- which is being "appropriate" most of the time, understanding how to act in different situations, maturity, discernment, practicality- and the adult words just keep pouring out... (Does this means I'm officially adult that I can name so many big girl words? Please, let me know)... means NOT doing this. Besides, what is a gesture? It is so empty- a symbol for something else. A metaphor. A simile.
So, what you're saying- or what he was saying, rather- is that to feel like this is ABnormal: something must be wrong. I think it's a perfect example of one artist submerged in a suburban setting of solitude without inspiration to whet her palette, and without motivation to travel far and wide to find it. Self-defeating, I get that. How does one make art where there is none?
To make the mundane magical (?)
2) Those who struggle less are at an advantage. I quickly refuted his idealized notion that less struggle could possibly equal more reward. Those handed things in life are left helpless (like me being a daddy's girl who learned only recently the different parts to my car engine). We can only even really know things from our own perspective, and those spoiled by others without working hard, hardly wish away their fortune to understand the plight of the lower middle class.
And I guess it is as well my idealized notion to think that the way I went about things, the only way available to me (student loans, a few jobs and a lot of hard work), was the best way. I guess what I really mean by this is that I am exceedingly happy with the person that I am. I understand that I would not be the person I am, were it not for the hard work I had to put in. And if any other route would change me to be someone else, assumed to be less appreciative of their situation, I'd pass.
Everyone is blessed.
So, even the slight delusional thought that it would be good to feel just for a minute how life is on Easy Street, is a wasted thought.
I was blessed with a struggle. Blessed with a restlessness that makes me want to unlace the thick black tar that intertwines my blood as it surges throughout all my body's veins. Blessed with a desire to be something better. To make something better of everything. To want to understand the plight of those who have had to work for their bread and butter. To work as hard and harder than I ever did to ameliorate the struggles people must endure to make ends meet. Somehow I will find a way to do this through the legal system. Public interest law? All I'm saying, Universe, is those law schools who've yet to admit me would be better off to have me in their entering class for my restless passion in the public's interest.
Easy Street is a cookie cutter suburb to the diverse urban city that overflows with the arts and culture of a people who work and breathe their struggles; who eat their struggles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and are left hungry. Their insatiable hunger is as well in me- my restless, my passion, my commitment to community.
I wasn't nearly as eloquent when I had the conversation. And I went off on some bitter rant about Valentine's Day, which probably discredited everything I had to say thereafter. Figures.
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