I’ve disconnected a little… From the world…
This is a self preservation mode I enter occasionally.
The fact that this has coincided with Christmas makes it simultaneously sharper, because of the contrast and unfairness, and yet easier to hide, pretending I’m part of the preparations.
I have found over the years that I am less able to be in the place where I can be angry, active and effective. I am not as emotionally strong as I once was. So I retreat. Images in the media render me frozen. Incapable. I assuage guilt by donating to a friend who is active, practical and useful at the sharp end.
So yet again my world becomes smaller. I gather my family around me if I can. I make my home warm and comfortable, I feed anyone who steps over the threshold. I offer small kindnesses within the small view of the world I allow myself.
As a part of this withdrawal, I look to my work, as I’m sure other artists do.
I have found that as my thinking gets deeper, and the work becomes more abstracted, it becomes more real to me, and closer to the thing. You know, The Thing. THE THING.
I’ve also found that lyrics I have written change meanings with passing months. I wrote a lyric about a small, personal and private occurrence… Upon revisiting, I discover it is also, at the very same time, about something so very much bigger. And that’s a scary thing… I start to wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me, and it was always about this other thing?
My stitching becomes relentless… Obsessive again.
And I wrote a Christmas song… It’s not really about Christmas, but that’s the motif used to express those feelings of uselessness I write about. There might be jingle bells in it. But they’ll be ironic.
