the rain fell so steadily today, and I raced back and forth from my office to the parking meter standing watch over my car all damn day, collecting raindrops all along the run.
melancholy is my mood, my magic, and my melody.
she is the root of all my art and the foundation of most of my understanding. my compassion, too, is all too well-connected to the quiet, dark place in my soul.
(flap-flap-flap-flap-flap)
all days are pretty much the same. sure, there are some days within whom a few moments cause us to feel as though the entire day was vividly remembered, when in actuality we only really recall about ten minutes here and there of the whole day. but most days drone on and on, and luckily (perhaps it’s a evolutionary gift, a lucky leap in the process), luckily we tend to forget the lot of it. cities drone on like the days do…and likewise luckily we tend to edit the bulk of the city from our memories. if we were to remember ever single spent condom on the sidewalk, every discarded item of paraphernalia used for this or that controlled substance, every outpouring of pain and putrefaction and filth, we would go mad. completely. stark raving.
(flap-flap-flap-flap-flap)
the creation of art is a painful process, and the purgation of emotion (I know, how very aristotelian of me, eh?) weighs upon the artist, draining the creator; the child (the creation) drawing its strength from the resources of the creator, the artist trading his life for that of his art. and the pain….its more than most can bear.
(flap-flap-flap-flap-flap)
I will not forget today. today the quiet dark place in my soul took on a new form.
a pigeon lay in my path today on the way to my mid-day repast. its wing was rent and broken. the bedraggled bird, mottled and filthy, could not fly, and denied his majesty he could find no direction at all. it hopped, up and down in a maddening circle, blocking off the sidewalk: flap-flap-flap-flap-flap. and the three of us (myself and my coworkers) stopped to watch its deleterious pattern. a little, dirty, dying, shattered pigeon. just a bird. and while my thoughts flew in its place, my soul sank into the melancholy it knows all too well.