I resist the blog thing. As you can see. Nothing here for a couple of years. I’ve been busy doing things. None of which are particularly interesting. Same old stuff. A failed relationship. Drudgery for money.
Like many other people my age, without the pressure of a manager or publicist, it is hard to keep up with these media responsibilities. Above and beyond the fact that I really wonder who might even remotely be interested in it all. And yet. there is a newness in all this that I instinctively feel I should tend to. I may not embrace it, at least in any passionate sort of way. But perhaps it is worth a sort of glancing peck on the cheek. Or a lovely kiss. Or a quick butt grab.
(I do still love looking at men who look wonderful in blue jeans from behind.)
So much of what I want to say, I am not able to say, given my current work, and the possibility that someone might look me up on line. There are responsibilities attendant to what I do. To children. To an institution of which I am not all that fond, one that has recently, in Ohio, required workers to sign six page contracts stating that they are, in essence, repressed fascists. It hasn’t filtered down yet to our diocese. Granted our fearless leader is a little slow on the uptake given his girth, but it is bound to arrive sooner or later. And I do in fact need this job.
At what point does one go underground with what one really thinks? Open an anonymous site. Tweet pseudenonymous tweets. I used to be pretty outspoken about things, and in my own voice. And in my own body. Racing around Manhattan, sneaking into Studio 54 with gay guys (cute girls could always get in with two gay guys … who weren’t particularly interested in paying the then outrageous $20 gate, and I was poor, so that used to be a problem). Sliding down Park Avenue blocks on ice with a bottle of scotch in hand and screaming with a best friend. Sweden. France. Falling in love over and over and over and over again. Adventures. A mountain of journals. A vast landscape of beautiful men. Three astonishing children. Art. Books. The world. Much have I seen and known – cities of men and manners, climates, councils, governments. Although probably not in the way Tennyson thought Ulysses did. (I never liked Penelope. Circe is my model.)
Looking back, it hasn’t exactly been a remunerative way to go. I live paycheck to paycheck these days, and the checks aren’t all that big. I do love some of the things I do. The children with their open hearts full of wonder and awe. The dear parents who support me in my work. The people I find hurting that I can help sometimes.
But.
I need to do real work again. Ideas that rock boats. Music that informs life. So many passions toward which I feel a commitment, but from which I feel so removed.
Then there all the dreams. The literal night-time ones. I wake up in the morning feeling like I’ve been to the movies. Wild. But also the daytime ones, of which even at my age I can not quite let go.
There comes a point of necessary synthesis, an excruciating point at which one must pull things together into a final whole, or fail. Outlines and notes, no matter how brilliant, no matter if there are rooms full of them, they just don’t cut it any more. An articulated work must be wrestled to the ground. I wonder if I have the energy to do that anymore. Jacob and the angel. Do I have that energy? Do I have it in me anymore?
The energy to be beautiful. The energy to dance. The energy to teach music to the grandchildren of the people on the bus I ride in the morning. The energy to eat well and exercise and stretch and summon the patience to grow old. I used to have so much energy. Maybe one is given only so much of it in a life. And then you just run through it. Like a tank of gas.
For the most part, I just want to go to bed at night and read books. And, actually, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as the books are very good, and the bed is comfy. But that means an acceptance of an anonymity beyond which the world seems to have moved.
On continue, n’est-ce pas? Il faut cultiver nos jardins. Mine has some lovely herbs and flowers in it.
Dawn Aberg 