Uncovering the Muse

I held onto it. Somehow.

I gleaned it many years ago,
from elderly mentors,
stories, observations.

Dear Lord, I never stopped observing!

I remember being in college, fall of 1978, standing in line at registration, Buff State, with no desire whatsoever to pick a major. I remained "undeclared" so long I was given threatening notices from the college, eventually I was placed on "probation"! My attention was always drawn elsewhere, always. I let myself be so lost I didn't even realize I had found what I was looking for, transferring to S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo and taking art and writing courses. I registered for them intuitively, my hand drawn to the squares on the registration form next to "creative writing 201", "concepts in drawing", etcetera. The thing is, I was so disillusioned by that point, I was just going through the motions, even as I felt at home in each of those classes. Jaded was I by then.

I remained so for decades.Yet, I never stopped observing. I never stopped considering. I never stopped watching the theater unfold before me, stubbornly, immaturely even pretending not to be part of it, as if an alien from another world documenting...I watched, I listened. I let life pass yet didn't, acting like a sponge soaking up so much as to become too saturated to move. Yet deep inside a passion burned.

I held onto it somehow.

It cost me literal millions, true dollars,
and yet its priceless, of course.

I dig now, buried so deep in the clutter of forty years. I hear its faint calling underneath the rubble; desperate pleas to me,

"keep digging, let me out!"

I'm not there yet, but I'm getting close. I work jobs that do not require a significant part of my being, my soul, my conscious self, and I do so on purpose, with purpose...that is becoming evident, finally. There is so much noise that threatens to heap more rubble onto the buried soul as I continue to dig and there are times the frustration mounts in a fury.

Yet, there are times like right now, where the shovel in my hand works its magic, free of encumbrance on a Saturday morning, I dig. No work, not even the menial tasks of a job that pays way too much given its pedestrian duties. But I grab that loot like a thief in the night and I sit here now, with bills paid and some left over, shovel in hand digging, rescuing that mortal soul I buried in a cynical life brought upon by the confusion of youth.

I go back to a performance over and over again. Neil Young signing "Old Man" shortly after he composed it, live, guitar only, 1971 preciously preserved in so many places thank God. And so, as if to goad me even more as I dig, my dear friend Allison shares the video and once again I fall into it as deep as a dream and the irony abounds. A passionate artist, so young, so fortunate to have been born at a time when the world exploded in discovery of life...and he followed his passion and found his poetry, his life. And he finds people who find his words and music and they share with each other his amazing gift, and they bestow upon him treasure, and he buys a large ranch and somehow holds onto his passion within. He looks ahead, sees his life, and then journeys back and tells the story as he does.

And here we are, decades later, reliving the story, retelling the journey and old now, all of us relate.

So, I sat here, free from my tasks, unchained from the oar, sitting in the bottom of a boat I freely entered many years ago, and my fingers deftly tap on a keyboard. I heard the whisper from deep underneath...my muse, buried so long ago echoes through the debris as I pause in my digging, I write down what I think I hear. She calls faintly, desperately. She is eased in her torment as I whisper back, knowing my words soothe her because they are at once closer today than they were a week ago....a month ago...ten years ago.

My words are not there yet, they lack her magic in full, but they begin to find some of it.

I looked at an email from CosmoFunnel and it is from their staff. Apparently they've been trying to get a hold of me because I won $50.00 in a poetry contest last month. I knew I won but I didn't know money was involved. And so, though I knew I've had this passion, a passion I buried under a cynical life for so long, I am discovering she still lives.

I finished watching young Mr. Young and wrote this tribute to him and my muse, buried so deep yet becoming uncovered one shovel full at a time.

A message to my daughter, Renee who shares the gift and the curse of her father. One can have their artistry and their success. Carry on!

One need not give up one for the other.