walls and bridges

The life of a creative person - who is not particularly gifted, nor commercially viable, nor critically acclaimed, is still, nonetheless a valid one - and one fraught with struggle and doubt.

The first struggle being: giving yourself permission to call yourself an Artist of some kind in the first place. It's a high falutin word for something that cannot really be 'helped'. It just is. Some people can turn emotions into art, poetry, books or songs. 
Creatives might just be prodigiously gifted, without having to emerge from the mire of pain in order to do so...but more often than not, many people stagger unsteadily down the path to creativity because of troubled childhoods and traumatic events in their formative years.

The creativity is the tangible evidence of an inner demon being released.  I think the one thing we - under-achieving creatives - all have in common is a feeling of never really fitting in. 

I've been several kinds of creative. And I've crossed paths with interesting, eccentric, troubled, arrogant, heartbreakingly kind, scattered, and stunningly proilific incarnations of creativity - in whose company I felt either less or more worthy of calling myself a creative. You never can tell who those people will be. In my career, I've walked up many beckoning hallways only to have the door shut in my face. I've constantly shapeshifted. It all seems to have been such - folly at times. 

And at other times, it all made perfect sense. And, at the times when it made perfect sense, I lost my courage to pursue it further. I hid in my various disfunctional distractions. 

Well, lockdowns made that a lot harder. I had no distractions, pleasant, painful or otherwise. I only had unfinished business. Unanswered questions and the abiding URGE TO CREATE. 

And that's what i have been doing. Putting time and effort into creating. And learning ways to be more creative. And it's taking more and more time. I use distractions DELIBERATELY now, to give myself permission to take time out from the constant brainstorming in my head. I not only have a lot to say, but I have to package it myself, promote it myself. Learn new technical skills. It's a busy life.

A fulltime job. On no pay.

And yet, to be paid, seemed unthinkable. But to continue at this pace and NOT be paid, is also somewhat daft. It is time to SUCK IT AND SEE

The title of this little essay speaks to the 1974 album of the same name by John Lennon. The album he made without Yoko by his side. Truly alone. Lost. Drifting. Reconcilling. Processing. Well, life feels like that at times. Walls to climb, bridges to cross. The destination...'where?'

Well I find myself here. Now. And living very much in the Here and Now. And cooking up projects plural (as I said I would when I first launched The Eloquent in the Room). I am working on the podcast, and content creation and an EP. And...I want to return to writing more. And I want to write more songs. And I want to have conversations that matter. 

Due to a recent upsurge in my following on instagram, due to a REPOST that gained about 90,000 views - it seems like the right time to down tools for a bit and pass the hat around. Which I have done. I have opened an account with PATREON. 

This is my patreon Video. Let me know if you like it. Below is my patreon button! You are under no obligation to join up, but you are very welcome to. You are also welcome to share it around. 

It suddenly occured to me, that all the stumbling around I have done in my life and all the 'false starts' I have had in my career led me to this place. Where it's suddenly obvious to me that I am not starting this project LATE. I have started it at the right time.

The best way to show people that it's never too late to do things, is to be this person, this stupidly older woman - refusing to be invalidated by age - because fuck that, that's why.

It turns out that this is what my calling was this whole time. I've said it all along.

NO ONE EVER SEES ME COMING.

Least of all, me.

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