May 22, 2014

May 22, 2014

Although it's warm and sunny outside, my heart is dark and gloomy.  I wake up in the middle of the night, and I’m sure it was from a dream, but for the life of me, I can never remember what that dream was or about.  All I know is that I wake up with a heavy heart and a gloom that penetrate my thoughts into a thousand pieces.  I wander around the house in the darkness, to somehow shake off the great loss I’m feeling at this moment.  I put a recording of “Tristian und Isolde” and explore my inner-thoughts as I watch the dawn rise, into what is truly a beautiful day, yet, the brightness and cheeriness of the birds singing outside, depresses me dearly.  I put the volume up louder hoping to be able to drown out the chirps of the bird that is on the telephone wire in front of my house.

Throughout my life, I have tried to keep my disappointment at bay, fearing to embrace failure that’s my life.  By a certain age, I wanted to be a successful writer, and still, even at my late age, it hasn’t happened …yet.   The dread I have when I go to a bookstore and see the works of authors proudly displayed in the bookshelves and display tables, seemed to mock my failure as a published writer.  Yet, by the afternoon, I am at the store, haunted by my lack of success.  I go back home to remember that I do have specific duties to do.  I do have a pet. It’s a lobster.  My lobster is almost 60 years old, in fact, the same age as yours truly.  The odd thing about the creature is the fact that they do not weaken as they get older.  I, on the other hand, have noticed aging affecting me physically as well as mentally.

I named my lobster “Thibault, after a character in TinTin.  After feeding him, I put a leash around him, and we go for a walk through my neighborhood in Silverlake.   People would stare, or even be angry with me, especially those who are walking their dogs.  A creature by the way, that I find disgraceful.   I can’t stand the tone of a dog’s bark, and a lobster is quiet, well behaved, and is not forcing a personality down your throat.   The fact a pet lobster doesn’t seek out your love, also offers me a sense of peace and comfort.   As I get back home, my grief and misery seem to be knocking on the door, and I just want to escape into…. Another world.  Regardless of the fact that not my favorite painter, I often admire the paintings by Mary Cassatt, mostly due to the images of mother and daughter sharing an intimate moment or two.  I have a book of her paintings, that focuses on this one subject, and when you turn a page after another, one is overwhelmed of a world that is almost obtainable, but alas, it is like looking at a month of Sundays, and somehow they eliminate the other six days.  To quote a famous Manchester poet, “Everyday is like Sunday/everyday is silent and grey.”

Tears are streaming from my eyes by reading this line, and I go to my piano, which I accustomed to spend a great deal of my childhood on this instrument, with the hopes of having a career in the performance world.  But words win in the end, and it is now  the medium that will either bring me liberation from pain, or bury me in a coffin of someone else’s choice.