Etrange Histoire

I had come all the way here from the sea, yet met the wave again between your arms where cliff and citadel – all verily dissolved within a sky of beacon forms –

Sea gardens lifted rainbow-wise through eyes I found.

Yes, tall, inseparably our days pass sunward. We have walked the kindled skies inexorable and girded with your praise,

By the dove filled, and bees of Paradise.
-Hart Crane

Years ago, when I was young and shy and very beautiful, I decided that art and poetry were little coincidences that happened in my life. They were not practical like math and physics, so I let them flutter around me and out of me and into me for years, never truly inviting them to influence me the way I should have. I realize now that this was a mistake.

I love Hart Crane. His poetry makes me feel very tense inside, as if I’ve lost something. When my anxiety finally peaks I am forced to breathe deeply, inhaling each word from the page, and on the exhale I pick up my pen and release the fury that has crept into my hand. Sometimes I write so wildly that my hand cramps and my fingers disappear, and I wonder how Jack Kerouac could possibly have scrawled the entirety of “On the Road” on that endless scroll. But then I realize that America did to him what Hart Crane and music and certain people do to me.

Due to the sheer coincidence of my creativity, I made an attempt to live in a sterile world and keep creativity tucked in my pocket. Since my childhood it has grown slightly out of control, to the point where it leaks a lot and sometimes drips on my paperwork and all the cold numbers that I use to keep me stable. I will release it some day and allow it to unfold into every part of my life, but it is interesting to walk through the dichotomy of the creative and practical forces both inside and outside of me. However, the fact that I can predict the eventual victor makes it slightly less fun.

It is not surprising that I lived through parts of my life as if in a dream. When I think about my childhood I cannot find a thorough reality – instead I see a puzzle of imagery and thoughts that may or may not have happened in the particular temporal order which I have decided to place them. I had huge brown eyes and I was afraid to let people look at them. People would look and look and never stop looking. Sometimes they would get lost in my eyes and then I would have to find them. This frightened me because I did not want anyone to see the things that were inside my mind. My eyes are very transparent and revealing.

I was shy and withdrawn and I daydreamed a lot. I did not like talking – instead I preferred to observe. And then I would have these dreams mixed with reality that were beautiful and vivid. I was afraid to let them escape me because I did not want my extremely practical parents to think I was crazy. I loved them both terribly and I did not want to be sent away. So instead of painting my dreams or writing them I kept them stored in a red velvet covered box.

When I opened the box years ago it exploded in my face and sent tears streaming along my skin into my mouth. The saltiness took me back to the sea when we used to sit on the beach in Rehoboth and wonder how many jellyfish we could dodge before we hit the sandbar. We would walk all around our little neighborhood, but every year we went back it was different because over time I would put buildings and paths and trees where they did not belong. I liked to see Rehoboth for the first time every year.

Now I let everything flow freely out of me. It is wonderful to know that I can say beautiful and terrible things, and still there will be someone there to love me. I like to be loved even when I am horrid. I am so rarely horrid these days. I was horrid when I was hoarding words and pretending to be a physicist. I think that I will probably never be horrid again, as long as I have Hart Crane and a pen and people who like to read my words. And music of course. I also love color and when I have color I tend to be less horrid as well. My closet and my shoes and my books and my paintings are full of color so there is little possibility of me becoming horrid due to lack of color. I laugh at least a hundred times a day. It’s pretty colorful, and laughter is the antithesis of horridness. I am laughing right now, and the chances of me being horrid today are slim to none.