December 10 2023
Someday, I will truly understand where I belong, what I should and shouldn’t say in public and whose opinions and actions I should pay attention to. In the meantime, I just say what I like and hope I have good sense. I do care what the world thinks. Perhaps too much. I worry how I am perceived. I snoop on other’s affairs and compare their details to my own. Sadly, my Gladys Kravitz nature gets the better of me from time to time. Like now. Having been sick the last few days and unable to do my singing or concentrate on writing has me thinking the many negative thoughts again. I am convinced that I don’t measure up, I stick my head out the Facebook window and see others being beautiful, smart, young, rich, talented. Ha.
Why do I bother with singing and writing? Any improvement of skill is tortoise slow in coming and there isn’t all that much time left. My voice teacher was absolutely correct, I am too old. My English teacher was absolutely correct, I don’t understand most literature. I only know what appeals to me. I only know which books are really good – I haven’t learned the why. The really good books fly over my head and, in music, I often can’t tell which is the one chord, which the five. Learning that stuff takes time. If my urologist thinks it is more likely I die of old age than I develop as common a cancer as that of the prostate, then I guess there isn’t time to learn something complicated, like how to dig out meaning, how to put it in, how to sing, how to really play.
I will never be great. It is likely that I will never be even good. And, since I put off practicing and writing… I likely won’t ever be middling. Why bother to do it?
I can’t think of a reason, other than my own personal enjoyment, to continue with futile artistic pursuits. When the personal enjoyment is overwhelmed by the amount of effort I have to put forward (to fend off negative comments, negative people and the physical inconveniences) that will be time to toss in my tea towel. I sorta wish that I could magically just do what others are so much better able to but, alas. Sigh. There are lots of reasons why I cannot deliver the kind of music or literature I wish I could. Chief among them is that I never have put in enough practice time or sought out enough education. I know this truth to be self-evident. There are lots of reasons why I didn’t get an education or practice enough, lots of very good reasons. Things are not so simple as Dr. Phil suggests. Ask Tillie Olson, she told us in her book, ‘Silences’. She was a bit more bitter than I dare to be, but to each…(as they say). One big trouble with time and endeavour is that no matter who says otherwise, it IS often, actually, too late. The same folks who say, “it is never too late,” also say, “you can do anything you put your mind to!”. Nah, those statements are not really true. That is the way it goes, sometimes you miss the train. No tears, I did what I did and it was the best I could at the time. When I am thinking right (as a friend used to say) I do what I can and I don’t worry how it appears to others.
I suppose I should pick up the book and finish it as best I am able, leaving the hopeless swirl of rewriting and critiquing for nobody to do, after I am gone. I need not be embarrassed. No legitimate publisher has to see the book and only a few people have to tell me it’s good when I know it isn’t. Ha. For me, it is fun to just type and edit a bit, without regard for which clause is which, what an infinitive is (for the splitting of). In truth, as it regards writing, I am so totally free to do as I like that it stupefies me. I can look at a critic (one of the many) with a blank stare. You know the one, the one that says, “nyah, nyah.”
My cold is getting better. It is the first head cold I have had in a few years. I did get Covid a couple suns ago but I have been sort of isolated beyond that and enjoying good physical health. (Umm, as good as this 73 year old can enjoy.) I ventured outside today for the first time in four days. I hope I can sleep tonight, that would be lovely. The fourteen hour Sunday into Monday sleep of a week ago was the last real sleep I had.
Robert On The Air 