Dear Vincent,

June 12, 2008 at 5:08 pm (Letter)

If you had held on just a little longer, would you have enjoyed the fame and public recognition of your artistic genius? Today, even little school children can instantly recognize a Van Gogh painting!

To think that you were only 7 years older than I am today when you walked out into that wheatfield (perhaps a field that you had depicted many a time in your paintings) and shot yourself in the chest … oh, but that wasn’t the end. No, you dragged yourself home and died two whole f—ing days later! What the f—? I can’t even imagine those final hours or even the moments leading up to that self-directed barrel of destruction and despair.

I am close to tears thinking of each time you failed at a new career. What hopes and expectations you must have held … and then reluctantly relinquished into the ether of disappointment and disillusion. I can relate. I’ve done a fair amount of job hopping myself. And I understand the frustration of peddling other people’s art, but lacking the confidence to champion your own. But you took the plunge. With limited resources and no formal training, you just did it. And how you did it! To think that something two-dimensional could emit such energy, emotion, and extreme … honesty.

Yeah, it always comes back to that, doesn’t it? It’s honesty that sucks me in every time. And the only way you knew how to express what you felt was in your paintings and drawings and tons of letters. So I’m writing you a letter, a letter conveying my honest, whole-hearted, absolute respect for your work and your struggle on the verge of sanity and creative compulsion. I want to thank you for not giving up on your art, even though you gave up on yourself in the end. Your work and your life inspire me to be more honest and more daring in my own life. You may have often been lonely and isolated from others while you were alive, but you have touched my heart deeply, and I sincerely hope to keep your passion alive in my own art.

Love,

me

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Dear Career Gods,

June 9, 2008 at 8:00 pm (Letter)

At what point in my life am I supposed to know what my calling is? I’ve figured out a lot of things I don’t like to do and things I do like to do, but it’s so hard to find a way to get to do most of the things I like, while avoiding the things I don’t like, in one job … or even one lifetime. Time always seems to be ticking along, pointing out what’s wrong with the choices I’ve made and the dreams I’ve traded for a false sense of security. I’m on the brink of thirty and I think I’m prime for a butt-kickin’ into gear, cause my soul’s tickin’ off the opportunities wasted and the victories untasted.

I love the idea of choice, but I don’t like deciding. I’m just biding my time, penning my rhymes, crafting a crime of chronic career conundrums. And the Corporate King, he flings scraps my way, taunting me with a 401K and modest copay. I may be in his good graces today, but who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Oh Career Gods, I know it’s a necessary process and believe me, I’m milking it for every ounce of personal growth possible. And I’m utterly thankfully I still have a job … for now. But how do I proceed from here where the path seems mostly unclear?

Sincerely,

me

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Not Normal

June 8, 2008 at 3:41 pm (Novel)

I see things that aren’t normal. I don’t see dead people or anything like that. No, it’s more like I can see people’s emotions or something. I guess you could say it’s their auras or energies, if you want to get all psychic about it, but it’s not quite that, I don’t think. Sometimes I can see colors or even patterns that seem to float around a person. I like to think of it as a person’s true image, or TI for short.

It all started when I was a little kid and I would say things like, “Mommy, look at the green man!” or “Why is that woman all polka dotty?” And my mom would correct me, pointing out that the man’s shirt was white or that the woman was wearing stripes, not realizing that I wasn’t talking about their clothes. When I started drawing what I saw, my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Y, told my parents that I had a “very active imagination.” It didn’t take me long to figure out that other people didn’t see what I saw, so I kind of stopped talking about it. Of course I still try to draw any TIs that I think are really cool in my beat-up sketchbook that I keep with me at all times. My dream is to create my own manga series, maybe with a protagonist who can see TIs, like me!

Actually, the vast majority of people look kind of out of focus to me, like when I’m not wearing my glasses in the morning and everything is sort of fuzzy and I stub my toes a lot. Except there are a bunch of people who still seem blurry to me, even with my glasses on, and I know I don’t need new glasses because I just went to the eye doctor a couple months ago. I can see objects and stuff just fine. It’s only people that sometimes look funny to me. Most adults I see seem out of focus and just dull somehow. Of course there’s Mrs. B, my art teacher and yearbook adviser, whose TI is usually as vibrant as her frizzy mass of orange curls and bright, flowing dresses.

So for the most part, people are either blurry, just normal-looking (or what I assume is normal, because I don’t really know what other people see), or they give off different colors and/or patterns. My theory is that people’s TIs are most visible to me when they’re feeling some extreme emotion, but I can’t really be sure because it’s not like it’s a documented science or anything and I’ve never met anyone like me before.

Anyhow, I’d pretty much accepted that this was just something I had to deal with, and as long as I kept it to myself and pretended to be normal, I’d be just fine.

And then, I saw him.

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Dear Undeniables

June 8, 2008 at 10:16 am (Letter)

It was a bit odd to meet so many of you in the flesh. Most of the time, even my writing doesn’t seem real to me, but somehow, being a part of this workshop, seeing my fellow undeniables perform, struggling to keep up my end of the regular writing commitment … I’m almost able to claim/admit that I’m a writer. I love being inspired by all of you, hearing your stories, relating to your experiences, and most of all, feeling as though I’m not alone in my compulsion to write and rant and relate and record everything.

Yes, I write and draw and paint and craft, but I’ve never really considered myself to be a Writer or an Artist. Those terms are reserved for the real, talented, published, recognized, accomplished few. I am just a hobbyist, an amateur, a poser … But being a part of The Undeniables allowed me to stop and think, “Who gives a crap whether the stuff I create is any good?” The fact that I let myself be creative, can share it with you, and have access to all this incredible writing by all of you is what really matters.

So I really wanted to thank Edren and Erik for starting this up. Without you, I don’t know when or if I’d have started writing again. And I want to thank each and every one of the members for sharing your novels, poetry, and/or letters. I haven’t had a chance to read everything or link all of you to my blogroll yet, because I just can’t keep up with our growing numbers and your prolific writing, but all of you rock! I am so excited about what we’re doing and how it’s affecting my priorities and sanity.

THANK YOU! CAM ON! MERCI! DOMO ARIGATO! GRACIAS! THANK YOU TO THE INFINITE POWER!

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