I've talked with many friends my age about how we're anxious for the future. Graduations, grad schools, first real jobs, first real gains as well as losses. The question that makes us want to crawl into our turtle shells is, "What are your plans for ____?"
The kicker is that what gnaws at us isn't our lack of options. It's an abundance of them.
It has been a weeklong Downton Abbey marathon at our house, and what I can't get over is the way peoples' lives were controlled during that period of time--for women, for nobles, for the working-class. A person had their role, and stuck to it. Deviation was scandalous.
But my problem isn't that I'm bound by strict conventions. It's that the opportunities are endless if I choose to chase them. Problems of the privileged, I guess.
It reminds me of a poem. I try to memorize them. The process is the perfect balance of right and left brain activity. I drill the words into my head. I walk around the neighborhood, thinking them over and repeating them, looking a bit off, mumbling to myself. I write it out, speak it, take it piece by piece. When it finally all comes together, it's much like when I play music. The words turn into living things, and if they're the right words, they dig real deep.
The Laughing Heart, by Charles Bukowski, read by the great Tom Waits. Memorized, now, by me.
