It’s interesting how anger must be nursed in order to sustain over time. Time and attention must be paid to its cultivation. It must be nurtured. A 53-year-old woman told me last night that she has finally learned to love her mother without destroying herself. 53.
We can be lousy with regret. Flay ourselves with our victimization. And why? This is what memory is for: to learn from our pain. Learn. Not nurture.
Write a letter to the river. Watch it sail.
Suppose you believe in soul mates. Not halves. Never halves. An additional whole. The entire fucking thing.
Suppose you feel the effortlessness of connectivity for the first time.
Suppose it sings through you.
The war is over someplace. My arms laid down. My boots.
I think I have never been so dazed. So pure.
Where did this path come from — the new mown grass?
When I was twenty-three, a buddy of mine took me out for lunch, and attempted, over oysters, to prove I am not intense.
“I hate intense people,” he said. ”You’re not intense. You’re pragmatic. You’re a pragmatic artist. You seem intense because people don’t know the difference.”
What kind of argument is that, exactly? And what is the problem with intensity? Why is intensity scary?
It may have something to do with focus. And will. Something unrelenting, and dark. Predators are intense. Prey are not.
And why did he feel the need to argue the point with me? Whom did he intend to convince, himself, or me?
I think every driven artist worries about her intensity. Her inability to balance. Her unwillingness to compromise. I let him have his argument that afternoon. Listened as though it didn’t matter. His spurious claims. His flawed theorems.
Partly, I never wanted to own it. The foundling on the steps. And partly, I cherish it. The mountain on fire. The air filled with ash. The burnout.
