Home Free...Four Bases Touched
By ice rivers
- 566 reads
Like most nuts, I am continuously besieged by obsession, supression and repression which lead to depression.
My four main obsessions aside from survival and my wife are the usual suspects: music, photography, reading and writing. All of them want all of my time, all of the time.
Probably started with music which is currently the most repressed of my obsessions. I was obsessed with drumming and being in a band. I was seemingly born in the pocket which means I'm always on the beat...naturally. I can pick up drum pattterns and I have an innate sense of when and how to fill. Every rock song I ever hear, I hear the drums first. I love driving the band but I'm proud of my ability to blend. Apparently, people watching me could see all of this at work and without trying, I became a crowd favorite which had perks of its own.
At the height of my drumming, I became a teacher. The obsession with teaching took over and I suppressed my drumming all the way into repression. I rarely think about drumming anymore but I know it's thinking about me wondering "what the fuck?"
In my mind at twenty one, I was too youg to die and too old to rock and roll.
I became an English teacher. With that move I decided that if I was gonna teach writing I better be writing myself. So I started writing. I got a few things published...was offered a job at a newspaper. I stood at another crossroads. Did I want to become a writer, a teacher who writes or a writer that teaches.
I got along great with the students and I realized that ability to connect was an aptitude that Icould not afford to abandon, so I became a teacher that wrote which led me to be the main teacher of creative writing for many years. As I encouraged the kids to write more, I discovered that I wanted to write more as well so I began writing every day.
I've been a sensational reader all of my life. I was reading at twefth grade level when I was in second grade. To my teachers and classmates, it was BIG deal. This was hard for me to understand because nothing was easier than reading. I fell asleep every night with the light glowing as I still do today.
Meanwhile, my aunt was working at Kodak, so she was always bringing me cameras. I come from Rochester, New York which is the home of George Eastman, the man who first made photography accessible to the common folk. From the first snap of my first camera up until and including the images I captured today, photography has always seemd like magic, probably because like all technology...it is magic.
Every so often, one of these obsessions would take the lead and I would have to suppress the others, who were always afraid that they too would fall into the repressed suffering of music which they all celebrated at the time which it slipped into repression as that meant more time for each of them.
Anytime the other aptitudes/obsessions get out of balance; they tend to apply depression which melds quite effectively with the repression blues of drumming/music to produce some kind of funk which I than project on my survival and my wife.
Lately, I've been reading at a whole new rate. A couple of days ago, we visited a college town a few miles from where we live. Before we went to the soda shop or the bar or walked the campus, the very first thing that we did was explore the library. I took out two books: the first on Trumpocracy and the second on Mental Institutions in New York state in the nineteenth century. They kinda sorta go together I guess.
I already have five other books out from my hometown library and seven more that I bought on Kndle. Fourteen books. I'm currently reading about 6 books a week.
This takes up a lot of time.
Meanwhile photography, writing and my wife are all getting pissed off as they sense suppression so they all team up and make me feel depressed and guilty about my lack of production, my self absorption and the missed opportunities I have squandered with my face buried in a book rather than behind a camera or some other place.
Right now, it's three against one with music still so pissed off that it translated the whole Kavanaugh thing into repressed alleys of sexual abuse and false accusations that were waiting for the right time to appear and blow my mind which I combatted when they arrived by writing about them which I'm doing again right now for the second time this week.Dangerous times for men and women etc.
At this very second, writing is feeling a little better and taking the edge off as it usually does. I decided to try something new today and take a picture of the den in which I do most of my reading and then write this sentence about it while using the snapshot as the cover for this rant which I guess it is although it didn't intend to be.
I just re-read that last paragraph that I wrote about taking a picture of my reading in a room that my wife designed.
I believe I just touched all four bases and I'm home free until my wife gets home and hits me with a punch that I don't see coming
Sometimes writing just does what it wants and that's fine with me, writing, so don't get nervous when photography, reading, my wife or my survival take over and music at least recognize that I still air drum, clap, finger roll and knuckle tap even though it pisses off my wife.
And there is nothing more depressing than that.
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Comments
A nice mix of clever and true
A nice mix of clever and true. Good catchy beginning.
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I can identify somewhat with
I can identify somewhat with this writing. Having many hobbies becomes mind blowing and often leaves me wondering that even if there were more hours in the day, I'd still not find time for them all. Then there's of course our relationships that need to be valued, but of course when an idea comes it needs to be created, and for me it can be any time day or night. Like an exciting addiction creating becomes essential to my health and sanity.
Sorry to ramble, but I find it hard to get the balance right sometimes, an admission of guilt when my partner is so patient with me and also needs my attention.
Phew! Your writing has inspired this comment. I do understand how you feel.
Jenny.
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