notes to a depressed actor Feb 23/2011

I would say write a lot of unfinished poems, draw some faceless self portraits
and maybe there is something deeper or different, rather than nothing there
maybe you don't want to finish it the way you used to... and don't know what's next...
that's GOOD! and hard...

take a step back and take some time in the studio (somewhere private) to
a) have fun
b) be truly alone and do whatever you need to do

out of the studio...
c) go walk in a cemetery... what is really important to do before you die... talk out loud to yourself, to some dead people...
Abe Lincoln did it... you'd be in good company
d) take yourself somewhere you have never been before (a Korean grocery store, a Chinese herb store, a Hindu temple... ask some good questions, put your foot in your mouth)
e) watch some really funny movies... stupid ones... Bill and Ted's big adventure, amazon women on the moon... something so bad it's good
f) read a biography of a great artist/scientist/activist who was persecuted and also got it wrong at times... Van Gogh is always a good one
but look for someone new for you

sounds like you are hitting that normal place as an artist that we all hit
over and over again... if you can get through it once
congrats... it will be back
bigger and badder every time
and the pay off?

a new you, a new form, a new adventure... moving forward, death of the old self, birth of the new
death is not easy
but it happens every year- go look at the trees now- in the cold... touch them...

naked disgust

And what if i did remove that outer layer?

you would see me
I would be sitting in naked disgust
my face curdled from my own sour

Why can I never seem to visit the place of the pretty?
The butterfly land of hyacinth and lavender?
Fearing the simple truth of the flower
Because it is simple?
Because it is truth?
Because it is nothing I can name or wear without watching it die
Naked disgust
How does one start again
When one has started again so many times to seemingly no effect
The growth, the change so unimaginably slow
the self hatred so rampant and boring