I Used to Think

              I used to think that to be an artist, you had to be sad, or tormented, or crazy. Or maybe that it was the sad, tormented, and crazy that became artists. Isn’t that what we’re taught? Hemingway was a depressive alcoholic. Van Gogh was tormented or insane, or both. Even Lewis Carroll and the Beatles were on drugs. It was an artist’s fate, and it was my fuel. Writing for me has always been an insatiable need, a drive, integral to my very breath. Writers block, or lack of inspiration, stung like a careless word on a secret insecurity. It nagged at my fingertips, and made my teeth itch. I needed fuel for the fire, and where did I go? My sadness. My depression. My tormented mind. That part of myself on the edge of losing my mind. My darkness. I dug it all out, tore off scabs, dug up mistakes I’d buried in the dark recesses of past repentance. And there was the flame, and the fury, and the tears, and there were poems, and deep thoughts, and odd paintings, and freakish obsessions, and these were comfortable. These fit in with the world, with society. These made me down to earth, approachable, the kind of person I always liked. These tore me away from my Creator.

I watched an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine recently with some kid friends. In it, they encounter a non-linear species, one that does not live from moment to moment but in all moments simultaneously. In an attempt to communicate, they kept bringing the captain back to the day his wife died. The captain tried to explain that this was the past, that it was over, that they were linear, and this was no longer happening. “Then why,” the entity asked, “do you still live here?” That question sent shivers through my bones. Every memory, every mistake, every lost friendship and missed opportunity… I lived in those. Those were my home, food, fodder for the starving artist.

I used to be afraid of changing too much. Of letting G-d become my everything. Of filling my moments with prayer and praise. I was afraid to let Him heal the broken parts of my spirit, because I thought that when I lost my pain, I’d lose my poetry. I was afraid that the one thing I loved most in this world would be stripped away from me and yes, I would have G-d, but I would no longer be me. No longer be down to earth and approachable. No more torment, no more accelerant for my fire. So I had a limit, a wall, a measuring stick on how much I would let Him in, let Him change me, and I was stuck there. Was.

My main man and me, all packed
              for the move to College Station.

Last weekend was Yom Kippur, the biblical holy day of repentance, of giving all your sins, all your past, all your doubts to G-d and becoming clean, white as snow, a new creation. I wanted that clean slate, I wanted to be of one mind with my Heavenly Father. I thought that one could repent and mean it but still be a little dark. Want to know something? You can’t be. You will never be wholly G-d’s. You will never be of one mind. G-d is light and light cannot exist without expelling darkness. I had to let go. I had to take my sins and give them to G-d, and this time I could not take them back. I could not reintegrate them into my synapses for my poetry. If I give them to G-d, they’re gone. No longer mine. I told G-d that I was afraid. Of losing myself. Of losing the gift He gave me. You know what He told me? He reminded me that He indeed was the one who gave me my gifts. They are not something I acquired because of my pain or darkness. Not something I gave myself. These gifts are just that, gifts. My gifts were given to be used by the best version of myself I could possibly be. The version that can be whole hearted with my G-d. I would not lose it. In fact, I would gain so much more, by being the person my poetry was meant to be written by. He was right, and I finally let Him in.

So here I am. A much different person than I was a week ago. My past is my past but it can no longer control me. I refused to let it own me, and now its power is lost. I am a new creation, full of light, and the desires of past have faded. And I’m still writing poetry.

The Snake in the Room

     My snake died. Little baby Bird, who I kind of hated. It was as if guilt had tainted my adoration for him. The adoration I had imagined I'd have for him before I even had him. Every time I'd see that huge terrarium my stomach would tighten and that feeling would take over. But I couldn't get rid of him, right? I'd spent so long convincing my dad to let me, and doing research, and talking about it, I couldn't just get rid of him. I'd have to stick it out. All 30 years of the expected life-span of a ball python. Lucky for me, I didn't even have to deal with him for 30 days. It's not that I think snakes are bad pets or that I was incapable of caring for him. It was something else. It was that small whisper of doubt before the purchase. Maybe I shouldn't do this. But I couldn't think of reason why I shouldn't so I ignored it. I'll be happier with a snake. And cool. Snakes are cool. They are, but I wasn't happier. I was sick in my gut. But I had already bought the snake's stuff and the snake itself, and it was too late. But then he stopped eating, and I was worried. I had expected when I'd gotten him that I'd hold him all the time and train him to ride on my shoulders, but I hardly touched him. He hid under the rock in his tank and I rarely even looked in on him. He felt like a stranger, like some alien thing that I couldn't bear to touch but I knew I needed to so he'd get used to me. The other day I called my friend and asked her if she wanted the snake. I couldn't do it. While on the phone with her I went to get him out of the cage and when I lifted the rock up, Bird didn't move. I poked him. He still didn't move. Bird was dead. At first I was upset and angry because, as everyone knows, all my pets die. Then I felt bad because I was relieved. I wouldn't have to deal with the snake for 30 years. 

     I have to interject here and tell you that no dead anything smells as bad as a dead snake. Trust me, I've smelled a lot of dead things, and this was the worst. I could hardly breathe. The room was humid from the heat lamps and humidifier and the stench settled in the air heavy and suffocating. I had to get it out. I took a box in one hand, picked up his carcass with the other. His scales were sharp and loose and entirely wrong. His belly was blue from the blood. But that wasn't even the worst part. His jaws were clamped around his own body. My snake had tried to eat himself. The whole image is burned in my brain, and I get sick just thinking about it. In fact, that image pops into my head quite often. It's haunting.

     When the dead snake and his terrarium were no longer in my house, the window was open, and purifying oils were diffusing, I sat on my floor confused, and somewhat lost. This whole month has been a weird almost terrifying one. My mind has been muddled and unsure, and afraid. I've been regretful and somewhat hopeless. I've been dark and struggling. But I also felt that something was happening. Something I couldn't explain, and didn't understand. I just felt like something was going to happen, was happening. To me? I didn't know. So I sat there listening to a song and trying to understand, when it happened. That snake was a representation. He was my darkness, my sin, the evil human nature and it's desires. And it was gone. And it was gone from me too. My whole life I have longed to want to be light. To be clean and new. I used to say the salvation prayer at church youth gatherings just to feel that rebirth that everyone talks about. I wanted that fervor and that reassurance. But it never happened. I never felt any different. I attributed it to the fact that I had already said that prayer when I was little and that it only worked once. That I had already been reborn and couldn't be re-reborn. I was really bummed. I'd never understand. Never feel that because I didn't have some great turning to God story. But sitting on the floor in my bedroom confused and lost, I felt Him. I felt God in a way I never had before. I didn't say any sort of saving prayer. I said, why. What are you trying to tell me? I didn't hear a voice. I didn't hear an answer. I felt forgiveness. God didn't mean for me to buy that snake. He didn't want me to for some reason I can't explain. But I did. And it died, and I found God. I found that rebirth. My whole body and soul become clean and light and I felt forgiven. I felt free of that darkness I'd held on to. Suddenly, I didn't feel that draw anymore. I wanted nothing to do with it. I just wanted light and I wanted to be light. I wanted to love everyone, and be loved in return. I hadn't felt that way in a long time. In all my life, actually. And it didn't come at a religious gathering. It didn't happen with a salvation prayer. I became new. I found life, on the floor in my bedroom when I was lost.

     

     In life, we decide we want things. Like a snake. Or we're drawn to something dark and wrong. And maybe we rationalize it, and make it feel okay even though there's that little voice saying maybe not. But we give in. We get the pet, we let ourselves have a little darkness, and we think it'll make us happy. But then it sits in our home, in our room, near our bed, and we have to see it every day, and suddenly we think maybe we don't want it anymore but that it's too late and we'll just have to learn to live with it. And maybe we boast about it because we'll seem cooler that way. Shock value. But we know. Deep down where we don't want to admit it. I can't live with this. But the thing is, we don't have to. Once we're willing, once we're ready to be rid of that sin, that darkness, all we have to do is ask. All we have to do is want to be light, free. God looks into our inmost being and sees. I've wanted for a long time to get rid of that darkness but at the same time, I wanted it too much. But this month, I've realized that what I really want is to hear God. To feel His love, to get His direction. Even though I didn't realize it, He'd been working on me, on my heart. I've reached absolute depression and found the cure. That snake killed itself. And I killed my darkness. The guilt is gone. The darkness in the corner of my bedroom is gone. I'm new. I'm light. And light is all I want. I'm clean, and I thank God with every ounce of my being.