Killing our Artists

I have a friend who never complains. Her attitude -- no, her personal religion -- is that no matter what life throws you (and I seriously mean "no matter what") you better just be glad to be alive. You just deal with it and fight on.

She might have this approach for a wide variety of reasons. Her father was murdered when she was five. The first person she seriously dated unexpectedly committed suicide. As a preteen she was abducted by a distant relative and repeatedly raped. As a grown woman and a mother, she struggles with Chronic Fatigue and two amazing but special needs children. She says to all of this: "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." And she says it with this half-smile, this sad/wise/thankful grin that has broken and melted my heart in turns.

I like to call her and ask, "So, what's bothering you today?" I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever ask her this question because, eventually, she'd get so annoyed she'd pop 'em one. But I always dare to ask. On Friday she actually answered me, "We're killing our artists."

And we are.

I'm not going to repeat the polite excuses she offered up for all the parents who quash the creative and the beautiful in their children. I'm not that kind. There is no excuse. There should only be in your face confrontation condoned in the name of saving society from its own soulless unravelling.

Think I'm being dramatic? Of course I'm being dramatic. This is a *blog.* No one reads or writes a blog about grass growing... unless they tie it to the cosmic unravelling of every spark of genius and innovative thought.

You're online right now. You probably love quizs. Here's a quiz:

Is it more socially acceptable for a teen to:

A) watch reality TV with the family
B) sit in his room and write

C) message friends on MySpace
D) use the Internet to research history for a role-playing game he's creating

E) work full-time at a grocery store
F) work part-time at a publishing house

G) go to college at eighteen
H) wait until going to college feels right

How'd you answer? Do you have kids? Were you being honest? Do you have kids for eighteen years or for life? When do you expect/want your kids to move out? When will you shift how you think about them from your little angels to other adults who just up your water and electric bills? When does the "family home" become "my house"?

My buddy Cris says to her kids, "This isn't *my* house. This is our house. Your rooms are not your only spaces. Every room is your room." I seriously doubt that Cris' kids will move out until they marry. Cris' kids have been known to say, "Mama, I really need some down time today." And she makes that happen.

Are *you* your child's patron?

Or are you there to break his will and make him see the error of his ways?

It should go without saying: We each have one life. We can make only our own choices. Our children are not ours to shape (read: manipulate). Our children are ours to guide, to love, and to marvel at.

I cannot *imagine* Cris turning to her son and saying, "You've been silently drawing for six hours! Get off your bum and go outside and play football!" I *can* imagine her praising him endlessly for his creative mind -- even as she is washing floors, making meals, and doing dishes. Why? Because *she* chose to have children.

International bestselling author Jeanette Winterson writes in her book "Weight:"

"Right now, human beings as a mass, have a gruesome appetite for what they call 'real', whether it's Reality TV or the kind of plodding fiction that only works as low-grade documentary, or at the better end, the factual programmes and biographies and 'true life' accounts that occupy the space where imagination used to sit.

"Such a phenomenon points to a terror of the inner life, of the sublime, of the poetic, of the non-material, of the contemplative."

If you don't feel the cold fingers of dread and sudden illumination chill you when you read that, if you're not nodding your head and murmuring, "Dear God, that's it." Then read it again. If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention. Let me give it to you like this:

We want our kids to grow up, get out, a do what we tell them is valuable because then we, as parents, as human beings, are valuable. We've raised 'em right. We've done good.

We want our children to have jobs in the real world -- the dirty, hard, tangible world. Not jobs that start in dreams. Not jobs that they even enjoy.

We want all of this because that's what *we* did, damn it, and if they don't do what we did (or what we couldn't do) than we are no longer valid. We are no longer current. We are outdated and ridiculous.

"My son is an artist. He lives at home. He paints twelve hours a day. He makes no mess for me. He sits and eats all three meals with me and we talk. We meet at midnight and share a mug of tea. My son is an artist. Sometimes he sells his paintings. Sometimes I just get to hang them on my walls. He lives with me. I am his father. I am so proud of him I could burst. He is gentle and kind. He is loving and funny. I am so glad he didn't do what his mother told him and grow up to be a doctor."

In college, the boy across the hall had that taped to his door. It was a prose-poem written by his dad in blue ballpoint. When we graduated (and he moved back home), I asked if I could have it. "Sure," he shrugged. "I don't need it now. I'll have my dad." I've kept it ever since.

Because creative children are arcane and wonderful. They are unexpected and passionate. They are fiery and hard to live with. They are temperamental. They are be real snits one minute and loving snugglers the next. They are flighty and forgetful. They whine. They will write or paint or draw for fourteen hours and forget to take out the trash. They can have *real* conversations with you about *real* things before they're old enough to drive... heck, before they're old enough to tie their own shoes.

Creative children *scare* mundane parents. They scare mundane society. They *are* the sublime, the poetic, the non-material, the contemplative. They are our darkest fears and our brightest hopes all laid out in the open. They are smarter than us. They are better than us. They have already ascended this dirty and hard world and found their own heaven.

Are you your daughter's patron?

Or are you doing her a favor by handing her a reality check signed with your tough love?

"Immortal Madre, I wanna walk away from a lucrative career. I wanna create an open universe with a trading card game, a role-playing game, and novels, where everyone is welcome to create together. All of this will bring glory to Christ and the gentle, underlying message will touch hearts and change souls. It will take time. But it's God's work. It's good work. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my everything. And I'm ready."

And she answered, "Let me be your patron."

Tired in the Morning

I watch her from across the room.
She’s contemplating her interior spaces.
Cathedrals filled with stain glass memories
from five countries and more than fifty years.
Elegant experience. She turns heads then, now.
What are you thinking?
I would never presume to ask.
But if I did I know the ghost of a smile I’d receive.
The sadness in the cinnabar eyes.
The “sweetheart” or “honey”
prefacing the “Don’t worry. Nothing.”
It’s the End Times, Mom. You down with that?
She wouldn’t be rattled.

Tired of me writing about my Immortal Madre?
Yeah, Patrick, maybe you’re ripe for another shower scene, huh?
Brianne is rolling her eyes, “Whatev.”

There’s a man sitting alone across the cluster of small round tables.
He is perfectly framed, the image of reflection,
the backdrop of Starbucks mermaids and sirens.
Dear God, he looks so alone.
He’s Greek or Italian or some other olive-skinned,
rugged Mediterranean locale.
When he ordered his drink, his accent was thick, a rumble,
a sound I want to listen to.
His black curls are shot with silver.
His wide brown eyes close for a moment,
thick black lashes like butterfly kisses.
“Why isn’t he drinking, Mom?” I ask impulsively.
She doesn’t look up from the New York Times.
“Because he isn’t here for the coffee.”
Thirty minutes later he leaves.
The full tall-cup drops into the trash.
$2.75. It makes a solid sound. He makes no sound.
I watch him walk away into a crisp winter world.

Tired of me writing with my contemplative muse on my shoulder?
Rather having a rave? A flash of speed? A lap dance?
Launa laughs. “You’re fine, grrl. Just write.”

Christmas bells, Christmas bells, shopping all the day.
Why do we always finds ourselves at the mall?
“How about Victoria’s Secrets?”
I give her an incredulous look and steal the last bite of Cinnabon.
“How about Wilson’s Suede and Leather?”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
She rolls her eyes at me, “So glad I had a son.”
But we wind up at a kiosk with cheap steel jewelry.
I like the heavy weight of the rings on my fingers.
“I want a blank book.”
“Only if it plugs into a USB,” I tell her.
“Sometimes, sweetheart, I write things
that I have no intention of sharing.”
And she walks into Hallmark. Leaving me standing, staring.
Some yuppie in a business suit with a Blackberry
openly cruises her – short feathered hair, cinnamon skin,
tailored jacket and knee-length skirt.
I consider an elbow to the gut and a growl,
“Hey, bud, that’s my mom.”

Tired of the Freudian, Old World vignettes?
Feeling like my life -- unlike your life -- is stuck in rehash?
Wondering why I don't just:
Grow Up
Get Over It
Get a Life, Baby
Looking for a review of Halo 3 (cr*p) or BioShock (uh...)
to put the “Gamer” with “Grrl”?
Slinky pushes auburn bangs out of her face. Looks at me with cool blue eyes. Hands me a cup of coffee because suddenly I can't breathe. “You know I’m always reading.”

Yeah. Don’t I know.

I know so well who’s out there.