If I Could Not Fail

Intro:
Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything, you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
Yo

The prompt from Artist Journal was to list this month what you would do if you couldn’t fail. I didn’t do it. I heard it. I scribbled a few words, and then I dropped it. I love this Eminem’s song, where it’s not a prompt, it’s a question: would he lose himself in the music and perform if he got his shot? But you have to know what the shot is, and that’s where it gets murky for me.

I have a few books in me. One is where I tell my story. Yesterday, I went and met with my ACA host for the 5th Step where I told her the resentment and anger I’m holding onto. Before I read what I had written, I read a letter I had written to my mother, written in 1992, which I mentioned in my blog, a letter that my sister in law after reading my blog told me she happened to have a copy of because I sent it also to my brother, because at that time, he had stepped in to tell me I must speak to my mother because she’s my mother. I was kinda scared to read what I had written to my mom on my own, so I asked my ACA host if I could read it aloud to her. I read the four-page typed letter and she responded with exactly what I was thinking as I finished it – I had done my ACA list 33 years ago! My lament was about myself not my mom, and I was scared I had written some nasty stuff to and about my mom. The letter instead spoke about who I wanted to be, who I was becoming and my own self discovery.

The second book I have in me is about the 100 Men Hall, and my experience since I became its custodian almost seven years ago (July 2018). On Sunday, Jason Ricci and his band, The Bad Kind, were on the stage for a Blues Brunch. Jason is on his third turn of sobriety and his wife, Kaitlin Dibble is a member of the band. She sang a song off their new album that was so haunting – What Did I Do To You? was the refrain. Her song, Long Twisted Road, was so personal, so eviscerating, and hit me on so many different levels. What did I do to you – to me, to you, to us? A few months ago, Ben and Emily Roberts of Carolina Story were on the Hall stage, Ben has written many songs referencing his own demons, and his latest that he sang for us was I Belong To You. It was Valentine’s Day and his song was an after all, this is where I belong song – perfect for the evening.

I saw Jason Isbell in concert at the Orpheum in New Orleans last year; his song, Cover Me Up came out of his addiction, his rage, and about his profound love for his then wife, Amanda Shires:

A heart on the run 
Keeps a hand on a gun
Can’t trust anyone
I was so sure 
What I needed was more
Tried to shoot out the sun
The days when we raged, we flew off the page
Such damage was done
But I made it through, ’cause somebody knew
I was meant for someone

I can’t sing. But I can write.

To be a songwriter and a musician, you have to travel a long road to make sure people hear your music. To write a book and put it out in the world, you have to travel a long road. It’s not a road I want to travel. I want to write the book, but I don’t want to sell the book. I came back to my blog, but even here the tales I’d like to tell sometimes don’t fit in this space. Don’t fit on a page. Don’t come out in a cogent telling.

My list of things if I could not fail would be to enjoy life more – to walk through a forest, to sit outside in the grass, to get on my hands and knees in my garden, to work on my collage book, to read in a hammock, to ride my bike a long distance, to meet my friends for lunch, to fall in love, to write every morning, to swim, to go to the movies, to cook dinner for a loved one.

Am I shortchanging my creative life?

The world of writing books, being an author, traveling from book signing to book signing once held such a pull in my life, and it does not fall under my list today. Maybe this will change, and maybe it’s okay it has fallen off.

[Thank you for reading my blog, I love hearing from you;
I’d appreciate your leaving your response here on my platform rather than Metta’s.]