Invisible Elephant?

Late January, 2013

Here, as usual these days, am I trying to gather some sense of direction. I've been so busy lately, with no real time to to commit to Drum that it's depressing me. I feel that I've got to let a class go, although that would mean a drop in salary, something I can't afford to do right now. However, when I see what I need to be doing balanced against what I am doing, I see that something's gotta give.

When there isn't enough time for the writing I want to do, I tend to internalize the consequences, almost as if I were punishing myself. I see myself getting older and having not written anything, really, to show for all my passion. This is something that must change. How is it that I can keep moving in one direction without grasping or even attempting to grasp in my mind the many signals along the way pointing out the road ahead?

As I've mentioned before, I have set myself up in such a way that only one major goal can be achieved before any others. Publishing Drum is that goal. Yesterday, I was musing over something my mother observed of me once: "you've always done exactly what you've wanted to do." This is a true statement, though perhaps not in the way that she meant it, which was probably as a rebuke for my selfishness or reclusion.

It is this major goal of finishing and publishing Drum that is slowing me down, though, making me trudge and putter through my own mire of self doubt.

And there it is the evil elephant in the room. What are the ways I can kill it, or at least prod it back into its cage? It is this constant voice inside of me telling me how ridiculous--how ridicule-ous--that I would even attempt to be thought of as a writer. What claim have I on reality? Have I really suffered enough to have anything of value to say? I don't know what I'm doing so I should give up, spend my time on other pursuits. What the hell do I think I'm doing, anyway? This is the voice that haunts me. It is the voice of my mother, and perhaps my father; and even as I write those words I don't believe them. And yet, and yet.

And what of this elephant killing I mentioned? Interesting that the elephant, a symbol of memory, should be the thing that we ignore out of necessity. Here, reader, is Drum in a single drop.

My parents were always supportive of me the directions I chose, even when I began to part ways from their ideals. The unconditionality of their love remains a rock-solid model for me as a parent. But as their son--their youngest--I am ever under their thumb, as are we all of our parents. I suppose the trajectory of my life has been set largely as a result of my squirming out of that control into my own free range. Now, even at 50 years, I am wrestling with my mother over her incomprehension of me as a person. And Dad, even as we approach the 19th anniversary of your death, I am still trying to reach the expectations I know you had for me. Perhaps this, passive onlooker, is why you remain in my dreams.

And so, I suppose my self-doubt arises in part from the parental expectations within me to find myself and do something consequential: leave a positive mark on the world. At its core, this is what parenting is all about; on the other hand, there is my own struggle that must be borne out through action, and this, at its core, is what my writing is all about.

So, the elephant, perhaps less evil now though still in the room, has made his presence known.