It’s nearly three weeks since I last posted here, but it seems much longer. Have I been too busy? No. Has there been a lack of interesting things to write about? No. Have I been too lazy? No. I’ve drafted stuff every day on voice recorder, in my black notebook, in Word documents, or (best of all) in my head, where it tends to couple promiscuously with other stuff to create infant ideas of infinite promise and mysterious forgettability. So what ingredient, what magical catalyst, was missing? I don’t know. My initial conclusion—the chemistry was wrong. Ah, but I can’t leave it there. Metaphors have a life of their own. They have legs. Is the chemistry of inspiration a real branch of science? Does it have its own pharmacology? There have been poets who swear by liquor, essayists who voyage on opium, but let us not drift down those dreamy rivers. More likely that inspiration is an Art, the art of love: how to conduct the sacred love-affair between author and Muse; to procreate some textual offspring, bonny enough to survive.
It may not interest my reader at all, but it’s vital to me—to answer this one question—no, two. Why have I remained silent, when each day I yearned to deliver? Why do I want to publish here anyhow? It serves no practical purpose. I have not made any promises, nor to my knowledge created expectations and then failed to satisfy them. This is not a diary. In fact I like to keep my life private, taking material from that constantly-flowing source merely because it is always available. My namesake Van Gogh had only to look in the mirror if he needed a picture-subject. I’m no good at fiction, though in a sense this is all fiction: the skewed perspective of Vincent, a pseudonym which just happens to be my middle name but stands for an imagined hero, or anti-hero, who purports to write these mini-essays.
There’s a special kind of fiction which is able to convey truth like no other medium, but it’s all thanks to the Muse, without whom I am powerless to speak. There is nothing more joyful than to be the plaything of the immortals; for then we participate in the grand gestures. Then we are chauffeur-driven through life, as if we were Somebody. Then we have protection, we are granted a new identity. We have purpose, though it may be revealed to us only in fragments. The Muse is not to be confused with the flesh-and-blood lover, with whom She can coexist in complete harmony.
Photo: From a recent weekend. Having missed the beach altogether on our Jamaican trip, we found the azure seas finally at Weymouth, in Dorset.ng and revitalising. In other words to get my actions into perspective. It takes persistent effort to stop oneself pursuing elaborate and fantastical ideas invented by our heads, instead of flowing with the deeper currents of our truth.
10 thoughts on “The Blue Sea”
keiko amano
Vincent, Maybe, your Muse wanted to rest for a while. If Muse is not a person, maybe, it is an animal. My muse is a bird.
Rebb
That’s funny, Vincent. It doesn’t feel like three weeks to me either. Do you carry a notebook with you everywhere too? Do you sometimes find yourself standing somewhere and need to pull out your notebook no matter where you might be? Yesterday, I was so inclined to get my thoughts down and didn’t want to sit after exiting the BART train, that I kept walking and writing, trying not to bump into anything.I often think of the question you pose to yourself about remaining silent. For me, I think there are certain moments when I write something in my notebook and the fervor is there right then and there, but by the time I get home, I procrastinate or the feeling is not quite there. If I had a computer at hand I might even submit it right close to the moment, but would I feel insecure writing too freely? For me, I think sometimes I think too much about it and then I sap the muster right out of my little this and that’s.Something that has really surfaced for me, Vincent, is that in your writing, I read your moods, as though you wear them on your sleeves—sometimes jubilant, sometimes, serious, sometimes grouchy. I often wonder was he born under the sun sign of Pisces—not pragmatic enough, I’m sure. I was trying to find the best way to express this without being annoying. I like being able to ‘see,’ read these different sides of you. I am very sensitive to moods and I felt inclined to share my feelings, since in this piece your mood stood out.I really like how the picture is so blue—on almost all sides, with the wall and the gate, and K’s jeans. She looks so cute in her pose.p.s. I’ve said this before, but I’m so glad to have found your world through Luciana’s ocean. Enjoy reading and interacting with your essays. You are a master essayist!
Vincent
Rebb, you got it exactly. I was born in the sign of Pisces. And I must always go with a notebook or digital voice recorder. I’m less concerned these days about taking a camera, because I doubt its ability to capture the feeling.The way you have described your feelings about writing is very close to mine.I’ve been reading your New Orleans posts with great interest, but didn’t comment because my reaction would have sounded negative. But it was negative towards the place not your depiction, or rather not the place but its touristiness: its attempt to display a fake soul meeting the expectations of its visitors, when all it has to do is be true to its permanent residents. I know that sounds very naive. It has to attract income from visitors.
Vincent
Muse can be a person or a bird. She is creative and responsive. And if she wants to rest it is only to enable me to catch up. If I were ready for her 24 hours a day, she would be there.I’d like to know more about your muse! The shamans have a power animal, I know that.
ZACL
Your sea at Weymouth is very much azure. Who needs to trek endlessly, musing, all over the world, to find such a beauteous thing?Notebooks; I thought about walking around with one to jot the odd aide memoire,I was even given a couple. Trying to lighten the load I carried, the first things to go were items that were superfluous to practical functioning. Scraps of paper did not fare much better. Physical practicality had to reorganise my Muse’s styles of entrance and my musings. More recently, my space has been less invaded by urges to post. I am sure it is a natural event, a kind of resting and revitalising process.
raymond
“We have purpose, though it may be revealed to us only in fragments.”That’s why your writing is so authentic Vincent. You don’t try to wrap it (life) all up in a simple narrative, one that Sartre would call “bad faith.” You give us the scattered diamonds, fragments of the fantastic treasures which are found everywhere, especially in the everyday, to be exposed only by the gifted poet.
Rebb
Vincent, Ah, interesting, thank you for confirming my curiosity/vibe. I’ve always loved taking pictures, but there are times when they may not be able to capture the feeling.One more thing about my feelings on writing is that I also realize sometimes I do in fact go back and try to resurrect a moment. My biggest psychological challenge is that I feel like because time has gone by, it is somehow not as authentic as it was in that moment, but if I feel strongly enough, I will work with it. I realize that many writers probably do this. After all, isn’t this why we carry around our notebooks and tape devices? Isn’t it such a funny thing?I know what you mean about “touristiness.” The one place I really did feel the negative side of tourism was when I went to Cancun, Mexico. In New Orleans, though, I felt like I was interacting with a real soul in its people and I went there with no expectations. It seemed to me a place where the residents couldn’t be fake if they tried. It struck me as a place filled with art and soul. Now, as with any place, it has its spots to stay out of and I did find myself wandering astray and recognized a street name not to cross and turned back swiftly. That’s probably why I can’t appreciate San Francisco as much as I’d like to. It’s difficult for me to get past the touristy feeling of it and I’m so close. I also like venturing out by myself and I don’t feel safe alone in SF.
Vincent
Rebb, I’m so glad for your reply, and our sharing of the same responses to aspects of life. Several years ago I was so frustrated with photography that I started sketching in pastels, to try and put the feeling back into the scenes I wanted to report. If I had spent hundreds of hours, I might be able to do it to some level of satisfaction; but it in the few pictures I completed, it was a furious struggle that left me exhausted. Writing isn’t easy, especially when the Muse throws in her veto, but it’s quicker.Yes, time does dissipate the immediacy of feeling but sometimes we are so impressed by something that we can write about it later. It helps if we have made notes, but they have to be totally rewritten. In the end, it happens, something is said, and it feels as though the Muse has taken over. I take your point about New Orleans and apologize for making a judgment based on your photos. I think about America a lot, based on second-hand experience – movies, photos, articles, novels & so on. But then I only get someone else’s notion of the place. When I go there myself, I find the genuineness, the soul, whether imbued with art or not. (The really frustrating thing is that in this town, and even on my own street, I can only rarely break through the foreignness of my neighbours to see that soul. I live in what is almost a Pakistani/Kashmiri ghetto, where they speak Punjabi and often no English at all, under the shadow of the mosque. But I have no complaints.)
Vincent
Thanks Raymond for your encouragement. Indeed my thoughts are scattered but if authenticity comes through, then I cannot say I have failed, even if it is not always easy reading.
Vincent
ZACL, you have hit it exactly when you speak of “my space has been less invaded by urges to post. I am sure it is a natural event, a kind of resting and revitalising process.”Indeed when I talk of the Muse I don’t literally believe in some goddess who dictates poetic ideas, of course, but obedience to natural events, the ebbs and flows of resting and revitalising. In other words to get my actions into perspective. It takes persistent effort to stop oneself pursuing elaborate and fantastical ideas invented by our heads, instead of flowing with the deeper currents of our truth.