021909 - Death of Art

I dated this poet, once, and he wrote about me. About my hair and how I never brushed it, about the curves of my body when I lay on a bed writing, about my temper and my smile and my eyes and all my bad habits...he wrote a lot and he wrote well. Once he wrote about my silhouette in the closet as I picked out my clothes for the day. He was an hyperbolic, alcoholic, pseudo-intellectual who fancied himself far more brilliant than he actually was and who was far more talented than he realized. But he wrote about me. He took photos of me. He found me interesting enough to inspire art...or what passed as art in those days of gin and lucky strikes. I say that, to say this...I often feel I've lost that ability to inspire. Like I spend my days taking care of people and of myself and that's all I really have to give. I fool myself into thinking that the ability to keep a beautiful house and get dinner cooked and bake cookies and cupcakes and kiss my sweet child and devoted husband goodnight make my days fulfilling...but it doesn't sometimes. There are days when I'm fulfilled. When I devote all of my time to just enjoying my family or my work or a good book or a meal...when I throw myself into something with all my force...usually the creation of something new, a poem, a cake, a baby...is enough to satisfy. But there are days when I miss being able to move the earth for someone. It is glorious and almost holy to care for my family and to do it well. To love them more than anyone else will ever love them. To know Andy inside out...to know what will make him smile...to know what he needs and be able to give it to him. To anticipate things that will bring joy to Aidan...to seek the things that make him giggle out and bring them to him. It feels special, right, beautiful. I am the giver of happiness to the two most important things in my world...and yet... And still...I inspire no one. I am so busy doing the things I feel I must that I no longer have energy or time to be the sort of person who could inspire poetry. It's a terrible thing, growing up. I wouldn't, couldn't change it...it's the price of motherhood, of the early years of marriage, the self. But every once in a while I look into the mirror and wonder if I can ever get her back. Because I miss her, the muse in me, immature, impulsive, angry, and selfish, she was still, often, more interesting than this Stepford shell I have become.