(no subject)
read it. please. I need criticism. butcher it. absolutely butcher it. i beg of you.
If Thoreau was a God - which I think is possible - then my Junior English teacher was a prophet, and myself a convert. Studying transcendentalism opened doors and windows all throughout my cabin of a life; and before I could say “oversoul,” I had epiphanies popping out of my ears and eyes.
Our first assignment was to find a secluded spot in nature, sit there, and write down our thoughts. I had little time for homework, let alone meditation - I was currently accompanying a musical, performing in a play myself, and competing in a mile-long list of vocal and instrumental competitions. In my life, spirituality usually took the back seat.
But somehow, I made it fit, thinking it would be a welcome release. One evening, I hiked up towards an overgrown spot near my home. Though it was obviously a carved trail, it had no start, and no finish - it just sat there, a quaint theater to the bottomless forest on the other side of the hill. The homeliness here had always intrigued me.
Pink with asthma, I sat in the crunchy leaves, careful to avoid the dewy spots. At first, my observations were trivial - I simply noted how the fall air smelled smoky and sharp, and how everything seemed slightly more metallic and glittery in the fog. I took a cold breath. I could see, smell, taste, listen - be. For the first time in months, I was content. Centered. Zen.
With an uprooting gust of wind, a concealed ardor for simply existing erupted within me; and everything around me, in my life, in my heart, suddenly seemed too wonderful to express. I was anchored to the core of the earth. I tried to write, but at first, words were like pastels trying to match a Van Gogh painting; nothing was powerful enough.
At that tumutuous moment, I remembered a piece of advice given to me by my playwriting instructor: “write what you feel - and only what you feel.” So I wrote what I felt - not what I thought. I abandoned all inhibitions, irrelevant thoughts, pressures, and obligations. I described perception, not fact. My pen moved one thousand times slower than my mind. This was the remedy. There were no more rules. I could say the sunset looked like sandpaper if I wanted to, or that the far off river sounded like a Bach prelude. Poetry, images, emotions splashed all over my page in blotches of ink.
As I wrote, I realized that this journal entry was far more than an assignment. It didn’t necessarily exceed in quality, but it did in meaning; it was art. It was art because it attempted to explain the inexplicable, and it was art because I had previously never believed in anything as much as I believed in that moment. It embodied the mantra off which I have since based my acting, singing, reading, writing and piano playing - do it with conviction, do it with feeling, do it with freedom - and do it because its an artist’s duty to exalt that which is usually unappreciated.
My watch buzzed; it was time to go back to my life down the hill. I could have stayed there forever, blanketed by the darkness, kissed by inspiration; but I left because I had my future waiting for me. Grinning, I gathered my materials and thanked the evening for the serenade.
in other news. i want to have 8 babies - one from each member of the barbershop.
If Thoreau was a God - which I think is possible - then my Junior English teacher was a prophet, and myself a convert. Studying transcendentalism opened doors and windows all throughout my cabin of a life; and before I could say “oversoul,” I had epiphanies popping out of my ears and eyes.
Our first assignment was to find a secluded spot in nature, sit there, and write down our thoughts. I had little time for homework, let alone meditation - I was currently accompanying a musical, performing in a play myself, and competing in a mile-long list of vocal and instrumental competitions. In my life, spirituality usually took the back seat.
But somehow, I made it fit, thinking it would be a welcome release. One evening, I hiked up towards an overgrown spot near my home. Though it was obviously a carved trail, it had no start, and no finish - it just sat there, a quaint theater to the bottomless forest on the other side of the hill. The homeliness here had always intrigued me.
Pink with asthma, I sat in the crunchy leaves, careful to avoid the dewy spots. At first, my observations were trivial - I simply noted how the fall air smelled smoky and sharp, and how everything seemed slightly more metallic and glittery in the fog. I took a cold breath. I could see, smell, taste, listen - be. For the first time in months, I was content. Centered. Zen.
With an uprooting gust of wind, a concealed ardor for simply existing erupted within me; and everything around me, in my life, in my heart, suddenly seemed too wonderful to express. I was anchored to the core of the earth. I tried to write, but at first, words were like pastels trying to match a Van Gogh painting; nothing was powerful enough.
At that tumutuous moment, I remembered a piece of advice given to me by my playwriting instructor: “write what you feel - and only what you feel.” So I wrote what I felt - not what I thought. I abandoned all inhibitions, irrelevant thoughts, pressures, and obligations. I described perception, not fact. My pen moved one thousand times slower than my mind. This was the remedy. There were no more rules. I could say the sunset looked like sandpaper if I wanted to, or that the far off river sounded like a Bach prelude. Poetry, images, emotions splashed all over my page in blotches of ink.
As I wrote, I realized that this journal entry was far more than an assignment. It didn’t necessarily exceed in quality, but it did in meaning; it was art. It was art because it attempted to explain the inexplicable, and it was art because I had previously never believed in anything as much as I believed in that moment. It embodied the mantra off which I have since based my acting, singing, reading, writing and piano playing - do it with conviction, do it with feeling, do it with freedom - and do it because its an artist’s duty to exalt that which is usually unappreciated.
My watch buzzed; it was time to go back to my life down the hill. I could have stayed there forever, blanketed by the darkness, kissed by inspiration; but I left because I had my future waiting for me. Grinning, I gathered my materials and thanked the evening for the serenade.
in other news. i want to have 8 babies - one from each member of the barbershop.