It's strange that I got out of my 4-night-a-week dancing ritual but I did. Wanting to fix this aberration, last night I mosied on in, and, surprisingly, the music took me away like it used to, and I couldn't wait to get on my dancing shoes. More surprisingly, I recalled dances. And more surprisingly still, I saw people I'd danced with for over 12 years in a new light. I felt the pain of the misunderstood and judged artist.
People with soft hearts, caring spirits, healthy habits, who do no harm to others but rather bring joy and beauty to their corner of the world.
I'm talking about the musicians, composers, creative writers, painters, and jewelry makers who danced for joy last night. I danced for joy too, but also to get frustration out of my system, thinking about the holidays.
I may go to the Bay Area for the holidays, where my father's voice still echoes from last summer. I told him I'd planned to go to the Maui's Writers Conference. He discouraged me. "You wasted too much time writing and trying to sell your last novel." He's afraid I'll waste time writing and selling my second. My blog. My dad's wife told me, "He's disappointed to see you in front of the computer, wasting time."
So I danced last night, and I saw Tom*, a musician and composer extraordinaire, who can bring tears to your eyes with his music's beauty, and he told me more than once of the pain he feels regarding his attorney father, who will barely talk to him, so upset is he that his son is a musician, making a paltry living teaching music. I saw Lena, a jewelry-maker who stopped making colorful jewelry because her family said she couldn't make a living and rather than continue to try, she hates her job as a secretary, and she's too tired to do anything after work but dance away the frustration. I saw Cathy, who is also a musician and talented composer. Her family encouraged her to go to nursing school. She dislikes being a nurse in the shadow of the entertainment industry, where composers score for TV and Movies but... She didn't give composing a fair commercial chance because of the echo of dad's voice, You'll never make it.
Without artists lighting our paths with beauty and truth, life would be bland and uninteresting. The artists who haven't shot into the commercial stratosphere, should be celebrated even more for continuing to do their thing in the shadow of a money-obsessed, tradition-oriented America.
After all, anyone who can count may become a CPA. But not every one can play a symphonic score with passion, and bring joy to their corner of the world.
And not everyone can take reporting skills learned under the tutelage of a former Forbes Magazine Managing Editor, and apply those skills to writing truth in a clean air environmental travel blog, where advertising dollars won't sway content as they do in many commercial newspapers and magazines.
Appreciate the artist in your life.
*(I changed names)
