I’m currently reading a biography of Charles Jackson author of Lost Weekend. He’s one of those forgotten mid-century writers. He’s also a writer caught in the crush of closetedness, booze and creativity. A cultural cage he never really broke out of.
There is this romantic connection between self-destruction, creativity and authentic voice. The notion that a great novel/poem/painting by an ex-junkie is more compelling than a great novel by someone whose never been a junkie/addict etc is almost endemic in our culture.
Having survived my own history of drunken self-abuse, plus the delight of growing up an ‘abomination unto the face of the Lord,’ I suppose I have my own bit of suffering to qualify me as deserving to be a credible artist. But I’ve never been one to make much of those ‘wrinkles.’ If I have to produce a history of suffering to get artistic repect I’ll pass on the respect.
When some have found out I have over 35 years clean & sober it comes as a surprise. It’s not something I present in my writing & often seems irrelevant to my relationships with people outside the recovery community. But it is always the one of the factors in my writing. Same with being queer – whether the piece I’m writing even mentions sexuality it is there in the mix.
One of the things I faced, as do many highly creative types, when first getting clean & sober is where does creativity now come from. My sense of self, purpose had become so immeshed in being a drunk that it wasn’t clear who I was.
So over the years I continued to write some but also explored painting, stand-up, dance plus a long stretch in theatre until I finally came back to the core ground of writing. I stepped back into the ‘scene’ at the Renaissance Cafe in January 2000 (or maybe it was 2001) and have kept coming back.
a piece I wrote early in recovery:
“in the groin’s endless coil
a man is tangled”
Dylan Thomas
O Dylan
I remember those
Guided by rockets in pockets days
When my Thomas caterpillar heart
Slowly crawled along
The bottle edge
I knew yours crawled along
I felt the same call
The evaporating sigh
And almost fell
Liquid slippery splendid
Siren pulled tugged
Till I had been
Pulled tugged apart
Dream by illusion
I walked teased
Along the amber edge
The tightrope territory
Between head and heart
Feeling
Feeding
Off its red perfection
I flowed
When I could mirror long enough
I burned
I raced its bullet blue images
Rippling the insistent rage
Of whiskey-tangled youth
The without falling
Within awareness
I was untangled
In a bramble of healing hands coffee grounds
Breathing but not
Angry
I needed a new tangle
When that slippery rage
Consumed itself
Its siren seemed to fuse me
With an angry flowering flame
Without which
I became a blank saint
Blank until I felt
A thorn in the tender loin
The groin’s endless coil
Shoving my heart and head
Kicking screaming around
The bends of wanting getting,
Of beating my clear head
Against the walls
Of my own unfocused expectations
I piously tried
To disregard thorny dreams
In favor of spiritual fantasy
They returned to haunt
To root
Warm just out of reach
Like ghosts of a blossom
Ghosts I accepted as ghosts
That persist in taunting me
With their trite tired
Old romantic fear
That slam-dance pity-party
Tired tried true lament
I know too damn well
Nobody can love me enough
Nobody can love you enough
A bramble barely concealing
that
I want more than enough
I want more than it all
I will always want more
Than there is to have
O Dylan
When I was unlearned
In my childwise
Little nearsighted world
Where books were real
And dreams were innocent
I believed something too pure
For even love to make possible
I still believe today
Not for the comfort it brings
But for the light it spills
Golden glowing with faith
Between my head and the wall
I have a truth
The coil is human
I have a love
The tangle is healing
I have a bramble
The endless is being
I too, am in the process of learning who am I and what will become of my writing without the pain of my past. Great post / perspective.
Great post! I too have suffered with addictions all my life. I think finally I’ve learned to control some things and make the art come first.