Take Another Little Piece of My Heart

Long time no blog, I know. And I have lots of legitimate excuses - a wife, an eight-month old baby, a job that's been sixteen hours a day for the last several months. All of which are good reasons.

But none of which, perhaps, are the main reason.

Those of you who are still occasionally lurking around the fringes of this blog in hopes that I might someday get off my ass and start posting more often might recall that there was a time when I tended less toward irate political commentary and more toward what Derek St. Hubbins referred to in "This Is Spinal Tap" as "Spinal Tap Mark II: Jazz Odyssey": free-form fiction and musing from whatever exotic psychological locale my mind was in at the moment. Some of those posts were so personal that I actually took them down; this is not a totally anonymous blog, and at times I felt too exposed, too open. Which is a weird way for me to feel; historically I have a compulsion to vomit myself forward for perusal like Caligula after a big pasta dinner. I actually feel most free when I'm hanging it all out there for everyone to see, warts and all. Like I said, weird.

But lately I feel... I don't know. Tied up. (And not in a good way.) I could comment seventeen times a day about what is now clearly the worst presidential administration in American history, a collection of religious extremists and thugs who loathe the laws they swore to uphold and the system they pledged to defend. But why? To what end? It changes nothing. I'm all for "being the change I wish to see in the world," but I can't stop those criminals, not one bit. They laugh at people like me. You know, Americans.

And I work so hard... and I love what I do, but I'm just tired. Bone tired, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Maybe it's just new parenthood - and don't get me wrong, I adore my daughter - or maybe it's the job, or maybe it's the state of the world, which I feel utterly powerless to remedy. I know, elections in November, etc., but I'll believe the Democratic Party has really grabbed a piece of the zeitgeist when I see it, thanks. I just don't know that I see the point in caring until then, in getting my hopes up for a renaissance in lucidity on the part of an American electorate that has, to this point, shown very little inclination to pay any attention at all to the systematic dismantling of its soul. I know how that sounds. I've bucked up people like me on countless occasions over the past several years. And now I've slid inexorably into the whirlpool with them, slowly at first, but with a coldly certain acceleration.

Have you ever felt so muddled and full of thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears and loves and hates that you CAN'T create anymore? That art feels inadequate to the task of making sense of it all, or even a decent catharsis? That's how I feel. That's how I've felt for months - years, even. I can't be beautiful or graceful or elegant or raw or passionate or ANYTHING about it all. I feel numbed by the enormity of it, watching the water swirl around me as I sink, making no effort to swim or even call for help. Just going slowly down.

Nothing pretty today. Sorry. Just ugly truth.