If I were going to write a new book, and we all know I might just do that, I think I would call it The Impossible World of J. Edgar Landry.
In that book, I would write about a species of beings who dream and inspire to be one thing, but who work and scurry like tortured wombats to be something else.
These poor tortured beings would know what love was, but would rarely find it.
They would believe in the awe inspiring power of music, but would rarely sing aloud (too afraid of being overheard and mocked).
They would wish for everyone to hug them and love them and call them friend, but like me, the almost author of this wobbly, half-balanced tale, they would wear headphones in public and drive around with their night blinders on even during the day.
But every now and then J. Edgar Landry, the two-legged hero in this three-legged tale, would remember, or would be struck by an avalanche of SEE ME HEAR ME REMEMBER ME DUST, and then he would rip off all his clothes and run gleefully smiling through the nearest cold-water stream, and when the cool soothing touch of beloved Mother Earth tickled his toes he would remember:
I am alive and in control and can be anything and feel anything and think anything I want, so….
I choose to be a laughing, singing, wobbly, tumbling fool.
Continue Reading To Post A Comment
I have made things by hand, by camera, by word, by song, by piano, and I say all of that to celebrate, to validate a life I have fought for and earned.
And as I get close to completing and sharing a novel that will have taken me 25 years to finally complete, it is hard for me to express in words (yes irony, I hear you) how much pleasure that gives me.
Here is why.
I always knew that this book might be too big for me to write, and it was, and then it was again, and then it finally became just the right size for the Philip Deal now to finish what the J. Philip Deal then had started, two Philip friends sharing my body at different ages with different levels of experience,
now blended,
pooled.
My novel has a cooler title now, its third – Ohm: A Novel of Resistance – and it has a mysterious black and red cover that I cannot wait to hold, and a Chapter X with a character named Philip, and only those pages remaining that need to be there. Nothing extra. Nothing less.
The life of an artist is entirely satisfying even when it burns like red hot coals. The truth is that the only real pain in my artistic life has been my being forced to retreat from it for longer than I am comfortable,
like a fish on legs moving from pond to pond to evolve.
But all of that is okay, because my life has become a work of art,
and is just like yours that way.
There are times when life is so beautiful that I wonder how I am ever anything but eternally overwhelmed with joy.
And strangely, oddly, in a way that I cannot explain, and don’t really care to, it has been death, my first real acknowledgement that it is coming, that has given me the final piece of permission I need to make any art I ever want to make.
I will die, I see, which means that
nothing will matter when I do,
so I might as well be brave enough to create
exactly the way I want to.
And because I have been practicing creating for my entire adult life I am well prepared to receive this epiphany. It appears I have won the only lottery that matters.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF.
Continue Reading To Post A Comment
The Bright Red Book of Happiness shows you how to make yourself happy and stay that way. You’ll also discover the joy of finding green marbles. While reading, you will remember that you already have every tool you need to be happy.
This book will make you laugh, you might cry, and if you bring an open mind you will definitely be inspired. You can read The Bright Red Book of Happiness in one uplifting day, but you will probably want to read parts of it over and over again. Life is funny that way – repeatable.
You can buy this book now on Amazon.com
Continue Reading To Post A Comment