SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue Two - Journal - Page 15
SINE QUA NON
machinations, it is unlikely my eforts will ever be known globally.
|ere is a better part. And that is the aspect of my relationship with my industry where
I have carved for myself a voice, a brand. It is unique. It has legs. Even in spite of the many
closed doors. And it is here that my penchant for stubbornness and hardheadedness actually
works for me. Doing it on my terms is the surest way to sleep soundly at night, let9s just start
there. And that is no small aspiration, keeping a strong grasp on my identity and my legacy
being one I9ll never have to disclaim.
Opportunities have passed me by. Many never ofered. But my voice as a writer (and,
once upon a time, as a solidly employed vocalist) is strong and immovable. It is oak. And
I am learning to let go of regrets. At times it9s a rancid lesson, full of painful and annoying
revelations. Because what I do know about myself is that I always seem to take four steps
when two would do the job. |ere is just a make-it-happen gene I seem to be missing.
I also can9t help thinking that if I9d managed to master the chops of working the system,
I9d be a very diferent artist for sure, and I9m sort of partial to the one I9ve cultivated. It
helps that I believe in the energetic world, where out beyond conventional ideas of time and
space, what we create creates impact. It is pure energy. Every poem I pen. Every song I sing.
Every bathroom wall I muralize. It is received, and it fulolls its mission. Our eforts and our
contributions, and even our sometime inability to make things happen, will render whatever
they render. And whatever that is, the exaltation or the excoriation, is simply a part of our
story. And that is not only perfectly all right—it9s the very thing that shapes us.
A friend once asked me why my novels always seem to be about death and tortured
souls. I pursed a smile, because she asked in a manner that betrayed her genuine concern for
what she feared was a tendency to court nightmares. I tried to assure her I wasn9t having a
mental break played out publicly on the page, nor did I ond irresistible fashion in a kind of
Bleak Chic. I ofered that the way I would describe my novels is that they9re about people
who are broken, and that I tend to choose that kind of story because the damaged nature of
humanity is where the truth of the human condition lies. At the same time, I also discover
great beauty in that examining; so that, as a writer, mine is as much the agenda to reveal said
great beauty as it is to expose the maggots beneath the ground.
What I didn9t necessarily try to explain to my friend was that writing for me began as
meditation and medication. Long before moving toward writing books or even considering it
as a career, it9s just what I did. To stay in check. To stay straight. I would write and chronicle
and document and work out knots. And I have done this for as long as I can remember,
tapping the unconscious well, as Jung and Campbell urge, and going to that place where
cave spiders dwell, taking darkness on.1 |e
