Art in an Artless World
I’m depressed. I tried to come up with a better opening for this post than that, but let’s go ahead and lead with truth. I’m really fucking depressed. This has been a year of losses. Both of the tangible kind where you see people you love leave this earth, the spaces they left behind still so filled with grief. And the intangible kind where you see your world crumble, tiny bits of the nice things that used to hold you safe in this ever-spinning world fray, come apart, loosen their grip.
And somehow you’re just supposed to keep going.
I guess that it’s the keep going that’s fucking me up right now. I have a book to write. I have obligations as an adult— most of which suck and I begrudgingly fulfill. I have obligations as a partner— most of which I am more than happy to fulfill. I have obligations as a daughter— most of which I am not happy to fulfill, but that’s a different story. One for the therapist and/or one you can get out of me if you buy me a drink. And to get this back on topic, there’s that book I’m supposed to be writing.
This book is on a topic I love. Music I love. A group of people (Black people, that is) that I love. I got into this work because I wanted to tell stories, and I’ve been so very lucky that time and time again, people have let me tell those stories. But I won’t lie. It’s getting harder to care. I still care about the world, about these really special histories, but most days it feels like pouring a glass of water into the ocean and trying to find your individual droplets. Impossible. Overwhelming. Ultimately pointless.
I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid. My long-time childhood best friend and I would practice our autographs. She was going to be a famous artist. I was going to be a famous writer. We planned on a life of fame and art together. She did it. I did not. I took a lot of twists and turns to get from point A to point B. I gave up on writing for a very long time, only coming back to it when I discovered that whatever little voice there was in me that wanted to reveal itself on the page hadn’t died. It was just quiet for a while.
But that little girl who wanted to write also had some pretty strong beliefs about what writing for a living meant. For her, it meant writing with fire. Leaving pages singed with your words. She thought it meant using the words to change the world.
When I was in my twenties, I went back to school for the millionth time. I took a poetry course with a well-regarded poet who really liked my work. He gave me an award for it, in fact, and read my haiku series and a very cynical and strident poem about religion that would probably make me crawl out of skin with embarrassment were someone to read it now. I walked on stage accepting my award and a lovely gift— a book of poetry by Martín Espada— with an inscription encouraging me to keep writing, yes, but also to keep reading. Read the pages that pens long before me had burned. Fill my mind with their powerful ash, become heady with the scent of their smoke. Keep writing, yes. Keep burning, yes. Let their fires stoke your own. If you are going to be a political* writer, he said, learn about the ones before you. But if I couldn’t do that, what was the point of doing any of it?
I quickly learned that there is no real market for a twenty-something community college dropout’s political musings. There was, however, quite a big market for receptionists, data entry, office managers, and what have you. So I did that instead. I could write a pretty good email, though. I did that for a lot of years. It was fine. My heart was breaking a little every day, but it was fine. The bills (mostly) got paid.
I don’t know the moment when I decided to go back to writing, but I did it. I had softened a bit. I understood that writing could mean poetry and beautiful words coming from the muses, but it could also mean updating the website, or writing product descriptions, or marketing plans. I did that for a while. It was fine. My heart was breaking just a little bit more, but it was fine. The bills were always paid.
When I decided that what I wanted to write about was music, it felt electric. I had a goal, a plan, a direction. It went well. I finished my degree, which meant I was no longer a college dropout (unless you count me dropping out of grad school, which I do not). I got to write about the music I love. The history I love. The people I love. And yes, there was still some room for the political. You don’t, and can’t, write about mid-century Black-American music without including politics. It’s only telling half of the story without it.
And here we are today: an agent, author interviews, one book out in the world, another being (poorly) written, and yet….. I still feel so empty. My words haven’t changed a thing.
I don’t know if a music writer can respond to the times (and let me be clear, I mean me. There are some amazing writers out there who can and do). I don’t have a huge platform. I don’t have a huge voice. Since becoming a professional writer, I have avoiding calling myself an artist. I think writing is art. There’s no way I can read the words of some of my favorite writers and not see art. But the work I do? Yeah. Not art. I am a witness. I am a reflection. I am a listener. And I love being able to do that, to be that. But when I see what the world is right now, what we are expected to keep working through, it’s hard not to feel that it’s not enough.
I can tell you a lot of things about my favorite records. Not just the who and that what of them, but that other thing. The reason that they exist, the reasons why this sound or that sound is the exact right sound for the moment of their creation. The soul of them. The time and place of them. It all matters when you’re telling their stories. But what I can’t tell you is why it matters as everything around us collapses. What I can’t tell you is why you should continue to care about anything that isn’t a complete a total societal change. I can’t tell you why art is worth anything.
But it is.
I wrote this with a plan to be really sad and to make you come away with a sense of sadness, too. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Or at least make them join you. But the more I wrote, the more I thought, the more I understood that it can’t all be for nothing. It can’t. There can’t be these words, this music, the brushstrokes on canvas, the clay sculpted into being, the optimism of a person deciding that the world still needs beauty.
Every day, my phone alarm goes off at noon. It’s a reminder for me to take the pills that keep my brain (mostly) working. But it’s also a reminder that it’s another day that I am still here. It’s another day that I get to be in awe of the people who make art, who still believe in its power, who want us to believe in it too. They are writing with fire, leaving the charred remains of all that was and all that could be. Maybe one day I’ll join them; I’d like to find the part of myself that could.
*”Political” vs. non-political is really just a term of art here. I think all writing is political, just like I think all politics is “identity” politics. We all have an identity, and we all have a point of view, a way of moving through and understanding the world, and a way to express that. A political way of being, if you will.