the ugly earring

I love depressed people almost more than I love hermits. But, I’m talking about the novella-style, deeply-imbedded depressed person and not the modern day consumer who’s been disappointed by life and as a result buys a big house, gets a boob job, drives a Hummer or reaches for the cell phone when he/she is alone. The ones I adore tiptoe on a tightrope strung between death and reality. If you tap their shoulder they’ll tell you first about the gray clouds, then about the death of a sailor and finally the beauty of a rainy day walking on an abandoned beach.These days such a person is harder to come by. The ones I knew have long ago traded their poetry books and black fingernail polish for button downs and baby strollers. While I was visiting Phoenix this past weekend, I drove past the Willow House coffeehouse. Nearly 10 years ago, this was the place where I unleashed my youthful gloom, where I recited poems and met friends who were also pursuing writing and owned thrift store copies of Ginsberg and Kerouac. From the ages of 17 to 21, I was infatuated with poetry, the Beat Generation and long haired hippy boys in Birkenstocks. As I passed the Willow House that afternoon, I saw myself mirrored in the old coffeehouse with its faded bohemian décor and its dilapidated posture. The owners had stopped nurturing its green grass and wild ivy.

What once stood as a place of endless possibility, the place where I had planted so many daydreams, was now dry-rotting and peeling. Is this really what happened to all the dreams I had when I was younger? I so wanted to be a poet and to open the world up as the Beats had opened my eyes. I lusted after Henry K. and the idea of being his Asian-White/half-breed version of Mardou from The Subterraneans. What happened to that girl? And, where did all the other love-betrayed, bleeding-heart poets disappear to?

At some point, I do realize, we all grow up. Even the most tortured souls realize that life isn’t one big disappointment. Or, they just get tired of spending all their time alone. They too fall in love, clean up and run into their old high school friends at the supermarket. But what ideas from our youth stick to the very being of who we are? Why do some carry their disappointments like stones in jean pockets while others pin accomplishments to their lapels instead? How does one decide what memories to carry and which ones to let go?

I guess it’s different for everyone. Much like the way one person can sacrifice everything for his/her ideas while another will compromise his/her beliefs in order to put food on the table and lead an independent, self-sufficient life. I see myself in that latter; yet, there are ideas that continue to exist from when I was younger. Perhaps, these are the sentiments that most define me–the things that make me the happiest. For example, I have a fondness for patchouli; I still love the hippy boys; the idea of contributing to society; and yes, one day putting enough words together to publish a novel–even though making that happen becomes more and more difficult as real life piles up.

Perhaps it was after this quote that I started thinking about what makes a person sacrifice everything for his/her art and why another person can let many of her passionate, youthful ideas float off into the horizon. It made me feel a little bit better.

“Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it inside of your mind. In life knowledge of poisons is essential. I’ve told you nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.” —Janet Fitch