Land of Earl Gray

Journal Entry 1- Land of Earl Gray

 

     My dream is to live in a fancy New York apartment, drinking in words as I sit with my legs elegantly crossed in my studio . . . a woman of fashion. In my right hand will rest in a dainty position an elegant tea-cup, which I shall place on a saucer every now and then between sips. Earl-gray tea. That sounds like some kind of tea I might have a penchant for when I am living out this grand life. The spinning thoughts of the imagination I’ll weave upon my notebook, with my pen, all day, inspired by my surroundings. It might be art-deco or . . . who knows what. Some environment with patterns and texture, vivid color that I truly find inspirational.

     Here is where I will have found my voice. My mother won’t be running up and down the stairs, forcing her hard voice upon my eardrums with the pressure a musician applies to a drum, with the sticks that push the sound out. The applied force in her estimation, requires some, well, reaction. A reaction to her insistence that I stop in my interpretive creative thread that I am weaving like the magic Charlotte the spider weaves for Wilbur. Like a drummer beats out his stretch of drum-skin to get an expected reaction, my mother always expects to punch in a certain amount of nagging so that she can receive a useful product in result of her efforts. A + B = C. That is so common. No one really fits into that equation. If the world expects us to walk within an equation, then perhaps I should put out my two-cents about this. I really don’t understand this- figuring, and the dynamics which create math, but- I must say, that truly I think the different levels of planes in math alone imply that many gravitational forces compose existence. Therefore, uniformity becomes obsolete with people. No one that I know will assume to receive a reaction from me. This is scientifically proven, my dear mother. Throw standardization out the window.

     We are treading lines of gray.

     The drumsticks beat in a rhythmical pattern dotted with the abnormal heart-murmur coming out of the individual spirit beating on the drum. As the abnormal off-note occasionally attracts scorn and- truly an unfathomable effect, gathered from the audience which seems to work directly against the law of nature, the law of math, it becomes clear that the wildly rash whisper of boldness will be at some point suppressed. The audience of the drummer does not appreciate the creative spark his own, vivid irregularity exhibits, feeling it to be too blindingly, brightly different. The people in the audience throw up their hands to shield them from the strangeness he tosses over the whole band.

     I have a heart murmur that I am told is irregular.

     I am also told that I do not see things black and white . . .

     Is this bad? My writings that I’ve bled for hold a stain, according to my professors, of my heartbeat’s irregularity. They say it is an irregularity , which, in my perspective, seems to be similar in their minds to an irregular beat of a drum. I was always told that creativeness was one of the most marvelous forms of work in the land of artistic endeavors, one which I should strive for, taking pride in the results. Not anymore. My work lacks structure, and discipline. It lacks a regular form. I am walking, they tell me, on shades of gray. I need to see things their way.

     In my dream, I sit idly in a New York apartment drinking Earl-Gray tea. What other type of tea can I drink when I am a successful writer? I wonder if my dream is meant to be a sorely shattered illusion. For after all, if my creative spark doesn’t make people dance to a regular beat . . . I wonder what I should do if that’s the case. Where will I take myself?

     Now I hear my mother calling me again. I am scribbling upon this parchment in lines that zig-zag and spread crazily across my paper. I shake my head. Too wild. I better get up and do some chores. Give my mother the measured reaction of obedience that she expects. ‘Stop the creativity,’ she says. It won’t make you any money. I’m sighing. I must conform to structure. Listen to what my instructors say. Learn the organized pattern to harness my work.

     As my pen slowly meanders to a halt in its fashion that no one will appreciate, my heart feels weighted with an anchor. I slowly arise from my chair, dragging as my pen, while my heart becomes slowly dragged to the bottom by this anchor . . . even though- I don’t know where it will go. No place exists in our society for a heart that beats irregularly, so my sad heart has nowhere to hide its shame. My entire body sags. I might as well vanish into oblivion beneath the floor, and join the unfortunates in the Underworld. But that story too was written long ago . . . I and the unfortunates have been written out of the books by structure and conformity. There’s no place here for fantasy, no place for me . . . all because I am living in this land of Earl Gray.