Oct 05 2008
“Clearly” - An essay
“Clearly”
For as long as I can remember being able to form a thought, my thoughts have always collided together in my head like rush hour traffic on the 405/5 interchange. They would always start out with a clear intent- a solid path, but then it seems that they accelerate out of control and hurl themselves into each other, creating little explosions of creative energy, energy that even at a very young age I felt completely responsible to translate to the world. I felt obligated, even. It was then that I started to realize that I could harness some of these thoughts by penning them out into little composition books that would read “My Journal” on the cover. These journals quickly became filled with experiences and stories about my days, some of these stories were completely fabricated, others transcribed down to the minor detail. I would write about everything in these journals, poetry, events in my life that had happened already, and moments that I dreamt about bringing into life, as well as the moments that I wanted to hide. One entry in my journal at age 16 shows a very different mind at work, a much more cynical mind;
4/19/00
Silent Sinner makes his way
Through what he’s told to be wrong
He tries so hard to fix these mistakes
And pressures his self to be strong
His secrecy has stitches now
As his tongue has slipped one too many times
His connection to the open world
Has been tucked away in his own mind
He struggles still with things ‘so small’
The severity unclear
A tainted love he holds close
Yet hides from the ones he holds dear
He knows his journey has just begun
& his challenges are set
But his horizons are all filled up
With things he knows that he’ll soon regret
As the years went by my collection of these books grew, and I eventually started to get into trouble for writing in them during school hours instead of doing the work that was assigned to me. One such time, has shaped the way that I viewed writing and keeping these journals for the rest of my life, or at least up until now. I was in the 10th grade and taking a Biology class from one of the schools most anal-retentive teachers, if you will. I had by this time skillfully mastered how to hide my journal inside of my text book and write in it while making it look as though I was actually hard at work on the assignment due. I was never interested in any of his assignments because of how bland and uncreative they were so let’s just say that I completed more writing in my journal than I ever did with homework or assignments in that class. I was diligently writing away this day as I had a very large moment of clarity. As I was translating this moment into my journal a big hairy deformed hand (as he had claimed to have been bitten by a rattle snake and two of his fingers were permanently fused together – I suspected some freak scientific accident) reached over my text book and took my journal from me, and as I begged and pleaded with him not to read my latest entry to the entire class aloud, I thought about every time that he had asked me to put away this book and wished that I had listened this one time. Regardless of my pleading, he proceeded to recite my entry as if it were a script and he were on a Broadway stage on opening night, adding his own characterization to it. This characterization was not to my liking and normally I wouldn’t have been so fearful, I may have even found it entertaining to watch this very awkward old teacher try to decipher my thoughts to the class, but this particular entry was very personal to me, this was the day that I had chosen to finally write down on paper that I was gay. A lifetime of thoughts and fears of social persecution and abandonment were all confirmed in one paragraph. It hadn’t even been penned into existence for more than thirty minutes before it was publicly announced to an entire class of my peers. I felt numb. I wanted to throw up, I needed an exit point and there was none. It seemed like hours were passing, but it had only been about 3 minutes. I stood and walked towards the door, and as I left the classroom that day, I felt betrayed by my words. I felt as if this paragraph, this need to write something down, these symbols that I had used to translate my thoughts had turned their back on me. They didn’t serve the purpose they were meant to serve. They were supposed to make me feel stronger, and more confident about what this clear moment meant for my future. Instead it felt as if they had conspired against me.
Just to get my journal back was a huge hassle. I had to set up a meeting with this man and my parents. It was a very uncomfortable meeting and I felt so violated that I told myself that I wouldn’t ever use writing to express myself that way again, or that I would find a more abstract, less vulnerable way to communicate this creative energy that I had found myself feeling so obligated to translate. I searched for another form of expression and at the age of 20 I found myself looking for ‘the exit point’ again. I ended up living in Chicago with a friend for the summer to find myself and attended a dance class at Columbia College and there I found something new. I moved back to Los Angeles immediately and enrolled at my local community college’s dance dept. Movement quickly became my method, and writing became just something that I did when I had to sign my name, make a list or type a personal e-mail. Movement became my moment of clarity.
What scares me is that these clear moments can last several years, or just a split-second. Will there be a moment when dance turns its back on me the way my writing had? Will there be a moment where I feel betrayed and can no longer use this art form to express myself? I don’t know the answers to these questions for sure, but one of the most important laws of nature is that all moments, even the clear ones, must end. Then it’s back to rush hour inside my head, with every idea and thought fighting fiercely for a pathway to take. Striving for a safe arrival to an unknown destination, my thoughts collide together inside my head and I feel obligated to translate them to the world because I’m an artist and that’s what we do. We form these thoughts into moments that can make you become more aware of your own thoughts and senses. Moments that may hit you like a ton of bricks, or leave the sweet taste of enlightenment on your lips. I’m your fucking moment of clarity. My little explosions of creative energy are given a vocabulary of movement and gesture, these symbols are used like words to form sentences in space and time and translate ideas from one mind to another. With this vocabulary a deeper message is formed and presented to an audience and if that message was clear enough, a moment of clarity has been gifted to them.
