the first psychic i visited, gloria saches, said, "Everything speeded up. We're living six lifetimes in one." that certainly seems true for me and not very comfortable. the passions have come and gone. theater possessed me at least three times: when i was a child, dressing up in a toga, and giving speeches to kids on the block. later, at 18, determined to become a famous playwright, directing plays, doing a bit of acting. this went on for the longest time.
early thirties and i pushed it to the limit, working at uc santa cruz. unfortunately, by the end of the decade, disappoints in love undermined my forward drive. i retreated into writing poetry. one more theater period emerged in the 1990's, ten years of production, minor victories, finally satisfied i'd learned to direct and how to write a play.
again, circumstances changed. the theater changed hands. i switched to photography, taking up the art i'd abandoned at sixteen. fifteen years of digital snaps, theater, dance, community events, stacking up quite a pile. let's google my name and see what's there:
http://www.pbase.com/wwp/ hmm, 35,000 pictures. those saved from taking approximately a million a year.
alas, i ran to the end of that, selling off all the fancy equipment. i turned to the iphone and have been perfectly happy with it, snapping less and less, posting a few like a diary on facebook. francis bacon said his paintings, 'like the slime of a snail crawling across a canvas." there is a point when i ask myself, "so what?" i like having a record, yet does it add up to anything?
other lives have been: music, taking singing lessons, writing a few songs. this too depended on a social environment, lookout friends driving for hours to eat corn on the cob. and this community dissolved, as each went their separate way. or travelling, forty countries collected, memories choice and sublime, lonely and bereft. all this mixed up with romances flickering out like fireflies.
and the lifetime above in the photograph, a puppet-show with a partner, not looking particularly unhappy, yet if i include the expressions of the puppets, they do sum up a number of lifetimes. maybe it's true, a man lives by fits and starts, while a woman inhabits more of a flow. for most people i feel it's merely a matter of keeping very busy while life passes unnoticed. don't ask too many questions. as sachel paige said, "Don't look back. Someone may be catching up with you."
i like this picture. that was a joyful life for me.
