January 11, 2016 by Amy
Steinbeck and Bowie
I’ve been busy and it was the holidays and I had to shop and wrap presents and set up the tree and put out decorations and clean the house for a big party and guests and have fun with the big party and guests and then clean the house after the big party and guests and that’s why I haven’t written. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Now, do you want to know the real reason?
Steinbeck. John Freaking Steinbeck.
A friend and I had a discussion about books over the holidays; he had recently re-read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and found himself surprisingly unimpressed. We talked about how reading literature when you’re young is so different than reading it once you’ve got some life experience tallied up. Your insights are deeper, and it takes much more to impress, when you have the filter of age to look through. The conversation segued into a discussion of revisiting Hemingway and Faulkner, upon which I recommended The Old Man and the Sea, and my friend admitted that he had just started reading Steinbeck’s East of Eden and so it would be awhile before he could get to Hemingway.
Oh, hey, that sounds like fun, I exclaimed. And that night, before I could forget, I downloaded East of Eden to my Kindle. A few days later, I started reading.
It was shortly thereafter that I determined that Steinbeck is a penmonkey of the highest order, a word wrangler like no other, a story crafter and a plot twister and a scene setter almost beyond comprehension and that I, lowly I, would never be able to craft even one sentence half as beautiful as so many of his. So I didn’t start writing again, even after the holidays slowed to a manageable pace.
Freaking Steinbeck.
I now want to go back and re-read The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, because I know that I didn’t appreciate his talent when I read them all those years ago as a worldly, literate, brilliant egomaniac college student with a nanosecond of life experience to inform my reading. But I also know that if I keep reading Steinbeck (that jerk) I will never write again.
It’s intimidating right now, to think that I’m trying to write something worthy and worthwhile and that will make a difference to someone, knowing that Steinbeck did it over and over and over again. Distance, as with pain both emotional and physical, is the antidote. I need to finish the book and get a little distance. Unfortunately, it’s about a million pages long and is taking much longer than anticipated. And tonight I have to break off East of Eden to finish reading Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy as that is the book we are discussing at tomorrow night’s book club meeting and I’m all about being prepared, especially for this one as I’m a huge Jenny Lawson fan and I pushed her book on all my unsuspecting book club friends.
I had to write today, though, intimidated or not, because David Bowie died. I’m not the world’s biggest Bowie fan. I like some of his art, while other works (and looks) freak me out a bit. I remember being mesmerized, and slightly terrified, by his androgyny when I was younger. Under Pressure, on which he collaborated with Queen, is one of the best songs ever written/produced, despite Vanilla Ice’s attempt to desecrate it with his remake. (It saddens me today when younglings hear that first riff and say, “Oh, it’s Vanilla Ice!” instead of “Oh, it’s Queen and David Bowie!” Makes me want to rip their hearts still beating from their chests, hand the hearts over to their parents, and say, “You failed at raising knowledgeable members of society.”) (No offense, Vanilla.)
The death of David Bowie moves me not so much as a fan but as a fellow artist. No, I’m not comparing my art – photography and writing – to Mr. Bowie’s. We are clearly leagues apart. What I’m comparing is our shared interest in continually creating something. The man’s output is astounding, and he was creating and forming and making right up until he died, leaving behind a legacy for millions to appreciate, adore, pick apart, and ponder. He didn’t really care what his fans or the music industry expected based on what was popular at the time or even based on what he himself had already produced. He didn’t let the fear of perfection hold him back. He just created, for what appears to be the sheer joy of creating. No one ever defined David Bowie, because they couldn’t. He was indefinable. No one pinpointed with laser accuracy his style or even his motivations, other than that he was truly an artist. He wasn’t limited by expectations, which is amazing because that’s pretty much how all the rest of us mortals limit ourselves daily.
So today, I am determined to be a little more Bowie, a little less Steinbeck. I’ll stretch and reach and maybe defy expectations, even if it’s only my own expectations that are defied. I will write, and I will write for me. Not for someone else, not by someone else’s definition. I’ll create, just for the sheer joy of creating.
A little more Bowie.
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