One April Morning

Ben Lee is one of my favourite musicians-songwriters-poets-philosophers (Awake is the New Sleep shifted my way of seeing at the age of 15) so I was excited to learn that his new album Ayahuasca is being released – and that 100% of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

Ben was a guest on The Project the other night and he said something I thought was quite profound. Comparing his happy space to Adele's angst, Carrie Bickmore asked him, "Is being happy a good space to be in to write?", to which he replied:

"I think there are different kinds of music. I think there's music that comes from human emotion and psychic angst and all that and I think for that you need to be suffering.

I'm more interested in music that I believe already exists in the collective unconscious and I'm trying to relax and just grab it so I need to be happy for that."

Ben provides an answer to a question that has been plaguing me for a long while. Is it worth seeking both a "happy" life and an artistic one? Or are the two mutually exclusive?

Is it possible to write deeply and beautifully from a place of contentment?

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things. 

— Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid

I was at a funeral last month.

It was my uncle's. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer three years ago. But – stoically, courageously, gracefully – he didn't let his diagnosis define him, or the way he lived the rest of his shortened life.

He travelled. He joked. He showed up; to his brother-in-law's wedding, his daughter's graduation, my engagement party, his football club meetings, dinner parties, birthdays, award ceremonies. He sent his daughter off to New York, his son to the army. He lived adventures, he touched people's lives with his presence. And, by example, he inspired others to do so too.

His sister asked him, on his deathbed, for his last words of wisdom. He didn't have to think long or hard about it; it was very clear to him. Touched by his wife's care and devotion in his sickness, he told her simply: Love is the most important thing. Love is everything. In the end, love is all there is; it's all that really matters. 

it’s not my death that

worries me, it’s my wife

left with this

pile of

nothing.

I want to

let her know

though

that all the nights

sleeping

beside her

even the useless

arguments

were things

ever splendid

and the hard

words

I ever feared to

say

can now be

said:

I love

you.

— Charles Bukowski, Confession

It is impossible to describe just how much I love him, but I can tell you exactly why I do. First and foremost, his love is unconditional. He loves me no matter what. If I am ignoring him, trying to write or study, or I have just shouted at him for leaving a mess, he still loves me. If my hair is frizzy and I am not wearing any makeup, he still loves me. If I have left him alone all day to fend for himself, he still loves me. What's more, his love is not expressed in words (obviously), but gestures. He will curl up beside me. Follow me from room to room. Greet me at the door with his tail wagging, squeaking with excitement. Lay behind me on the couch with his head resting on my shoulder. Come between my fiance and me whenever we kiss to remind us that he exists and deserves every ounce of our attention, every minute of every day. 

He reminds me that, as bell hooks says, love is not a feeling. It is an action. 

Maria Popova of Brain Pickings recently featured The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs and quoted Adam Gopnik's piece "Dog Story", which got to the heart of man's relationship with dogs:

 Integrity, even grouchy growling integrity, in a world that doesn’t value it; nobility in a time that doesn’t want it ... 
Nothing is less necessary than a pet dog, or more needed.
 ... a dog’s life is spent, as a man’s life should be, doing pointless things that have the solemnity of inner purpose.

Well, Mr Bukowski, this poem is gift enough for me. Thank you, maestro.

You remind me what truly great writing looks and sounds and reads like; that a great life is not necessarily, and is often far from, fancy or beautiful; that time is is not wasted, it is lived; and that the most significant, lasting and tumultuous relationship you can experience in life is within yourself, between the varied facets of your soul. 

"Poetry makes possible the deepest kind of personal possession of the world."

– James Dickey (via Brain Pickings)

Some of my favourite parts of Amsterdam were the record stores, which are few and far between here in sunny Perth. One of my steals was My Head is an Animal by Of Monsters & Men. Their song Little Talks has had a lot of airtime on Australian radio but it wasn't until I played it on vinyl that it really touched me. 

Little Talks is a conversation between an elderly woman and her late husband. She lives alone in the house they once shared, comforted by the memory of his presence, unwilling to let him go.