WHAT I SEE.
I was checking in with a friend yesterday who commented that he had read the post I wrote the other day about D'Lo, Mississippi. His comments being that it was "cool". I take that as a big compliment. I responded that I have been trying to make an effort to not be as "one note". What I mean is that I have been trying to write and not just spout off about how I'm feeling every day. He asked if I was trying to be more observational versus introspective. I said I guessed so. Like everything, it's not that simple.
When I was in college I hated Widespread Panic. Well, kinda. There was a period in the summer of 1995 in Austin, TX where I listened to Space Wrangler a little too much, but still made sure I funneled a lot of energy into hating them and most other hippie band s of the times.
It's not that I didn't think they were good musicians or that some of their songs that checked in under 6 mins were catchy, no, as I look back on my disdain of most of the hippie bands of that day, they came off, like some of my posts, as one note. They all sounded the same. They all went on too long.
This is what I have been aware of with my writing of late. Everything sounds a lot alike and goes on too long.
To be a good writer, I've got to push out and beyond. I've got to tell you more about what I see as opposed to just what I feel. Sure, smoke enough pot and you can sit through Widespread Panic, but really, we can all agree that once the THC is removed, all that's left is a 50 year old doing the chicken wing.
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This change of focus caught me off guard in a way, because despite my declarations of being someone who notices things, I realized I don't really notice a whole lot. Living sunglassed under the bill of a trucker hat with earbuds in is a specific way of living. It's inward focused, and you can miss most everything this way. It allows you to look. It doesn't promote seeing.
Take a few moments today. Walking around, sitting in your office, driving to work, and stop. Reset and focus outward. What do you see? Could you describe it if the police asked for an eyewitness account (the least accurate of accounts a lot of times). Would you recall anything at 5 p.m. on the way home from work?
I do this thing sometimes while driving where I purposefully try and scan my focus out and see my surroundings and the streets I'm driving on like someone else from another city might. It's like trying to forcefully erase your familiarity with a space and see it for the first time. New. Different.
What I see a lot of times is what I see everywhere. A Hobby Lobby, a Walmart, the familiar fast food signs. At first glance it's as unremarkable as any-town USA and is at once disheartening. Sometimes you see charm. Sometimes. Most times. You do not.
Not to be discouraged, I keep driving and keep trying to see. How would I perceive it if I'd never been. Would I see through the Panda Express and notice the homeless? Could I look further and look into their eyes? Would they look any different from say "Houston Homeless"? Or would I look past and see further. A crow. Eating trash in a parking lot. Black with a purple sheen? Filthy, as I perceive all birds to be.
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The larger question is, is this what I want to write about? Without sounding terribly cocky, I'm at the least slightly above average at this. What would make me stellar? The best? Do I even need to be that? Do I even want that?
With a glance the observation flips back to introspection. And back again.
Snip. A thin blonde woman in a crop top and tight jeans walking down a service road carrying a milk crate, a scene that confuses until you realize it's the street with the opioid clinic. A bombed out Quality Inn, evoking anything but a lack thereof. A Waffle House, a Dollar Tree.
Snap. On the day of your perceived lowest of lows, you wonder, could that feeling approach what it must be like to walk a day in that blonde's shoes? Her hollow eyes scanning her surroundings, the ghost of beauty and promise lurking behind, just shallow enough that you can see it but deep enough to know in an instant that it's never to return.
Snip. The mundane of the interstate, of exits and on ramps. Sections of it adopted by Kiwanis clubs, a foster parent in name only. Out focus again and this section of concrete like all outskirts of town, cracked, neglected, unkempt.
Snip. Snap. Snip.
Back and forth. Back and to the left. Into. Outro. Observer. Catalog. Questions. Decisions.
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This is just a drive around this morning with stops to record and I'm back mostly where I started.
I don't yet need to decide what it needs to be as the words seem to dictate to me what I need to see. What I need to look at. I can be satisfied that I can make it one note or two, or many if I want.
As much as I state aloud that I am black and white, I know that I am also grey. Thick with thought and observations. Misty with emotions as I absorb the things around me. Cloudy like the dark days when they come. Wispy and light like the off mornings when wind and fog exist at the same time. Interesting and confusing.
It's mornings like these that I put on Widespread for a moment of a song, and hate them like I used to, reassured that just as some things change.
Things remain the same.
#hugsandhi5s
