Time is like an ice cube. The harder you try to hang onto it, the faster it melts away (though at least then you can drink the memory :-)). I've always been impatient with time. Even before I knew what to do with it, I couldn't stand to waste a moment. But now I know how to capture it. First, you must savor every experience with your full senses, and then you add meaning from your mind, passion from your heart, and poetry from your soul. Then you pop it in a bottle and put a cork in it. The label on the bottle reads UNFORGETTABLE. Time in a bottle. You should keep at least a sixpack with you at all times, and whenever you feel the need, you just binge drink the memories.
So far this summer's memories include worshiping sunsets from a canoe in a still pond by my house, a bright-eyed little boy sneaking a crumpled dollar into my sax case while I played, breathing greenness in a shimmering forest, uncountable scintillating conversations, scarfing down a half-gallon of melted Coffee Blast ice cream in 122° heat index halfway through roller skiing, mucho music & poetry, magical hours with my adoptive family Norby Nation, swimming in a nameless lake at night, pain and bittersweet relief upon learning that someone I met when I spoke in the House of Literature in Norway survived the Utoya massacre, biking in the rain, laughing in the wind…
And did I mention love? I love brave love. Love given without motive, without quid pro quo or narcissism, romantic and idealistic. It is rare, and even more rarely is it sustained. But if you are one of the lucky ones who have known its season, you also know that – like the crocodile pursuing Capt. Hook – you can do with no less thereafter. And there are ways to make it lasting if you are in control of your mind and your feelings. It is the one thing I think I'm good at. And the proof of that is that you can only give it. Did you think I meant receiving it? That is unlikely – at least at the same time that you are giving it. A double lightning strike is almost impossible. When I wrote, if you are one of the lucky ones who have known its season…you can do with no less thereafter, I meant GIVING it. Like I said, brave love. If you understand that, go find a storm.
Starting something different over on StorytellersUnplugged this month. My August column [ http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2011/08/15/thomas-sullivan-panning-gold-freedom-the-great-shopping-cart-fiasco/ ] addresses a few of the many interesting questions I get. If you'd like to have something answered in a future column, just e-mail me at mn333mn@earthLink.net . I won't use your name. Here's a sample:
Q. [Ranchi, India] You seem so free and full of energy in your Sullygrams. How does one achieve that? Were you always like that or did success just give you the luxury?
A. Mmmm, how to make the complex answer as simple as possible? Lemme take on the energy part first. Because, aside from the genetics (all my family enjoy very active longevity), I believe that energy is a direct consequence of freedom. You can't reach your maximum output if you aren't enthused, and you can't be enthused if you're living repressed, compromised, hypocritically or under some other kind of falseness. Writers especially need to be free. I'm not talking about the clichéd image of a bohemian artist, but a certain amount of nonconformity is obviously a part of creativity, and that means escaping the soul-crushing falseness I just described. And, yes, as far back as I can remember I've always rebelled against that kind of pressure. As I grew up, it became more of a conscious thing, I suppose, because many people yearn for that freedom but end up trapped in very unsatisfying lives. They try to fake their own fulfillment, taking to heart the expectations of friends, relatives, relationships, careers and society as they attempt to will themselves into roles that smother their most basic freedoms to think, feel, dream and just generally interact with the emotional, intellectual and psychological fullness of who they really are. For me, living a life of quiet desperation out of the misguided belief that it serves a greater good is (and was for a major chunk of my life) just tragically absurd. It never serves the greater good to let your life be wasted, and it isn’t noble. At best, it patronizes those you are fooling and is an affront to whatever created you. That said, I don't condemn anyone for living under any kind of yoke if that's how they spell S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y. In fact, anyone who thinks they're not living a lie at least some of the time is living at least that much of a lie all of the time. Do I ever find myself trapped in a situation where I don't want to crash someone else's expectations at the same time that I need to carve out freedom for myself? Sure. But I will not let myself be bullied by fear and guilt. It's so easy to get the guilt backwards – letting others shrink-wrap us, stunting that intellectual and emotional fullness I mentioned above. Isn't it strange that so many of us feel guilty when we refuse to live DISHONESTLY? How wrong is that? But even that kind of usurpation can't keep you from at least visiting freedom every day. It can be a place, a relationship, an outlet, a private communication, or – ideally – all of the above. My parents had exactly that – all of the above – so I know freedom can be shared. But if I had not grown up with that model, I’d probably tell you it's impossible to be so mutually focused with someone else. I do not have that in my life, though I know that I was bred to it. Like a one-owner dog, my loyalties are single-minded and never-ending. A few years ago someone made me understand that about myself – that I need a substitute for what my parents had that I do not have, i.e. the all of the above. That, it seems to me, is the spark I must nurture daily, even if by myself or in pieces with others. Call it romantic idealism, really. If I lose the inspiration of something perfect and magical in my life, I lose my freedom.
Photos below include a couple of mystic nights at Elm Creek, a shot of the Golden Meadow, an overlook, a photo from a 10-meter platform that goes with my column this month at SU (link above), and a pair of Doc Foto’s picture commentaries. Doc (Mark Manrique) thinks I look good in a mask. Actually he thinks I look good in a hood. Well, to be totally honest, he thinks I look good in a bag weighted with some bricks on the bottom of the Detroit River off Belle Isle where we used to workout! I’ll go with the mask…
Hope your summer is filled with magic from your deepest dreams and your most sacred sanctuaries.
Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
www.thomassullivanauthor.com
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