Bohemiana. So here I am, halfway through! It's taken me slightly over a year to write 50 posts - a little less than one a week - in my completely arbitrary and naive goal of writing 100 posts. The problem isn't coming up with topics - I still have many reasons to love Peekskill - it's sitting down and actually writing it. No matter how many resolutions I make to write a blog every day, obviously my natural pace is what actually comes out. (Although I do write something every day...) And after a year, the bloom is off the rose, but only very very slightly.
A friend likes to use the term Bliss Ninny, referring to those annoying, follow-your-bliss, head-in-the-sand folks for whom everything is always WONDERFUL! The glass is never half-empty because it's always completely full. They could be sitting in the still-warm ashes of their burned-down home, smiling and talking about the opportunity for new possibilities. I guess, if genuine, that's the ultimate spiritual evolution. But there's a difference between high-level spirituality and running away from one's problems.
I've been accused of having a Bliss Ninny Blog. Yes, I focus on the positive. But I've never ever said that Peekskill was perfect. Far from it. But there seem to be plenty of people who love to complain about what they see as negative. And I could just as easily write a counter blog about things I don't love. (But it would be shorter...)
No place is perfect. Perfect is boring, and I'm never bored in Peekskill. Intelligent people reading my blog will read between the lines and realize that there's a tremendous amount of stuff that I do not write about.
I live in the middle of a vibrant arts community, and anyone in the arts knows that the phrase "vibrant arts community" is synonymous with "drama." The hundred-or-so artists who live in Peekskill, within a few square blocks of each other, range widely in age, ethnicity, artistic modality, prosperity/success, talent/ability and emotional maturity. We're a big, somewhat dysfunctional family (mostly emphasizing the fun in dysfunctional).
I'm glad I arrived at a more mature phase in my life. When I was younger, I would've gotten caught up in the drama, but I saw and did that years ago. Now I'm the shoulder to cry on and the it-goes-no-further ear to unburden upon. But I don't, and never will, write about the gossip, feuds, affairs, meltdowns, jealousies and struggles with addiction--the recently-departed artist tortured with mental illness and those who are struggling to stay here despite being down to their last dime. Because, above all the drama, we are a community, and when push comes to shove, we stick together. I've never felt so supported in my life.
I feel like I'm living La Boheme. (If you don't know opera, it's the old version of Rent.) It's incredibly rich, and it's the drama balancing the art that makes it so. It's the imperfections that transform it from black & white to living color. And I love it.
