Am I real?

I know that seems a silly question. Perhaps I should add to it. Clarify a little. I suppose a more precise question would be: Am I just a reflection of the people and circumstances around me at any one time?

When I was in college, taking a creative writing course, surrounded by writers, I wrote so prolifically. When I went to the Creator's Lounge at Further Confusion and others were there, drawing, talking about drawing, passing reference books, I felt such a charge. It was like we were all feeding off each others' creative energy, and increasing it. I drew some really good pictures, and turned them out, one after the other, inside others' sketchbooks. When I'm with my family at gatherings, and those members that I have a problem with are in absence, I start joking like all my family jokes, puns, zingers, telling stories about this or that... When I roleplay, I often find the quality of my roleplay echoing that of those whom I'm roleplaying with, post length and quality rising or falling. And when I'm at my current job, surrounded by bitches, I get bitchy.

Am I just a reflection? Is there any way to be other than a reflection? I suppose everyone does that, to an extent, altering according to those you're surrounded by, and what circumstances you're in. Can it really be avoided? Everyone has to get along somehow. And short of being utterly alone, you can't avoid being affected by people. It's not always a bad thing either, such as with the drawing, or when I was in band and we put in a soul-lifting performance. And I mean that in terms of music and how it makes me feel to play well, and play well in a group of others also talented. I'm a capable enough tenor sax player, nothing special despite my musical family and background, but I never minded that. I enjoy myself, and every once in a while, I slip free of mediocrity, and shine. Isn't that all any musician could want?

This all makes me wonder though, if I was alone, really alone, no computer, no other people, no phone... would there be anything to me? I can't answer that.

It might not be so bad to be a reflection. I've been happy being so. I think the online contacts I have are all that's saved me, really, prodding my creativity into fits and starts, but at least ensuring it continues. For that I'm grateful. I don't really like the person I seem to be becoming, when I look back on all the things I've spewed in past entries on this weblog. I never intended it to be anything like a journal, you know. I set this up so that I could post what changes I made to the site when I worked on it. Funny, I suppose. Cathartic? Again, I'm not sure.

I need to get back into a group of artists. Of writers, of musicians. Then at least I'd be a happy unreality.

Kaz

Spin me a new day.
Make it shine like gold in the morning.
Make it brightly blue in the noon.
Stitch it round with white clouds streaming.
Wrap it up with red at sunset.
Make it cool with blue twilight's coming.
Tie a ribbon all spattered with stars.
Weave me a new blanket of night.

Written Monday, delayed from posting until today.

The sunset yesterday... clouds are always interesting after a storm. Sunsets after one can be particularly beautiful. The problem comes when you can't see more than a glimpse.

I had such a glimpse. Driving to a friends house on Sunday evening, as I topped a small rise just before I would have taken the exit ramp, I looked straight ahead. The irregular line of the mountains was black, but a black tinted brown, tinted a rosy darkness with the light that was remaining. The sky was pale blue, and heavy along one side of it were fat and dark grey clouds, already shed of rain and now waiting to be blown elsewhere. But it was not an abrupt demarkation - when the clouds began, they stuttered along the edge of the mountains, dark against the brightness of the sky. And at one point along the meandering line of nearly equal peaks, they formed a cup. A cradle. A hand. Any and all of these, and the sun was nestled down within it, spilling its last light in radiant gold up the sides of the clouds that cradled it, already past the line of the mountains, lost from direct sight. It was one of those moments you wish you had a camera, and lacking a camera, you stop, and watch it, until every last moment of inspiring beauty is wrung from what you see.

But you can't stop when you're driving on city streets. And you can't pull over when you're on the freeway. And it wouldn't matter if you did, because what you can see from one perfect vantage point is blocked by buildings, by overpasses, by power lines and soundwalls from any other angle, from even a few damn feet away. And the roar of cars is constant, the whine of planes, the distant sounds of construction turning a fallow, green-coated hill into flat brown dirt for another apartment complex.

So I have the memory of that incredible sight for a breath, for a heartbeat... and the next thirty minutes trying fruitlessly to see it again.

That was my day. At least there was the moment of beauty. My month. Well. The good news is, my mother's knee surgery went well. She seems to be recovering just fine. She can walk now, albeit she's having to ease back into it and take pain medication. I'm going to visit her tomorrow. She was working off the clock at her job, and tossing some things into the dumpster out back. Well, in trying to make them fit, she slipped and hurt herself quite badly. She was in a wheelchair half the time, on crutches the other, and in quite a bit of pain. She finally had the surgery though, and it wasn't as serious as they'd feared. So that's a good thing. She'll be fine.

My brother. I haven't talked much about him, but then, lately, I hadn't had anything to bitch about other than work. Sorry about all the bitching, by the way. I know it gets tiresome. Still, I think this is the first job I've had that I truly hate, rather than dislike. Anyway.

My brother is a topic far more convoluted and plain messed up than anyone would enjoy reading about. I love him dearly, and he has his shining virtues, and then he has his utterly fucked up priorities. I have at times in my life stood up in his defense, and had to move out before I killed him myself. Maybe I'll talk more about -that- issue later, because I'm going to see my mom tomorrow. As always, it will likely prove... interesting.

Kaz