I have a healthy love for the dramatic…for larger-than-life moments, for the smells-and-bells of religious rituals, for intimate secrets. They can play out on stages large and small, in novels and chapbooks and blogs and photos. (I have less patience for real-life drama, as it’s never as tidily contained as in the pages of a book, or of the opera’s three-acts-two-intermission structure.)
My mother was my gateway to this world – a creative English teacher who would read aloud in thirteen differently-pitched-and-accented-voices, and who fostered a love of reading in her kids with the brilliant idea to censor television programs but not books. (I read every Stephen King book he had written up to the late 80’s. To this day I cannot make it the whole way through a suspenseful movie, and duck and cover as soon as those pesky violins begin.) I love a good story, but I love equally a mediocre story told with flair and verve.
(If you tell my mother that the reason I like to hang with artists is because of her, she’ll be equal parts offended and flattered, depending on the day. Make sure you have your exit paths mapped before you talk, is all I’m saying…)
So, the fact that I’ve found myself in a world rife with drama on all levels? (The High-Horse of Artistry! The Heart-Rending Budget Cuts! The Temperamental Diva/Divo! The Entry-Level Wage Slaves!) Not at all surprising, really. And I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has found my way here due to a love of tall tales and a willingness to suspend disbelief.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read Anaïs Nin’s writings, but Maria Popova reminds me that she was a proponent of excess.
Excess. Indeed.
To quote Mae West, another iconic proponent of excess, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” Hoping that your Monday is excessively fantastic, dear readers.
Indirect Routes 