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| Addison Parks; The Fly; 2013; oil on canvas; 16" x 20" |
I
When I was younger I never felt this way. At least I don't remember feeling this way. Of course at this point my memory is suspect. It never was before. At least not the way I remember it. My memory was my greatest strength. It was what got me through. Everything.
The way I feel now, everything is different. Everything is like threading the needle. All or nothing. All or nothing at all. It wears on me. And I don't remember it being this way. I remember having lots of options and things being wide open and possibility was like my middle name. Eric "Possibility" Post. It was all really a question of which. Which possibility was most desirable. Which possibility was most fun. Most anything. Most most!
At this point my middle name feels more like "dumb as a," but that is going to change if I am going to get this job. This "post." Because you are going to find out about this, Mr Headmaster, and I would prefer you heard it from me first. It is a long and complicated story, but I believe when you have heard it, you will see it from my point of view. When you have heard it, you will appreciate the truth of it.
The problem is, I am not a writer. I am not even an educated man. I was the kid who when he did show up for school, was always looking out the window. What I do have is a great deal of experience. What I am is a natural born teacher. My writing will be the expression of that. It will happen because of that. No other reason. Except of course to convince you that you could not ask for a better teacher for your program.
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Addison Parks; For Vincent; 2012; oil on linen; 6 x 8" |
By the way, the reason it all ended, the reason it always ends, when I look around, and think someone else should care, someone besides me, and I get the answer I don't want, and I falter, because that is when I falter, that is when it is over. Never falter.
I have no idea what I don't know there. There is some profound truth there. But like knowing love or art when I see it, that is all I get. It is like something large, like a whale, or the sky, I don't really know what it is, but I know it when I see it. That is all I get. I don't even have a name for this thing. I have seen it a few times. I knew and know the moment. I feel it in my core. My soul? It is the black hole, and if it is not despair by another name, despair follows in its wake. Maybe it is really death. Death, or the death of something. It makes me profoundly sad.
But I knew the moment and I knew the depth of it. I was alone. What I wanted, what I cared about, was over. It is like. No, it is when you are face to face with loving someone who doesn't love you back. God knows, I have been on the other side. I have been the person without love that left someone else hanging. It seems like very little when you are that person, when you are on that end. The other end if the telescope. It looks small. But to the person on the other end, it is everything. The whole world. All or nothing. I have been someone else's all or nothing. More than a few times. I know that now. I feel badly about it. I couldn't do it. It wasn't the wouldn't do it that they thought. And that couldn't do it was what happened to me. I wanted something they couldn't give me, they couldn't do. You can wine all you like. Call it names. Call it a broken promise, because you knew the promise was there. And it is gone. It is over.
So the message really is that it had nothing to do with me. It wasn't my fault per se. I didn't falter. It was out of my hands. There was nothing I could have done. That is what it comes down to. When that moment arrives and you know that or believe that. That just may be the definition of falter. Yes.
I have seen two people recently that were artists and gave it up completely. Totally. And this when maybe I was thinking I might give up. I might be like them. Like everybody else maybe. But I will tell you what it was like. It was like meeting an angel who had cut off their wings. Hacked off their wings. There were just stubs there. They were sent to warn me. Or worse, they were lost and trying to take my wings.
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| Addison Parks; Angels&Flowers; 2009; oil on panel; 72 x 24" |
