Whining
Monet, Cezanne and Renoir are standing over my shoulder this afternoon, daring me to draw a straight line. Van Gogh joins the chorus, laughing in my ear, whispering, “You compromised away years, letting your gift atrophy. Who do you think you are?” To his left are Ansel Adams and Edward Steichen: “Tools are not the measure of a man.” To his right are a chorus of novelists and poets, led by Walt Whitman and John Steinbeck, and behind them a host of writers, painters, and musicians — artists of every stripe — singing, “We know everything and you are nothing. You’re a speck on the wall, a mere housefly struggling to free himself from the paralyzing adhesive of flypaper. Give up! Give up!”
Decades spent reading to improve my storytelling skills and attune my ear two language, poring over images made by celebrated masters to sharpen my eyes, and listening to a coliseum full of music to learn harmony and syncopation have only served to cow me. Now, in the excelsior box, I find blank spaces terrifying, and I envy those who muster the courage to mark them.
When I was eighteen my ego was enormous. I had no fear of those who had gone before me, believing I was smart enough and gifted enough to join their ranks; some I would equal, others I would best. I wrote bad stories, worse poetry, painted bad pictures, and strummed bad music on a battered guitar I carried everywhere I went. But experience erodes arrogance, and thirty-five years later my fear of ridicule outstrips artistic confidence.
Oh! For the assurance of youth and the tools of late-middle age!
