Sometimes you just gotta go to extremes and then walk out of the wreckage and see if you find your way….
I GOT UP in the dark of a rainy morning today and murdered nine people before leaving to go to breakfast with a group of old men.
It was bloodless. They did not suffer. My weapon of choice was a delete key. They did not see it coming.
They had done nothing wrong. They were not bad people. In fact, I rather liked them. I had, after all, created them. Granted, it was creation born of a spark of passion and energy, spur of the moment, no birth control used.
But, alas for them and for me, I came to realize that having created them I had no idea on earth what to do with them. It was beyond my aging abilities to make sense of them, to really turn them into the living creatures I had hoped they would become.
So, hot cup of coffee at hand, rain falling gently outside, I bid them farewell.
They were created as an escape, a way for me to write, to make points all the while hiding behind them. We live in troubled times and if I were to fully express myself, it could put people I love in an awkward position. That is not paranoia. It is fact. We have, temporarily I hope, taken leave of freedom in our nation and the dark clouds having gathered are descending. Maybe they will lift, maybe they will not.
In the meantime I was looking for ways to let feelings out, to take some sort of creative action since I have neither the means or life span left to play much of an active role in how things play out.
I will miss those I dispatched. In our short time together, I came to know them. I took a moment to go back over the lives I had created. They all had potential. The writing was, well, OK. My old high school English teacher would have stood over me and said something like “It is not that it is bad, Mr. Heiland. It is that it is pretentious.”
She actually said that once about something I had written and I realized later that was her way of telling me it truly stunk but at the same time not wanting me to give up.
SO, I HAVE NOT given up. But I have come to some conclusions. I have decided I will use holiday season, which for me on so many levels is unusual and alien to my past, to lighten the load. I will pause, and think.
I wrote a day or so ago about noise and how a major construction project at my apartment complex has rendered my apartment unusable from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. week days and it is likely to be so into May. Yesterday I thought that was a curse. Today I think maybe it is a blessing. My way of approach art of any kind is to step into silence, to close my eyes and let things wash over me, then do something with whatever is there.
I can’t do that for a while so maybe the best plan is to do nothing, to catch moments away while I think about why I want to be creative, then how. The pompous reason for “why” is, of course, that I think I have unique things to share and there is a world out there pacing about, waiting, biting its nails, just waiting and hoping Rich Heiland will put forth….something.
That, of course, is total (and pretentious!) bullshit. Beyond a few close family members and friends, I doubt anyone is waiting and I’d even question whether some of those friends are.
No, I think the “why” is really pretty basic. Back in the day, back in the embryo world when genes were moving about and passions being created, I guess I was passed over for looks, athletic skills, the ability to harness the atom and just given the gene of thinking, making stuff up.
That’s why I do it. I can’t not do it and whether anyone ever sees the results of any of it really is outside the need, and I hope, the fun of the doing.
The “how?” I don’t know yet. Writing at some point needs a road to travel and a way to travel it and I guess that’s what I don’t know at this point. The artificial constructs, such as being a journalist hence having the “why” and “how” created for me, are gone. I am on my own.
So, while it is noisy out and the days are short and parts of my life are passing away, figuratively and literally, I reckon the best use of time is to just figure out what comes next.
That’s why, when I got up this morning, I decided to become a mass murderer between my first and second cups of coffee. Rest in peace my creations. Maybe we will meet again.
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He also writes the intodementia.com blog about his family’s experience with dementia. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].