Posted 6:02 PM by Blah blah

Thought this was good and wise. Another Salon.com letter:

Dealing with Immovable Reality

Q: He is a jazz musician who has gigs and catering jobs on weekends and in the evenings.) I finally was about to get him to talk about it (like pulling teeth!) last night. He admitted that although he loves me, lately he's feeling that we don't have that spark. He wants to be burning for me and feel drunk with love all the time. I think that's a lovely thought and would love to feel that way too but I have to admit most days I don't. But is this even possible? The day-to-day routine and mundane chores of everyday life get in the way.

Is this just what happens to couples who have been together for a long time?

A: Musicians need a lot of care. They aren't really equipped to deal with the world. He may need to go off and feel infatuated a few more times. But face it, what this also means is that he and you are both facing adulthood, which is a kind of unconscious code word for eventual death. That's what it's all about. Adulthood is about dreary day after day dealing with immovable reality. Why do you think, when I had to take that job at Chevron, I ended up writing a strange novel on the train every day? Because it is intolerable to the soul of a creative person to be marched day after day through the dreary halls of ordinary life. It's soul-killing, and I'm sure that what he is feeling is much like soul-death because he equates intoxication with life, spirituality and creativity.

The key point is that the two are not the same. Because if you talk to a composer who has actually done a lot of work, or a painter, or a novelist, he or she will tell you that the spirituality of the work comes in the dreary, regular, day after day work, applying the paint, filling in the notes, putting the words down on paper. Art and creativity, though Dionysian in certain respects, don't move forward until you actually do accept the awful tedium of adulthood. The same truth applies to relationships....

The most heroic thing a creative person can do is live an orderly life so that the work can get done....You have to separate those elements of intoxication in your work from those in your personal life. You are not a painting or a work of music. You are a human being and so is he. If you and he can seek a deeper, more passionate understanding of each other as creative people, perhaps you can fall back into each other's arms with a richer understanding of your purpose together in the world.