I've been busy. I have! And it's good news! I honestly have the most amazing personal news! I do!
Background:
Back in the 1970s the Niccolai Tour of Leonardo DaVinci's inventions came to my town, and all I had to do was to see it once and my imagination was aflame! Then the Madrid Codices were rediscovered, and in the international rejoicing and celebration of that event, forget it, I was in fangirl love with this towering genius of the late Medieval period, because dammit, he looked good naked and I liked his hat. Or how about 'Nobody draws sex between two consenting hemisected individuals like Da Vinci'? Good shit either way.
I needed to know everything about him. His life and times, the books he read, the subjects he studied, his materials and processes. I even taught myself a little Italian and a little ecclesiastical Latin to help forge onward through the fog. And when I humble brag about the Latin, know that I still have the bitemarks on my flesh from where I almost chewed off my own arm trying to learn the shit. (You learn your way, I learn mine.)
Last week I finally came to the other end of 53 years of obsession. That's not a bad thing. It's certainly not the end; I'll never be done! Still, I was able to look back over my work, organize it, make it into something that tracks, and start on the next chapter!!!!
I'm starting to wonder how much this had to do with some of the stress I've gone through recently. Some of it certainly could have been caused by all those years of mental effort, now having reached the 11th hour, trying to finally become something.
A year ago I wrote about an event that marked the closing of one chapter of my life and how it felt like I'd been given a set of wings; the most spiritual thing I've ever had happen to me. This feels similar. Imagine that a thousand beavers have built a dam across the Bosporus, and that Erich Von Danekins' Ark came along and fired bankrupt hotels into that dam 5 million times, and the dam broke and beavers went everywhere. That is nothing like what happened.
It feels fantastic.
I took on a project when I was thirteen years old and I stuck with it, and here I am at 66 years old able to turn to that (figurative) kid and say 'Look at what we did. Let's get drunk as shit. You're figurative. You can drink."
I Rock!
Here's to you and to your 13 year old badass self. You're both winners today.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteCongratulations! My obsessions generally fizzle into fog and distance - I'm envious of your ability to commit for so long.
ReplyDeleteSx
Grazie mille, signora Scarlet!
DeleteGosh. Just found this (the Blogger Reading List being completely fucked at the moment, I thought I'd do a manual "trawl" of blogs I follow). Well done! Is this a published work? Heaven forfend - a book? If so, where do I buy a copy? Jx
ReplyDeleteIt kind of is. I kind of might. It's also me knowing that I'd never go to college and so deciding to give myself an education in Renaissance History, Anthropology, and a lot of other subjects. And it worked. You can take placement tests online - I rate a (community college) masters in Literature, History, and a couple of others. That doesn't mean much in terms of a serious Ivy League education but it's fuck of a lot better than remaining a Milwaukie meadow muffin all my life; and I did it FOR FREE under my own steam. Hell yes!
DeleteYou ROCK!
DeleteWell of course you rock! That goes without saying. But still, you certainly do rock for keeping a project going for 53 years - and finishing it!
ReplyDeleteP.S. I don't know what the Bosporus is (a river, I assume?), or who Erich Von Danekins is/was, but I know what beavers look like so I had great fun imagining it all!
Oh him. He used to write all that saucer nut stuff like Chariots of the Gods. He never owned an Ark, but he did have an ass full of beavers.
Delete