Letter to a Young Artist

Hi.

I know this is going to freak you out.

It’s late and you came out here to your Chevy Cavalier Z24 to drive around town and listen to the new Indigo Girls CD and think about your life. You found this note tucked over the visor along with the removable faceplate from your Pioneer stereo system, the one that’s supposed to deter theft, but it won’t deter anything for you because you’re careless and you leave it over the visor like this but I digress.

Look, there’s no easy way to do this so I’ll just come right out and say it. I’m you, from exactly twenty-nine years into the future. You don’t believe me, fine, I’ll prove it.

REDACTED gave you this Swamp Ophelia CD last week, days after it was released, and she told you that she wanted you to listen to the song called “Fare Thee Well” because it was exactly how she felt about the two of you breaking up at the end of this, your junior year of college.

You were confused because the song seems like it’s from the point-of-view of someone who got dumped and you were fully under the impression that the breakup was her idea. Right? Do you need more?

Fine.

There’s a part of you that wants to win her back but there’s another part of you that’s also been thinking about REDACTED, who lives in the house across McMillan.

There we go. Now you’re on board.

I could tell you exactly how those relationships play out but I’m not going to. You have to learn that for yourself, and the reason you have to learn it for yourself is because that’s how you eventually figure out the kind of partner you want to be with and the kind of partner you want to be for them in return.

No, I’m here to talk about a song on this disc, the one you keep playing on repeat while you’re taking these drives around the city. “The Language or the Kiss.”

Something happened to you, something opened up when you heard those opening chords. The first two verses put you into a melancholic state that you can’t quite explain and can’t stop wanting to dip into. The lines that say,

“I don’t know if it was real or in a dream

but lately waking up I’m not sure where I’ve been

there was a table set for six and five were there

I stood outside and kept my eyes upon that empty chair

And there was steam on the windows from the kitchen

laughter like a language I once spoke with ease

but I’m made mute by the virtue of decision

I choose most of your life goes on without me”

By now you’ve deduced that it’s about her life on the road as an artist in pursuit of her dreams. I guess you could put it in the subcategory of “life on the road is hard” songs, like Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” or Bob Seger’s “Turn the page.” But there’s something about the quiet honesty and simplicity of the lyrics that goes right to your core. Especially this line,

“It was a calling that said if joy, then pain”

You understood this because that’s what your pursuit feels like. A calling. A mission. A purpose. You want to be an actor, you want to be a writer. You want to tell stories.

You want to be an artist.

You have epic dreams and every day you wake up and you never feel any closer to them. You contemplated dropping out of school before your senior year and just moving to New York but you stayed because you know how big a deal the senior showcase is. You’ll get to perform in front of a ton of agents. And you’re right — that showcase is going to be a big deal, but not for the reasons you think.

When it’s over you’ll know in your heart that you’re a writer and that’s going to suuuuuuck because you just kind of got good at this acting thing and now you’re going to start all over again. Writing is going to feel like unraveling a great mystery or cracking an impenetrable code. You’re going to be terrible at it for a long time, but eventually you get better. You will be on fire to figure it out and make something great.

Again, I can’t tell you how all of that works out, it wouldn’t be fair to you. To us.

Here’s what I can tell you. There’s a reason this song is working some kind of magic on you. The Indigo Girls have given you a real gift. They created this little world for you to experience what it feels like to follow your dreams and the toll it’s going to take on some of the most meaningful relationships in your life.

Pay careful attention to the next part of that lyric. “If joy, then pain.”

You’re living it vicariously right now, through them. Like practicing an emotion that you’re going to experience time and time again, when life is happening to your family or your friends back home, or in New York, or Chicago, and you’re off somewhere in middle America, spray painting your hair grey so you can play Old Joe in DAMN YANKEES for three hundred dollars a week.

Family members will get married, they’ll have children, your grandmas will get older. You will be on the road for much of it. And you will spend every moment you can in solitude trying to become a better writer. You’ll be lonely. You’ll suffer through confusion and doubt. You’ll wonder if it’s worth it. If you’ll die alone.

If joy, then pain.

But also, don’t forget the first two words of that lyric. There will be boundless joy. You’ll make intense connections with friends and fellow artists. You’ll fall in love. You’ll feel heroic. You will have grand adventures. And you will have creative breakthroughs. There are times you’re going to feel like an honest to God wizard because of your creativity.

Through it all this song will be a constant comfort, a reminder that you’re not the first person to go through this, or the last. You’ll put it on just as spring is turning to summer and you’ll think it’s because that’s when the record was first released. But what you don’t see is that it actually coincides with all the times you’re packing up to head off to a summer gig and leaving people that you love behind.

I’m not going anywhere or leaving anybody behind right now, but something came over me tonight. I got in my car and I put this song on and I blinked and found myself back here, in your — in our — Z24. You’re parked in the side yard, next to Steve’s Saturn. (Good luck getting that repaired in a few years! Don’t tell him I said that.)

I probably shouldn’t tell you too much about what I’m going through right now, but there’s a good chance you’re going to think you hallucinated this whole thing. So, what the hell.

You’re 49 and you’re still trying to make something great. The fire has died down a bit but you have yet to stop. The embers are not yet ashes. You will get better at finding a balance along the way. And you will have some success, although, again, it will not be exactly what you think it will be. The Indigo Girls will be constant companions.

It will occur to you that even though you have passed through various stages with this song, from living it vicariously, to living it in real time, to feeling like you have figured out quite a bit of it all, those four words will never not be true or relevant:

If joy, then pain.

At some point you’ll join the Writer’s Guild. That guild will go on strike. You will join your first picket line. All of your creative projects will stop. You will spend your days walking next to many other people who are suddenly out of a job. It will be painful.

One day while you’re playing with your dog (YES, I KNOW!) you’ll listen to a lecture by Brian Eno where he says that, “Art is everything you don’t have to do.”

And it will strike you on your next trip to the picket line that while you and your fellow writers have to be out there, you don’t have to use your imaginations to come up with great slogans for your signs. You don’t have to organize themed events and play music and sing songs from musicals and the animators don’t have to draw amazing cartoon characters and people don’t have to bring food trucks and ice cream trucks and babies and dogs. You’ll come to the realization that in this moment of pain these very creative people have turned the strike into a citywide art installation.

And that will bring you immense joy.

I have to wrap this up. You could be down here at any moment and I’ve seen enough of these movies to know there are consequences for crossing timelines.

The last thing I want to tell you is this — whenever you’re in doubt, whenever you’re confused, or you’re in a situation like the one I’m in now and you don’t quite know what to do — serve. Be of service to someone else. Ask yourself, “Who can I help and how?”

That will never, never, never lead you down the wrong path.

And for fuck’s sake, enough with the Taco Bell.

The Language or the Kiss

Brian Eno talks to Zane Lowe

Also, a year from now you will get this Blues Traveler tattoo. No regertz.