February 27, 2024

Took the ball and ran with a proposal for a theater money-maker for the Cathedral. After a good deal of research and labor, was told it was “not a good example of Stewardship.” And that was that. Made me consider why people who worry to morbidity about hurting some people’s feelings don’t seem to worry about mine. Normally I don’t care (and that might be the explanation). Sometimes I do. 

When I was a kid I irritated people by taking any opportunity to be left alone. I begged to stay home from family gatherings, to avoid trips to PA to my grandmother’s stifling house, to skip birthday parties. I knew it looked like haughtiness or antic-sociability; it wasn’t, but rather delight in creative solitude, that I might fill with my own limitless imaginings. The rest of the equation in those particular instances was that I was not particularly welcome. It was a sacrifice I was to expected to make without reciprocation. I would not have been a poet without those spaces of time. I would not have been the person I am without those spaces of time. The irony is that neither being a poet nor being the person I am has turned out as anticipated. The swathes of creative solitude are still a delight, though at this point they blend undetectably into isolation. I acquired no real allies, which is to say, anybody that would prefer me and support me even in the face of adversity. I do not believe the reverse is true. I’ve worked hard for causes which were not mine because I believed they were precious to someone, and to be a friend or an ally is sometimes better than to be right. I’ve stood by even casual friends if I thought they needed me, or that their cause was just. It is conceivable that nobody thinks I need them, or that my cause is just. I shrug and move on, feeling that an appeal to loyalty or affection would end up an embarrassment not only to me but to those who–legitimately– feel no such way. I acknowledge the degree to which I made this situation for myself. I had no such intention.