Took a day off from the day job. The water and city people who are so very good to me. When it comes to a whole city, that is a lot of water. I’m learning more about the world of water—they are very willing share what they know.

What all the operators say: “Sewer is where the big bucks are.”

Sewer performs a valuable job, truly a service people are willing to pay for. That’s not the part that makes it so lucrative though. The money comes from transforming the sewage into something valuable on the other side. That stuff most people are desperate to get rid of still has value

Creating value and therefore money out of garbage. A friend once told me “If you have enough of something, it can be sold. If you have piles of dirt it can be turned into money!” (I miss you, Char-lez. RIP)

I took a day off to take a trip to Las Vegas. I’d been looking forward to this trip for almost a year. We were going to see a show. The rest of the family slept in, but I woke up at my usual time and went out to get some coffee.

Walking through the stale cigarette air I passed people captured by the Medusa’s gaze, turned to stone in front of the spinning slots. A jolt of recognition—this is how I must look if someone passes me when I have fallen into my phone.

The dealer’s tables were mostly empty. One had three girlfriends playing, and the next one had a single man leaning forward intently. The dealer was telling him “Listen to me, I have been around and I’ve seen a lot, you need to slow it down.”

Friday morning, turning a boredom and desperation into a cash crop.

The sewer industry is welcome to my contribution. I’m thinking I could invest my spare time better than I have been. That man was desperate to give his money to the dealer, likely because he hoped he could make more.

I don’t have to get lucky with my time. I have experience to know what happens when I plant the seeds. I’d like to keep my attention to my own business and not give it away.

I wonder ay beauty.

I wonder what a thought or experience means

I wonder if I am capable of making the idea I have into a reality.

Wonder in combination with action is how art happens. I can achieve wonder as a consumer of art. The internalized wonder will change me.

A little.

It’s the action, though—the trying—that births the art. And changes who I am. I want the change, I want to experience new ideas and new thoughts. I reach for it. I would say The Algorithm is pitched to provide interesting but not too challenging packages of thoughts to as much of the human race as possible. I pursue it.

An it’s not enough. I want to get my hands in it and make my own. That means stepping off the conveyor belt of bite sized mind snacks. I am hungry for more than a snack. Can I make something satisfying?

Can I make anything worthwhile? I’ve got this idea. When I start putting into some form—

Words?

Music?

Pictures?

How big is my idea? Maybe it’s too big for me.

The art of creation or creation of art causes a ripple, a current that pulls the artist into realization

Realization of the art

Realization that the art will not match the vision. My idea is far greater than what I can create. I push myself to do a better job. To get better at what what it’s going to take to make this art that haunts me.

I want to be better.

Creating art gives me a place to begin on being a more skilled, disciplined, compassion and wiser person.

I want it, and it is hard. People say, “don’t be so hard on yourself!”

It sounds like compassion, and sometimes it is.

I might need the rest so I can keep going. If I don’t give up there’s still a chance.

I thought I had to be something I wasn’t. See, I wanted to perform and play music with other people. I watched these cool guitar players—I even made friends with them!—on stage at the restaurants. That is what I wanted. They sang and played all these gorgeous songs with their amps as they thumped on the guitar body.

I don’t play guitar. I had an awkward keyboard, big and clumsy to carry around to play with others. It was an impossible dream to make music and get a better set of songs. I was not that cool.

I’ve been waiting two and a half years to be set free. It burned to feel locked out after all that. I set my jaw and looked for a way around this wall. If I couldn’t move my instrument, what could I do where it stood?

Even if no one came with me.

I gave myself a challenge: record and post 100 different songs. Could I play and sing that many? If I posted them on the internet, I could get the joy of performing in a small way.

I’m impatient. And stubborn. If I didn’t make an effort, 100 songs could take years. I started with easy ones and didn’t try to be perfect. I figured I could do my best effort and the goal was to rack up numbers.

Two things happened:

My piano playing got better. Giving myself a goal was very motivating, and I was excited to keep practice and record songs.

I posted 9 songs before I shared one with my husband. He tilted his head. “Your voice sounds different.”

I thought it was just because I was practicing the piano part more than the singing part. I wasn’t picking songs that were hard to sing.

He played a recording of me singing from 3 years ago. He was right. I sounded weak.

I hadn’t realized that my throat surgeries had impacted my singing voice. I had been focusing on strength and range of motion in my right arm after the reconstruction. That was obvious and painful, and I’d already made strides in moving my arm. It barely hurt anymore.

I’d made so much progress on the obvious thing, that I’d moved on to what I thought was extra, just a garnish.

Singing and playing songs was for when the big stuff was under control. I’d been longing to pick it up and do it again. Which I had begun to do.

That’s how I discovered my voice was strangled with the surgery scar tissue. It didn’t affect how I talked. I hadn’t realized what I had lost.

Like wakening to a near collision, I was shocked and horrified that my voice was so affected.

Like I said I’d already been working on breaking up scar tissue. Was I doomed to lose my singing voice?

One thing I’ve learned, a little exercise to loosen scars can restore my abilities. And the sooner the better.

It shouldn’t surprise me that I had scar tissue from my surgeries. I’m so grateful that I discovered it sooner than later so I could smooth it out.

I could have sat back and just WISHED I had a place to play and sing. By making the opportunity for myself, I did more than I expected. I made time for a thing that was non-essential and gave myself a gift for my whole life

All the world can be divided into categories. Each person has their own way of recognizing sameness in things. It’s well known that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

It’s also true that the dark corner of everyone’s heart hides fear.

Who knows what fears lurk in the heart of men? What scares me today could seem insignificant tomorrow. And the opposite could be true the day after.

What am I to do?

When I was a kid, a neighbor loaned me a bike and we went riding around the neighborhood.

Riding through the corner gas station, he said “Don’t ride through that puddle, the gas might degrade the rubber tire.”

I nodded, and I kept the dreaded puddle right in my sights so I could avoid it. I rode straight through it.

NO!

When I focus on my fear, I aim straight for it. I’m the only one who knows what I’m afraid of, and that may very well be why I think I can deceive myself and others to hide from the fears.

I’ll never run out of reasons to be afraid.

That’s not the category to focus on. I’m turning my head to fill my eyes with beauty. My eyes, ears, my thoughts let me fill them with art.

I am re-reading Art & fear. The journey to making art is haunted by fear. Since I want the beauty, I must live through the fear.

Just as no one else can say what I am afraid of, no one can tell me what is beautiful. They both are part of what makes me an individual. Grappling with my fears gives me the power to express myself in art or brave actions.

And the brave act of making art enlarges my personhood, adding complexity with each attempt.

I’ll miss that puddle of gas the next time. I’ve learned to keep my head up as I’m riding.