And I felt tortured by bad dreams that morning, and I couldn't help but think "What if I will never be Mozart? What if I really am Salieri?" I meant in terms of painting of course, and my thoughts were sinking in the gravity of a future as a mediocre artist... What if all I am is pretty good, but never great? Is it worth the poverty.. the part-time jobs ...the clothing I have to wear this morning as I walk with the rush hour crowd through the tunnel ... I feel like such a fraud among all these rat-racers... Haven't I opted out... Can't I get out?
And the metro musicians today appeared to be college student age, and they were suitably dressed in winter jackets and gloves (albeit with fingers open) They had a boom box for the boom and he had a sax of some sort. She was playing the violin in the cold, and they began one of those recognizable classical pieces that you never know the name of but always knew you really liked. And when she hit her mark on what I found out later to be Pachelbel's Canon, I remembered that it actually doesn't matter if I'm never "great" (says who, anyhow? and by what measure?) Hearing that beautiful soaring emotional music just made my morning, lifted my dark mood, and made me remember that those of us cursed or blessed with the undeniable need to express the world and create art DO make the world a better place, in all its corniness. And I wished I had change to toss in the violin case, but as usual the only "currency" in my pocket was my monthly buspass.
(That's what I hated about dressing this way, that the musicians and beggars think I have a bunch of bucks and am choosing not to toss a little their way. If I could only be myself, I think my sincere appreciative smile may have more "currency".)
When I got to the office, I had already run a marathon of emotions in the time it took to travel the 5 metro stops and walk through the tunnel. And the girls, who already know I am "the weird one", would have no idea of how I'd solved the existential equation yet again that morning, enabling me to face another day knowing that the next day I could paint, and paint I would.


So if I am good, and die yet undiscovered, but am discovered post mortem, then it will have all been worth it since my work was recognized.
And if I am not good, and die yet undiscovered and remain so, then it will have all been worth it because I would have lived my life BELIEVING that my art did make a difference.


© Marion Pennell 2004

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