[check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]

Two days from now I’ll be in Barcelona, on a days-long trip for which I’m not in the mood. It’s supposed to involve research for a writing project I’m supposedly working on, although I haven’t written anything in a month. Barcelona is a beautiful city. Unfortunately, it’s also a crime-ridden shithole. I expect to feel anxious from the moment I step outside of the rented apartment.

I haven’t been in the mood for much recently. I may actually be having a mid-life crisis, although I’m past the midpoint of my life; now forty, and very unlikely to live to eighty. I keep fantasizing about dropping everything and moving away to some cheap town, to a one-bedroom place near nature, where I could live in peace while working part-time at the most. If that ever happens, I’ll likely be in my late fifties, or sixties. Mainly, I want to get away from everything and everyone I’ve ever known. Unfortunately, due to my brain configuration, my intrusive thoughts keep reminding me of every terrible little thing that has ever happened to me. I can’t flee from that.

A song came to mind: Jackson C. Frank’s “Blues Run the Game.” Jackson was well-respected songwriter in the sixties and seventies. When he was twelve or thirteen, during music class in middle school, the school’s boiler exploded just under them. Jackson survived with half of his body burned. His girlfriend, Marlene, burned to death. In spirit, Jackson died that day, although it took his body decades to catch up. He wrote one song directly about his dead twelve-year-old girlfriend (“Marlene”), although obviously most of his songs are tinted by what happened. In the seventies, Jackson lived in England, and dated a then-famous musician named Sandy Denny. Shortly after they broke up and Jackson returned to the States, Sandy fell down the stairs of her home and died.

Jackson went crazy, likely out of PTSD and depression. He couldn’t find in himself to produce a new album, and he couldn’t get the first album reissued, as Paul Simon, who held the rights, wouldn’t do so. Jackson ended up homeless in NY. A fan sought him out and offered to house the songwriter and help him revitalize his career. As Jackson was waiting on a bench, some hoodlum shot out one of his eyes with a BB. Jackson died maybe one or two years later from a disease.

Here’s to you. Creating art can’t save anyone, but at least it captures what needs to survive.