by Steven Perry

Created on: February 15, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

So my life is governed by the arts. Music, Dance, Writing. And I know that if I had taken the time to develop my painting skills, some type of impressionist work may have been included. But I am obliged to call these three my passions. "Now remains music, dance, writing, these three, and the greatest of these is"...that is where my mind has been drawing a blank in the last few weeks. At one time or another, when discussing my passions, the question has been posed, "Which of these do you prefer over the other?" And at one time or another, it has been one of three. A few months prior, during the early fall when I was making leeway on a novel, writing assumed the throne of this artisan, and writing was all I could bare to think of. My brain had become a storehouse for built-up stories, myths, vocab, experiences, folklore. But I emptied the words onto a page...and my overzealous period of writing all night with Red Bull at arm's reach and spending the days clenching and unclenching my fists because of the carpel tunnel syndrome dwindled and I have barely picked up a pen to "creatively" write for a couple of months now.

Earlier last year, music was my mistress. I woke up with her fragrance upon my lips, as my MP3 player still toiled with the playlist from the night before. My days were spent woolgathering about the blues and my heartbeat was irregular, not due to a health condition, but because I could only hear the vibrations of a bass guitar, stirring up my ether regions with its soulical riffs. If I'd ever caught the "holy ghost", it was then, because music transferred me from this world in a way that my emotions had wearied its health out trying to do. Music was transcedence, and I found myself during this time, telling all who would listen, that I would die if I had not music, that my heart would fold itself under the weight of its absence, and die of heartache like Isolde in the legends of Tristan. Concurrent to this time was my participation in a defunct band project. Music highlighted my codependency; I would lie awake at night, withdrawn, numb, needing my fix. My body jerking, my nervous system in a jamboree, until I could make it to that musical haven we'd created at Erich's house, and the guitars were strummed, the bass was fondled and the drum was beat like Rodney. But just like my creative juices in writing were diluted with the call of responsibility, my musical odyssey was disturbed through the truth of incompatibilities. In other words, the project

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