I've always had this deep conviction - small and insignificant as it might seem - that the minute you start to create something for somebody, it is theirs. Whatever it is - whether it's a poem, or a story, or a piece of art, or a song, or a doodle on a page while you're on the telephone - the minute that first line is down, or the first note is sung, or the first word is written, this thing is no longer yours: it belongs to the person for whom it was intended. They are, in fact, in a way the creator: they have inspired it, and you are simply the means by which it has appeared. So - in the nature of all that is good and honest and innocent and beautiful in art - it should remain so. In some cosmic, unseen force, this thing that only exists because of another person in the first place has tied you to them inextricably (even if temporarily, like Donne's fly) and can never be changed, unless destroyed. To go against this and do something else with it is simply bad luck: it is inciting the power of art and of music and of innocence and of beauty, and it is turning it against yourself.
I call it the Elton John Effect, thanks to his lazy reappropriation of Candle In The Wind, written for his childhood idol Marilyn, and handed over to Diana because - presumably - he was too worn out from The Lion King to bother writing a new one. Every note in the second version sounded embarrassed; ashamed of itself, in knowing that it was meant for somebody else. Like the second proposal to a different woman with the same ring and restaurant.
Anyway, a while ago I started a drawing for The Boy; a drawing that was going to be exchanged over Christmas on our holiday together. Now, the holiday's cancelled, The Boy is gone, but the drawing is finished. I carried on - possibly putting more effort in than usual, thanks to the concentration that combined heartbreak and long lunchbreaks bring - and it's done; possibly one of my best (which is not saying much that isn't strictly comparative: I'm not an artist and never have been).
And now, of course, I have to give it to him. I have no other option. It is his drawing, whether I like it or not, and so it has to be his: to give it to anyone else, or to keep it, would be to evoke a lot of bad luck and Elton John inspired shame upon myself, which frankly I don't think I could handle. So I have to hand over something precious to me to somebody who probably doesn't want it; who will say thankyou and pop it in a drawer as a reminder not to date anyone who draws things. I have to hand over another piece of me, and know that I may never see it again.
The thing with beliefs is that - uncomfortable as they sometimes are - they cannot be avoided; they can only be followed, quietly. And all I have to do before I pop this drawing in the postbox is remember that it was never mine to start with.
And possibly play a little Elton John.
Posts
