Do I deserve this underwear?

I should like to talk to you today about my favorite pair of underwear, which I happen to be wearing today.

It says "imagine", "create", "love" and "inspire" all over it in lettering that looks like thick, sloppy brushstrokes in primary colors. I bought this pair of underwear because I'm "artsy". It's just who I am and who I always have been. I'm "creative". I love art and music and dressing up. Every day I try to make a statement to the world about who I am.

Sometimes I feel like the "creative" label I've always worn proudly is starting to be kinda bullshit. I feel like as a creative person, I should never struggle with wanting to practice. I should just feel like doing it every single day.

But I just got out of my fiction workshop, where I did some thinking about why I sometimes feel that way. I got to thinking that the problem might not be me, it might just be the discipline of music--particularly classical music (it's such a fucking pain in the ass these days, isn't it?). In a writing workshop, we interact with each other. We laugh and fuck around and let ideas just spill out of our mouths and pencils and if they suck we get on with our lives. It's a light thing, it's a fun thing, it's an active and reactive and interactive thing. I also noticed this last night when I was modeling: artists in a figure drawing session are able to get together, talk to each other, talk to me, listen to kick-ass indie rock and dash off sketches of me that look better than the actual me!

I'm not saying art should be easy. I know that it takes practiced skill to be able to draw or write just like it takes practiced skill to be a good musician. But, going back to my underwear--those big, sloppy dashes of primary colors; that joy. Where is it in classical music? In concert and and in group rehearsal--for a visual artist, this could be the equivalent of a gallery opening. The difference is, the visual artist has a larger amount of joy in the process of developing that gallery opening. The visual artist doesn't spend sunny afternoons alone in a silent, windowless cell. She doesn't have to walk three blocks to practice her drawing, since her drawing won't drive people nuts if they hear it.

The obvious question in response to this post will be, "Why do you do it if you don't love it?" Believe it or not, I do love it--I love music, I love being onstage, I love the sound of the flute (also, I honestly hope that by the time someone gets to music school, they've been through enough of the music-world bullshit to know whether or not they can actually stomach a lifetime of this). Nobody can take that away, and that's what makes this argument with myself so hard. I did them all when I was young: ballet, drawing, sculpture, but music is the only one that has stuck with me ever since my first piano lesson with Mrs. Van Kalken in the second grade (I love writing too, but it's a totally different love. Music's the #1).

There's a movie coming out, a remake of the musical Fame. There's one preview with a girl and her father, a square type who tells her, "You are a classical pianist!" She responds, "I want to do something different." He says, "Something different was never part of the plan." Obviously this is meant to imply that this girl is breaking out of the fucking square and black-and-white and boring world of "classical" (we need to find a better label for it, for one thing) music into a funkified world of collaborative R&B where everyone rocks out and gets to wear awesome sneakers instead of concert black. And can we blame her for wanting that?

There are some things that are just so flawed with the "classical" system. I wish that practicing didn't necessarly mean entombing myself in a lightless, soundless, airless room every day (some days, it's all I want to do, but those days are rare). I miss the flute so much when I don't play--I develop a physical ache sometimes; that's how strong the desire is. I just wish all of this other baggage--the tedium, the image--had nothing to do with it.

If I practice today, I'll write another blog reflecting. But I'm obviously having kind of a crisis, so we'll see.