Over the last year or so, I’ve been suffering a left brain dominant life. I’m really good at my job, which includes gobs of information management. I am a bookkeeper, sales/advertising support staff and online ad campaign manager all within 40 hours each week for a website. My second job is a similar gig where I keep track of who needs to be invoiced when and for what as well as managing all the contact information for all of the advertisers and subscribers to the particular website that I work for. On the side, I am the keeper of the volunteer contact information for a new local non profit organization. I keep lists of our volunteers, who’s involved in which project or event and I send email blasts to each group depending on the current tide of information. All of this equals, what “they” call “marketable skills”. Currently, this equals the death of my creativity.
Not too long ago, I was living exclusively in my right brain. Also known as all art and no bill paying. I was happy there, maybe a little moody, but content. Unfortunately, none of the art was paying any of my bills and I sought some form of employment that moved beyond barely sustaining me. I wanted a “big girl job” with a steady paycheck and some benefits. I love the steady paycheck; it makes it so much easier to bail myself out of the debt I got into when I was acting and waitressing when I know how much money I’m getting every two weeks.
Now I seek balance. Yin and Yang. Left brain and right brain. I’m coming to terms with the fact that despite my fiercest childhood dreams, I’ll never be a movie star. For now, I have to have two and three jobs to work my way out of debt. For some reason, I have used this bit of reality to beat my creative self into unconsciousness, have thrown her down the stairs and locked her in the basement. Like she, not the lack of ever learning about finances and budgeting, has put me into a situation that requires me to work very hard to keep from drowning. Last Saturday, I realized that the debt was not her fault and it’s time to get busy and creative again because I miss the right side of my brain. It’s just so damn fun in there and while I need to work to pay back what I owe, I’m not going to spend time on my deathbed wishing I had spent more time at the office.
In order to resuscitate my creative beast, I have to start in places where I remember that creativity was a happy, impromptu dance and not a matter of conquering or bargaining. All my old mixed tapes are a reminder of those days where the brain halves skipped hand in had, working as a whole unit. It takes more than left brain skills to figure out which song will perfectly fill the last minute and a half on the side of a tape. It takes the right side figuring out which really short song will carry the mood over from the song before it without too bizarre of a twist or creating a new jumping off point that you can’t follow up on. It takes the cooperation of the two brain halves to be able to seamlessly jump from Janis Joplin to Soundgarden to Madonna w/ Prince to Puccini without anyone noticing.
From the almost forgotten top shelf of my office closet have come my cassettes. Inspiring me renew the vows of partnership between the sides of my grey matter and to forge ahead on foreign, yet mutually advantageous ground. This is a new place where “marketable skills” will work in conjunction with creative beasts. Come together…right now…over me. You and me, we’re in this together now. So happy together.
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