So what do you tell her?

She pauses, not sure if she should have voiced her thoughts.

HILLARY (Con’t)

(apologetically)

Sorry I didn’t mean…

OLIVER

Who?

HILLARY

Your wife, what do you tell her?

Oliver looks at her quizzically, not sure why she is prying into his life.

OLIVER

She knows I have a job. With the government.

Hillary looks at Oliver, trying to figure out what makes him tick. She tries again.

HILLARY

How long have you been with The Agency?

OLIVER

(beat)

19 years this September.

HILLARY

That’s a long time to be a secret.

OLIVER

It’s a long time to be anything.

Oliver stares off to the left, focused on some distant point.

OLIVER (CON’T)

Especially a secret.

Sometimes when I’m falling asleep, I hear the trains.

I like trains.

While I’m gone, here’s something to check out.

www.thisisnottom.com

Miracle Drug

I wanna trip inside your head
Spend the day there…
To hear the things you haven’t said
And see what you might see

I wanna hear you when you call
Do you feel anything at all?
I wanna see your thoughts take shape
And walk right out

Freedom has a scent
Like the top of a newborn baby’s head

The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I’ve seen enough, I’m not giving up
On a miracle drug

Of science and the human heart
There is no limit
There is no failure here, sweetheart
Just when you quit…

I am you and you are mine
Love makes nonsense of space
And time…will disappear
Love and logic keep us clear
Reason is on our side, love…

The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I’ve had enough of romantic love
I’d give it up, yeah, I’d give it up
For a miracle, a miracle drug, 
A miracle drug

God I need your help tonight

Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear your voice
It’s whispering
In science and in medicine
I was a stranger
You took me in

The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I’ve had enough of romantic love
Yeah I’d give it up, yeah, I’d give it up
For a miracle, miracle drug

Miracle, miracle drug

“I have walked by stalls in the market place where books, dog eared and faded from their purple, have burst with a white hosanna. I have seen people crowned with a double crown, holding in either hand the crook and flail, the power and the glory. I have understood how the scar becomes a star, I have felt the flake of fire fall, miraculous and pentecostal. My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are grey faces that peer over my shoulder. I live on Paradise Hill, ten minutes from the station, thirty seconds from the shops and the local. Yet I am a burning amateur, torn by the irrational and incoherent, violently searching and self-condemned.”

This is the opening paragraph of a book that I just started called Free Fall by William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies. needless to say I’m excited.

“Wherever St. Paul went, there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea.”

-N.T. Wright

A friend of mine once told me that she had a hard time writing, because she was a perfectionist and her writing never seemed as if it was good enough. I sometimes feel this way as well, especially with regard to songwriting and painting. Something inside me isn’t satisfied with what I have done, something inside me says that it’s not good enough. I sometimes wonder about this and I rarely come to any sort of conclusion, I merely suppose. 

I suppose, however, that this is sometimes the way it was meant to be. Art, it seems, is not something that is always going to fully satisfy me, is not something that was meant to always be the end of the question. 

It occurs to me that the purpose of art is sometimes merely to be. That at some point the artist has to let go, let the art stand as it is, with its flaws and its imperfections, for beauty is often most evident in these flaws and imperfections. Create just for the purpose of creating, and stop worrying about whether it will be acclaimed among peers. Often I have had an experience with a piece of art, whether a piece of writing, a photograph, or a song, in which I further understood my questions, was jolted out of my apathy, or experienced an emotion that I needed to feel. During these times I wonder what would have happened if the artist had been so unsatisfied with his art that it was discarded. 

Again, I merely suppose, but I think that supposing can be a means to further understand a concept, so I continue for lack of a reason to stop doing so.