Hi!  It’s been a while. 

I felt inspired to write after a certain, mind-blowing concert R got me front row tickets to: Leonard Cohen.  The dude is 74 and rocking it more than ever.

Cohen is perhaps one of the greatest lyricists of our time.  You can read some great concert reviews by much better authors than myself, so I’ll just write a bit about how Leonard Cohen has affected me.

It’s funny that I’m reading the book “The Girls of Ames” around the time of the concert.  While the book is a nice, sweet read about lifelong girlfriends, it has acutely reminded me of my kind of loner, hanging out on the fringe ways in high school and in some ways still today.  These girls told stories of their first kisses, dresses, and dances.  It’s fun to read, but I can’t say I experienced much of that.

One of the best things I discovered in high school was Leonard Cohen’s music.  While all those perfectly natural coming-of-age things were going on around me, I was cocooned inside my room littered with art, various colors of Christmas tree lights, and incense listening to Cohen’s words and deep, drowning voice.  He really spoke to me.  I memorized his words, his poems and at different times in my life they have resurfaced and have fit into my life in surprising ways. 

I was into art a lot back then.  My favorite class was art and my teacher would let me listen to my headphones while I went at my own pieces in the back of the classroon.  He didn’t let everyone do this but I remember the sheer joy and loss of time I experienced as I made art.

I remember him saying I should really apply for an art scholarship, but I declined saying that my current profession was a much more practical option.

For me, there was no half-assing art.  It was something I would get lost, consumed in or it was nothing at all.  So I sort of gave it up and now only dabble in it here and there when I have a large chunk of time to burn.

And so, being engulfed in art feels dangerous now.  Like Cohen.  You can’t have-ass it.  You have to surrender to it, be it, entirely and completely.

They don’t call ‘em crazy artists for nothing.

So I ended up taking a more stable road.  Cohen reminds me of those passionate, dreamy, and intense times though.  Despite his admission to taking several drugs for anxiety and depression, he reminds me that thoughts, ideas, and art can sustain one for 74 years. 

At the end of the concert, R told me to get up to the stage to shake Leonard’s hand.  I made it and when Leonard paused for a handshake I said, “You’re amazing!”  He smiled the smile not of a crazy artist but a serene old man.  It was a thrill.

Thanks for one of the most memorable nights of my life, R.