No Money on Trees

A friend and I bantered the other day about the fact that what lies in our back pocket is more important than the size of what we hide in the front of our pants. We both adore women in general and ones in particular, and even though it was all in clever jest, there rang a note of exasperated truth.

In this day and age when women can hold their own, or even better us financially, these light-hearted pokes described our own confused insecurities more than the fear of any actual judgment from the opposite sex. There is no doubt that—like having a car door opened—women can feel loved when their man picks up the check, but their independence has made it more of a gift than an expectation or demand.

The hunter/gathering blood still courses boldly through us men, however, who whip out our cards like so many swords of old, establishing our territory. With every tip to the bill, there is a note of confidence, a swagger, a punctuating statement that we are okay, holding our own in the world, and able to give that gift to the woman in our focus.

Last week, it was fascinating to me (only in retrospect) to start out with only twenty dollars in my pocket, nothing in the bank, and no prospect of any more arriving like cavalry before the weekend. Survival required careful attention, prudent mileage, and lots of peanut butter and jelly.

No consolation was found in reminding myself this poverty was a direct result of the choice to pursue creativity over carpentry. I accepted the challenge of it soberly last week, not happily, and vowed that I must do things differently to not be here again. My mood—full of bright equanimity on the surface—grew as bleak as the rainy day outside.

No matter the source of the dollars that enliven my bank account, my mood often reflects the balance: forlorn and unproductive when empty; bold, brave and resourceful when there is money to back it up. It is easier to write and play music happily when the financial help from my father obscures the fact that at 55, I have to run to him each month for help. Once depleted, it takes days to conjure the energy to ask for more, but as soon as it is deposited, my production and confidence are fueled like gas in a car.

The quality and success of the work is secondary to the sheer fact that I am working at all. Far better, I say, than lying comatose on the sofa, staring at soundless walls and blank pages, I can accept this help with the justification that I am pursuing my passion. Never mind that no editor has personally written encouragement of any kind when returning a manuscript (my mark of success 25 years ago), I write and submit, believing that alone is success enough at this nascent point of my revised career.

When the account is empty, however, no amount of fancy words or moving music can help to soften the pain. Hours of productive music or the pile of the next submissions packaged to mail do not alleviate my soul. The urgency to express is diverted to despair. I pace the small rooms too weary to find optimism. My heart aches with fear and worry, inertia of the worst kind. The fear of plummeting further awakes the man who seeks solutions.

And since there is a woman I would like to take to dinner, I evaluate the balance of production, results, energy and money, deciding that some carpentry is not at all a bad thing compared to the threat to my self-esteem, sitting alone in my room, continuing to ask for help from my father at the end of his life, when editors are not accepting my creative efforts. Perhaps when I truly earn the time to write, the right words will flow to catch their attention.

In the meantime, I feed my soul with companionship of a dear kind in daily life, sharing the sunset over a wonderful dinner on a back porch, enjoying the mix of ache and satisfaction of another door hung and painted, taking solace that after a week of silence and frustration, I am finally able to contribute a little something to this blog as well.

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