{"id":1033,"date":"2007-02-08T06:03:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-08T06:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2007\/02\/on-obsession\/"},"modified":"2007-02-08T06:03:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T06:03:00","slug":"on-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/on-obsession\/","title":{"rendered":"On Obsession"},"content":{"rendered":"

The May bellydance performance has taken over my mind, blooming like my garden in June. It is fueling all sorts of feelings for me, that I haven’t had in a long time. This obsession reminds me of when I bought my electric guitar, around ten years ago. Back then I was obsessed with Eric Clapton<\/a>, (I mean, my God, look at him in that picture! Still makes my mouth water; plus he plays the guitar pretty well, too.) who filled up our CD collection and blasted from my car (which was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, now my most hated vehicle next to a Hummer, but for personal reasons, because it broke all the time; the Hummer Hate<\/a> is more political about how f***ing big and army-like they are). <\/p>\n

I bought a Fender Stratocaster and amp and everything, as well as music books. I already knew how to play the guitar because I had been playing folk and classical since third grade. So I decided it wasn’t enough to just listen and sing to Clapton; I also wanted to play like him! I bought those Hal Leonard books, that give you the tablature, the diagrams of the fingerings of many of Clapton’s solos. Unbelievable! I felt like I had the key to the universe<\/a>. I couldn’t play a lot of his music very well, but the Hal Leonard books demystified them and made it possible for me to approach his solos. I mastered one or two of them, especially from the Unplugged<\/a> album, where most are acoustic, the style to which I am most accustomed.<\/p>\n

My boys were thus raised on Clapton, Dylan, Beethoven, Mozart, Beatles, and Allman Brothers, rather than Raffi et al., although every now and then I did play kiddie CDs for them. I rarely played them in the car, however, because I hate kiddie music and I figured my kids could be exposed to real music, all sorts. Although I do have a few very lovely memories of Nat shouting “Robin in the rain, what a saucy fellow, Robin in the rain, mind your socks of yellow…” and “Where is Thumbkin? Her I am,” (he said, “Her” instead of “Here!”) right in the middle of the T! Shouting! I remember being both burstingly proud of him and at the same time, mortified. I think I’d give my right thumbkin to have that moment back, however; it was so cute, so dear, so innocent. Young parents: heed my words!!!!! As odd as your little guy appears now, you will one day miss his wonderful little self!!!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

At any time during the day I could be found getting out my guitar, plugging it in, and cranking something out. This lasted for years, until finally I guess I moved on. Or I went back to acoustic, because it was my first love and frankly, I am much better at it. I never really got the hang of improvising lead guitar solos. I never jumped from the memorized Clapton solos to my own. I could only imitate really well, and that was not ultimately enough for me. Sometimes I feel like I’m Yertle the Turtle<\/a>, (minus the whole Nazi-fascist allegory), always wanting to get closer and closer to a particular adored thing until maybe I collapse. It is Yertle’s yearning I am fascinated with. It is a classic tragedy, wherein the seeds of his own self-destruction are present throughout. Which leads me to wonder:<\/p>\n

Are obsessions based on self-destructive impulses? Or are they somewhat misguided acts of self-fulfillment? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that the Obsessed would say the latter, but those who observe the Obsessed would say the former. There is a small voice I hear every now and then, when I embark on an Obsessive Journey, that, not unlike the Fish in the Cat in the Hat,<\/a> warns me that danger is near, or that my obsession is going too far in some way. Is this a voice to heed, or is it just my fears speaking up? What’s wrong with pursuing the lust for a hobby as far as I want it to go, as long as I’m still able to do my other jobs? Why does that Fish worry so much? Is he a destructive force, or a caring force?<\/p>\n

So every day — Fish be damned — I have been dancing. Sometimes twice a day. I have been trying to stretch before and after, to truly warm up my muscles, but sometimes I just can’t wait. In the middle of the night, I feel my hips aching. When I get out of bed and my feet first touch the floor, all muscles ache. So far nothing feels like a dangerous ache, not like my knee used to feel during the summer. So I figure it is just the pain of newly awakened muscles.<\/p>\n

I am determined to gain full control over my moves by the time May rolls around. Last night when I practiced, I was able to stay lifted and do that Choo-Choo shimmy<\/a>, with a lot less auxiliary jiggling. I had already done a workout that morning, but around 8 pm. I heard that music in my head and I told Ned I had to dance. I practiced until 9:30.<\/p>\n

I can’t stop for now. I am in the throes of a lovely obsession and I just hope it lasts a long, long time because it makes me feel beautiful and powerful, and just a touch worried about myself, which is better than other states of mind I’ve had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The May bellydance performance has taken over my mind, blooming like my garden in June. It is fueling all sorts of feelings for me, that I haven’t had in a long time. This obsession reminds me of when I bought my electric guitar, around ten years ago. Back then I was obsessed with Eric Clapton, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-gF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}