a tip of the beret to Michael Reid and Allen Shamblin

It has been said (by me) that every human being has a certain amount of chitin (the stuff insect shells are made of) that they can use as they see fit to protect themselves.

Many spread it thin as an armour. Most things don't get in, but they lose the ability to feel.

The artists and the empaths pack it into a hard kernel deep within themselves, guarding only the last essential corner of their soul. Concentrated like that, it is indestructible, but you will feel the world and all its joys and pains.

Most people choose the former path. I can't. That would be so wrong for me, for my art. I am my art. Psyche missed that truth by hours. Others have known, others haven't wanted to know.

Earlier today, the Michael Reid/Allen Shamblin song "I Can't Make You Love Me" popped into my head, as performed by Bonnie Raitt. An amazing song that has been covered by artists of all genres, it touches me on an experience level that there are times I wish I could block out, but then I would be partially dead, my soul exposed to the corrosion and erosion.

I know why it bubbled to the surface. Every creative act on my part is an expression of hope, of desire, of yearning, seeking to sway the heart of one person or an audience or the world. Finally turning off the microphone and ending the engineering and mixing for "Amomancer: nightblooming" is such an act. It is not my nunc dimittis, that is (I trust) decades away, but it is no less a profession of outstretched affection than Julia Roberts' "Just a girl" speech to Hugh Grant in "Notting Hill".

But, in the end, I have loved in futility often enough to be able to take comfort in what to so many is a sorrowful song...

"here in the dark, in these final hours,
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power.
But you won't. No, you won't..."

It is good to be me. I am at peace.