Beauty For One, Or Problems With Ryans

I live in Indiana. Every television character (with the noted exception of some Parks and Recreation characters) claims this is a fate worse than death. In fact, lots of Midwest-born writers who've decamped to LA and NYC like to zing their homes in their productions. I think often about Glee's "Lima Losers," kids whose tragic fate was to stay in Lima, Ohio. To Indiana native Ryan Murphy, nothing could be worse than staying in the Midwest.

For a while, I bought into this. Since family commitments prohibited me from moving, my escape was going to be publication. Numerous poetry magazines met my submissions with form rejections, and each one felt ironically personal. If they didn't see value in my art, then how could I call myself an artist?

Denied the career I'd studied for thanks to the Recession and disheartened after one massive cluster-f-- of a rejection, I tried to bury that part of me. I wasn't going to be anyone.

Recently, I got emotional over gutters. My husband and I were discussing Victorian and Art Nouveau architecture versus Brutalism and International Style. We were looking at century old ornate downspouts fashioned like fish and other fancies, and I said that they made me feel loved. Someone made this downspout, and they wanted their work to be seen by other humans. Through detailed drain pipes and scrollwork strike plates and cut glass door knobs, artisans reached through time to say, "I am human and so are you. Here is something beautiful to enjoy."

When people bring beauty into our lives, it is a sacred thing, even if you are an audience of one.

My husband and I recently watched La La Land. A man and a woman meet cute, sharing a song and dance in vibrant colors. But by the middle of the movie, they were at each other's throats. How dare he "give up" his dream of owning a jazz club by * checks notes * getting steady, well paid work as a musician so he could be a provider for his girlfriend. And how dare she write and star in a one-woman show like he'd suggested. (This fight made no sense other than to advance the plot, especially him because it's not like you can't own a club when you're older.) The brass ring had to be chased and caught at all costs, including each other. In the end (spoilers for a seven-year-old movie), each person had achieved their dreams of success but apart from one another. They could not abide beauty for an audience of one. They wanted fame, not art.

For my most recent painting, I spent three days texturing every inch of it, adding gold and ink enhancements, and I felt like I'd unlocked something in me. I am human and so are you. I felt like I was carving keyholes and engraving frames. If the pursuit of fame is a race for a brass ring, I felt like I'd unlocked the doors in that long, treacherous hall. Doors that lead to be lopsided cupcakes made with love for a child's class party, to beautiful sunsets no one sees, to the memory of a first dog, to old men laughing in a rural diner, to snuggles during movie nights and to an awkward first kiss at a middle school dance. The details are there for the curious, for those who love the wild experience of simply living, not for people focused on the prize at the end. I feel like I'm finally ready to make beauty for an audience of one.