Empty

So I was in D.C. overnight from Friday to Saturday. I spent all day Friday alone, in the National Gallery with iPod headphones on to discourage anyone from talking to me. I toured all the exhibits with my own personal soundtrack. First Vivaldi. Then the soundtrack to Once. Then the soundtrack to Road to Perdition.

And I thought of nothing. I emptied myself exhibit to exhibit, almost physically letting everything go. I WAS the music and the paintings and the sculpture. I went and saw dozens of Degas statues. I looked at Warhol. I walked through an installation about boundaries.

And when all was said and done, without any effort, I resolved the final plot point in Magickeepers II. I outlined the rest of the book (due this week). I wrote in pen in a notebook--words and plot points and snatches of dialogue--and everything came full circle.

Until I was empty.

That's what Oldest calls in when she plays violin and "leaves it all" in the practice room, lingering there on the Steinway piano, on the music stand. In the walls. She leaves it all there, I suppose, all her stress and angst and anything else.

When she picked me up from the train, we talked about it. I mentioned to her that I read a fabulous article on Terry Gilliam in the new Vanity Fair. The article is acutally about Heath Ledger, but it is the brilliant Gilliam who frames the story of Ledger's last days. The brilliant director whose art is so often misunderstood in Hollywood.

And I wonder . . . do people who aren't poets and writers and filmmakers and musicians get this? Oldest thinks not. When you create art you inherently give a tiny piece of yourself away. Lingering on the page or the practice room, this intimacy with audience. Does someone feel with way after a long day balancing the books or selling insurance?

I don't know. But I know that there is something about creating art or music or words . . . that empties the artist.

I try to leave it all on the page.
Thoughts?