I keep thinking I’m being cruel with my observations, when I really do not want to be.
Again, I’m working on the Einstein study of an atom -- which essentially is trying to figure out how a watch works without actually opening it up to see what’s inside.
And she’s far more complicated than any watch or atom, or even possibly the universe itself (yes, I exaggerated).
Complicating the matter are my own basic flaws, which bring an emotional element into a study that should be entirely emotionless.
I sometimes jump to conclusions based not on fact, but on my feelings. Never a good thing.
She is complex enough.
Her role in the political world of the Virgin Mayor and such, and then her role in her private life, and then her role as an artist.
All of these things get mixed together, her ambition to achieve as her job and in her art, and her need for love.
Love, self-love, the love of others seems to be the engine that drives her life, disguised in other forms such as lust for power and importance, and the need to be recognized.
But as time goes on, she is reveals herself to be far more vulnerable than even she lets on, though it is revealed in her poetry.
She wants love above all else, and even though she might be “wanton” as she claims in one poem, she is no better or worse than others of her generation for which sexuality is not viewed in moral terms, and sometimes a necessary tool for advancement. Yet down deep, she seems to want the old-fashioned love (absent the candy and flowers, of course, and all the other claptrap that comes with greeting card poems,)
She really wants someone who will be with her and encourage her, even though at the same time she struggles with the conflict that most people do, the need to not lose her own identity. That was what I was trying to convey in earlier journal entries, and also when I analyzed her poem about the breaking down of the romance.
This may well be the central conflict of her life, caught between the need for someone else’s love and self-love.
She seems to want to have both, yet sometimes comes to the conclusion both are not possible, and she must either become trapped in some relationship or spend her life eventually alone with her cats and Netflix.
More than once I’ve painted her mistakenly as ruthless (especially when she is seeking to improve her status) but in fact she is desperate – yes, for power and privilege, but more importantly for self-worth, needing to prove that she is worthy (of love, of power, of prestige), suffering from the same problem Gray’s poem about a church yard depicted.
Talented people more often than not do not succeed and find themselves lost.
She made this clear in one poem about the need for luck. She’s right, and even though elsewhere in these pages I am critical of her, I fully understand that if she expects to achieve anything, she can’t wait for luck, and must use every tool available to her in order to make that happen.
Unfortunately, I got in the way when she worked for us, and the place where she is working now isn’t much better.
Hopefully, she finds the next stepping stone before it’s too late. As she pointed out, she’s getting older, and as the Rolling Stones noted, Time waits for no one.
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