The Brooklyn Rail

Most nights I sleep like a stone. There are nights I don’t sleep because I’m stressing about the things I can change and the things I definitely can’t change, and the gods haven’t given me the grace to know the difference. There are nights I don’t sleep for sex-and-drugs-and-rock-and-roll reasons, and nights I don’t sleep because I’m getting download after download. Turns out the gods gave me those instead and they’re worth any amount of needless worrying. I wake up with the first load barrelling down, sit up, turn on the bedside light and write as fast as it comes, scribble everything I get, put the lid back on the pen, close my notebook, turn off the light, lie down to sleep. Sometimes my head isn’t even on the pillow before another download begins so I sit back up, put the light on, write. This could happen eight, nine, twenty times, I don’t know, I’m in a meteor shower, I’m not counting.

I say “download” because that’s the movement. The stuff is not bubbling up or swirling around and nothing is rising (apart from me, from my pillow). It’s coming down, an intermittent waterfall, bolts of thunder and lightning. I look rough the next day but I don’t give a shit about that because right now I am with the band and we are on a magic carpet, in a cloud of finely spun gold.

It can happen that I get downloads on the same night for different projects and those nights I have two pages going at once, but it overflows so I create an ordering system on the hoof: shape-asterisks or ABCD for one project, 1234 for another. But then each system suddenly needs a subsystem, so I’ve got A¹, A², etc., and 1^A, 1^B, etc., long swooping arrows and dotted lines to connect sections. There are bubbles, vertical sentences, shorthand invented on the spot that I often can’t decipher later.

It’s notebook mayhem and I love it, but I can’t make it happen, can’t predict or prepare, can’t buy or teach it. I can only be willing, and then be grateful, because after such an experience it’s only right to say thank you. But how, exactly? They don’t teach you that at law school and I didn’t go to law school anyway. So I’ve experimented over the years. You’re talking to someone who once walked into the British Museum with an armful of pink peonies to lay at the feet of the goddess. Ostentatious, I know. I’m embarrassed about that now. A single bloom would have sufficed but I was young and knew nothing about how to thank gods. Taking the whole bunch was a rookie mistake. Obviously, I waited until there was a lull in the crowd and, obviously, I waited until the security guards were at the other end of the great hall. But it’s hard to be discreet with peonies; they’re so blousy. I won’t say which goddess nor what I specifically had to give thanks for because some things should remain sacred. To be honest, I can’t believe I’m telling you even this much, but my friend asked me to write about creativity and aging and this is what I know: creativity is visitation.

Another way of putting it: creativity is an ongoing conversation—with yourself, other people, the world around you. Downloads aside, the conversation is hardly ever in words, so if you forget some, it really doesn’t matter.

It happened the other day. I was walking the long way home one Sunday afternoon, around the curved corner at the top of Acre Lane in South West London. A large crow swooped extremely low over my head. I flinched but walked on. BOOM! Crow shoved the back of my head with both feet. Quite some force in that kick. I cried out “What the fuck?” as any normal person would, in shock only, not pain. She didn’t peck, scratch, or pull out even one strand of hair. She landed on a nearby wall, closed her wings and stared at me. “What are you doing?” I said, glaring back. Rude, yes. It took a moment to recognise the unannounced visit, the surprise party, if you will. Crow was having a word with me. It turned out this was the beginning of a long conversation that involved two visits to the Cobblestone pub in Dublin, a medieval costume and two ex-monks, but like I said, some things remain sacred.

A couple days later, I went to say thank you. As before, I did my research: I returned with a small handful of raw peanuts. I looked up among the treetops and located her nest. A small ship in the high branches. The wind was much stronger up there, I could see. Luckily, she was in. I didn’t prostrate myself or light incense. No need to be weird about it. I surreptitiously let the peanuts fall in a little line as I was walking past her tree, didn’t even break my stride. Why hasn’t anyone asked me to be a spy? Age has nothing to do with creativity, but it can bring experience. I’m old enough now to go about my business with the gods quietly.