Growing up in a Christian home, I would sometimes ask my mum deep, philosophical questions about certain aspects of the faith, and invariably I’d get some short but overwhelmingly wise response that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.
I once asked her about fasting since it wasn’t something we did as a family – heck, we didn’t even do Lent. Her explanation was straightforward, and probably the best guideline for fasting I’ve heard even since adulthood. She said, “you don’t have to do it, but it’s something people sometimes do when they mean business with God.”
Sounds pretty serious, pretty heavy. At the time I didn’t feel old enough or big enough to mean business with the Big Man. Of course recently, as a real live grown-up, He’s been giving me good reason to want to talk turkey with Him.
As you may well have read yesterday, I’ve been wrestling through internal conflicts as an artist and trying to reconcile my starving artist neurosis with my happy clappy Pentecostalism. For this reason, and also because I wasn’t in the mood to eat, I decided to try fasting. I didn’t eat anything from breakfast to about 6pm that night, and barely drank water (not because I had to, but because I just felt so angrily depressed).
As I worked through the rest of my day, an unusual thing happened. Instead of being lethargic and weakened as I expected, I found my mind was sharper and I worked through my housework like it was a footnote below the energy I was expending on my thoughts. I cooked possibly the most detailed meal I’ve ever made for tea – a sort of semi-British style bento in an assortment of happily interlocking tupperware. And I served it with Thai sencha in the Chinese tea set given to us by one of Dave’s good friends as a wedding gift. Dessert was ice cream with western Pocky (i.e., Mikado). Needless to say, Dave didn’t even bother to switch on the Simpsons while we ate.
By that point, my mood had lifted. Now I know that it was the sort of depression of the soul caused by a divine thumb rather than any chemical imbalance or lack of daylight hours. This is a relief to me. I’m normal! I’m seeking and finding! I was meant to feel disturbed and dissatisfied in order to find a solution, and so I would be prompted to open up to the world for once in my shell-bound life. It made me so flippin’ ticked off that I stopped caring and just started writing, and as a result I received an incredible response from the people that read.
To all the folks that discussed my last post with me on Facebook, thank you. You have shown me great support of the dream I have as an artist and confirmed for me many things that I was going crazy over. It’s difficult to function alone. If it’s ‘not good for man (Adam) to be alone’, then it’s not good for woman Caryl either. I need people on my team, people that believe in what I’m doing and enjoy the things I produce. If Lady Gaga has her Haus of Gaga, CarylCake needs some cake tasters.
Here’s to diving in!
It’s time I made some waves in the oceans of sound.