Do you know what Sorrow is? Not pain, not depression, not misery, not sadness; not that feeling of not getting that job you really wanted; not the doubt that creeps in when you turn back from that corner you've forced yourself into, only to find that the room has cleared out completely and its just you left alone to face your aloneness; not the compression felt when happenstance runs against your best intentions and the ensuing weight of which pushes down on your tanned, but brittle shoulders; not the stranded emptiness left behind when the show you've been putting on, is shown to be just a show; not the cat running away; not your guitar-picking-fingers torn apart by a still full, shattered beer glass; not the rain, not the wind, not a storm, not the searing heat and definitely not just the clouds above.
Sorrow.
Sorrow is not caused - it's not a reaction. Sorrow is an expression of self, that needs neither fuel nor motivation, it is already and will always be, well, 'there'. Sorrow is a projection of and from inside certain individuals, that feel a particular sweet warmth inside themselves, that whilst comforting, is also foreboding. Not in the way the cynic or the miserable predict increasing negativity, but rather they accept that sadness or events that induce sadness, are a part of the whole dance we all go through and they embrace that reality, without being anchored down by a defeated sense of impending doom. They recognise that this world, this conscious experience, is ours as a whole - a sum of all it's parts - and can only be lived thoroughly, if we walk through all it's doors and not draw the blinds on various edit-worthy parts. So, therefore, it is better to find a way to find pleasure in all, rather than just futilely suppressing or avoiding the sour parts that don't taste right to our palates. They don't walk into and then out of pain because they enjoy sourness, but rather they find sweetness from inside what others cannot and they do this by being internally equipped with a mechanism that allows them to experience pain in the same gear, in the same stride, in which they take in joy.
It does not hide, Sorrow. It does not shirk nor remain dormant until the benefits of it's implements are required for forward movement. It is prevalent in totality at all times. Though, this does not mean that it is easy to recognise. So often, it is confused for other, lesser black emotional positions. This is obviously because there is many shared symptoms between Sorrow and even just the examples I listed above. However, those in the know, those that can and do identify the uniqueness of Sorrow, know that when all is said and done, Sorrow is not to be fought off, but embraced and quested for more of it and therefore infinitely different to any strain of any position, you or your brother the Psychologist or the dismissively misjudging may often confuse it with.
I know Sorrow. I know Sorrow, like I know cricket. Like I know sarcasm. Like I know more than you about The Dusty Road. Like I know more about The Truth, than you know about your protestations of it's definitions. Like I know about sandwiches and smoothies and scrambled eggs and cakes. Yes, I know Sorrow, like I know cake. And just like I always search every city I come upon, for the best cakes in town, I search for it's best Sorrow. Or rather, the individuals with that beautiful, round, yellowy energy, that projects off their upper chest and finds a way to fill me up from in front of my face and swell up through my nostrils, tasting like the dense aroma of nostalgia spiced with imagined hope and predicted distance..... and poppyseed.
Sorrow.
Sometimes I get it wrong. Most often, I misidentify the aroma of Misery, for Sorrow. I may meet someone in the midst of a painful experience and the pleasure and the resoluteness that they exhibit whilst twirling through the changes, leads me to believe that I have found again, my great vice. However, whilst The Miserable find enjoyment in pain, there is one very key difference between them and the Sorrowful. See, The Miserable want only for the Blackness, but not for the Light. The Miserable do find pleasure in their pain (and too often, in the pain of others as well), but do not have the same reaction to joy, luck and victory. So, when one's first liasion with The Miserable, is during a period of drama, they do seem to be moving in that same stride of the Sorrowful, but once placed outside and beyond this arena, once placed into an arena of joy, there they become stale and languid to the pleasures from within. Simply put, they crave the depression and repress the ascension. (um, not sure if that is 'simply put', but anyways....).
I think I'm supposed to now expand on the lessons I've learnt from misjudgment, but, instead, I'm going to make this a short post tonight. I've been away for a while and just wanted to readjust to the whole procedure of writing and posting again, so I will end with just this proclamation - this cried out request :
Give me your Sorrowfull, New York. Give me those that project what compels and draws me in and not those that repels and withdraws. Give me truth in expression. Give me strength. Give me everything you gave to F Scott and The Duke and The Satchmo and Dylan - both Thomas and Bob - and Pollack and Berlin and Gershwin and Lichtenstein and Warhol and Miller and Prima and Wolfe and Bruce and The Chelsea Hotel and Washington Square and The Dancehalls of Harlem and The Speakeasys of Prohibition and the Jazz of Greenwhich and The Blues of Back-Then and The Hip Hop of Right-Now and the Cinema of Always. Give me all The Sorrow you once gave them, so that I too may get what I want. So that I too, may give back unto you. So I too, may put back more Sorrow into your streets - a return on your investment.
Oh, and some cake as well please. Please give some more of that bittersweet, Hungarian style, poppyseed danish. That'll help as well.
" The hardest things to shake is that which once shook you" https://twitter.com/behaimah
