“And I chose instead the dark dance of the Moon…”

My love and appreciation for the poet Jim Carroll

Lately these days, I find myself returning to the loves and passions of my youth — ballet, my love of poetry, and my passion for orchids (a rather fragile and tempestuous flower, often difficult to flourish unless in the right circumstances, which actually is kind of analogous to my own self). These things were always important to me, of course, but in the due course of life and the striving to always be running being meaning something to someone to everyone but me, I have now begun to allow myself to remember them all.

The above interview with Jim Carroll is why I loved him and his work so. The delicacy, the inherent fragility, the absolute wit and sardonic humor, the blazing intelligence, all of it. I read obsessively all of his works, including the Downtown Diaries, and his adventures and I suppose, in a way, lived vicariously through his words and experiences. After all, I myself would never be a heroin addict, nor a sexual hustler on the streets of New York City, but I suppose it was a way for me to imagine what it would be like as only a suburban white girl of my background and breeding could be…have I mentioned that I have a bit of a dark side? I wasn’t a former Goth Girl for nothing…