20 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich in Jay Rusovich, 0 Comments

Missing Time [and, like, can I have it back?]

I have a book signing and photographic exhibition in two weeks.

The work is a culmination of a life-long struggle with existentialism and its obvious dead ends.

Just imagine heroin addiction without the highs, but all the lows.

And for better or worse my new work stands as a testament to survival through what seemed an impossible journey.

It is representative of the years spent in what I call “missing time.”

“Missing” because it was life from behind a veneer. Protected. Insulated. Fearful. As opposed to exposed, vulnerable and proud.

At one time, that was too much to ask of a man who’s entire life felt like someone else’s fantasy.

For those of you who have never put yourselves out like this, it’s like sprinting into the mouth of madness with your eyes closed.

Or like test-driving the hearts and minds of a thousand strangers with an ice pick, if that works better for you.

I have to be both vulnerable and shielded when the bullets fly, which I hope remains metaphoric.

Who am I?

What am I trying to accomplish?

And why do I care?

Three questions every artist will eventually have to answer.

My assistant, Yvonne, and the rest of the crew are my responsibility. I am friend, confident, dysfunctional parent and guardian all in one, and often at the same time.

The truth is I’m running a machine I don’t fully grasp. I grasp the vague notions and rough parameters, but the rest is still somewhat elusive.

Is it the honing in on a life in full bloom or something else?

I’ll probably never know for sure.

The people around me seem to feel more grounded about it than I do. I can only handle so much emotional compression, as I’m sure you’ve gleamed from all of this.

Sometimes I want to run away to some barren desert and sleep out under the stars with the mountain lions and Gila monsters, just to see if I have the mettle to make it out alive. Or maybe just to test their interest in such an alien form of life.

That’s the great thing about fantasy and one reason I do the thing’s I do.

So much time has passed and still I have no idea why I took this particular journey.

When people say you have endless choices, they need to realize that choices don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re the culmination of the unconscious; shaped and carved by the emotional forces of family and the genes they weave.

And that’s what this book – and the ones that will follow – are all about.

Making sense of missing time.

The time wasted in hiding – in fear, and in denial – which led to this moment in my life where everything is exposed and utterly raw.

So now that I’m free, God help me…and maybe you.