What I've learned this week (so far):
1. A taste of one's own medicine is a bitter reminder of how flawed we are.
1a. Feeling someone else's pain isn't really possible, but feeling our own pain in the same way that we've dealt it out to others is a powerful lesson.
2. I want desperately to be independent because ----- who needs a reason?
3. Under extreme stress, I am ugly.
4. The happy pills had their advantages. Feelings suck.
5. Feelings are necessary.
6. Music is a better drug than anti-depressants.
7. Vodka and determination can make a frozen gas cap lock unstick.
8. Sometimes having an epiphany about someone else can be like opening a door upon one's own psyche.
For example, realizing that someone who is quite accustomed to being the smartest kid in the room, the best person in their field but who also refuses to retain information about the most basic aspects of using a computer is being mentally obstinate because he/she cannot accept being not the best.
It's not that they can't. It's that they won't.
Which could be applied to yours truly when it comes to writing. Admitting this doesn't please me, but there it is stark and real. Damn it.
Now that I know this about myself, it's up to me to fix it. Damn it again.
And yet....
This is like a hell list of vaguebooking, but until I decide whether or not to start blogging anonymously, I've gone as far as I'm willing to go. My point here isn't to shame anyone but rather to remind myself that Karma, the way most of us misunderstand it, is indeed a bitch.
Writing this does help, too. I don't know how it does, but it does.
What have you learned this week?
Hi Lisa,
ReplyDeleteJust hi.
Love,
Claire
Hey you! Love you.
Deleteoo i like number 8...very true....much to learn of ourselves
ReplyDeletein learning of others...
Thanks, Brian. That mirror thing......
DeleteHey sweetie,
ReplyDeleteFunny. I ripped open the veil this week over at my place. Luckily, I've lost all regular readers so no one knows yet. ;)
If you go annon again, I hope there'll be a vetting process for those of us who are distant enough to feel safe.
Be well, friend.
I'm going to have to go see what you've got going on. If I go anon, I'll be sure to let you know how to find me.
DeleteI could have written this, or something entirely different that said almost the same things. If you strike out into the anonymous world, take this lonely rider with you.
ReplyDeleteLisa, I won't let you get away. And what's with these stupid feelings anyway?
DeleteI'm not in Hedgesville, I'm in Berkeley Springs! And I say, Hi, hang in there!
ReplyDelete~
I hope it's warm where you are, ITTDGY. Hi! I'm hanging.
DeleteSpeaking of epiphanies, or Epiphany, I got a poem from an old friend who lives in Ireland where they still celebrate January 6th as the Women's Christmas. The girls all head to the pubs leaving the men home to take care of things. Sounds good to me. The poem, called the Night of Women's Christmas is strangely compelling:
ReplyDeleteThere was fury in the storm that came last night
last night, the Christmas of Women;
as if released from a distant bedlam
a lunatic shriek through the sky;
rattling against the gate like the gaggling of geese
roaring up the river like a bellowing bull
dousing my candle like a blow upon my mouth :
an unexpected spark for anger
I hope such a storm will come to me
The night I begin to die
As I return home from the dance of life
with the light of this life failing,
so every moment might be filled with cries from the sky,
transforming the world into a chorus of screams,
so I would not hear the silence moving toward me
or feel the engine that moves me stop.
I love the idea of Women's Christmas. I could get carried away and require a weekly Women's Saturday.
DeleteYou're right. That poem is strangely compelling. I love it. Thank you.
At the risk of seeming like I'm horning in on your post, I have been been navigating this vaguebooking affliction for a long time, and it's probably the main reason (even though I blame work) I am not writing now. Have considered anonymous blogging too. Have also said "grow up Jennifer, you're in the fifty club, you can say what the fuck you want. If not now, when? Then again, the big facebook "friends cleanse" and disassociation from twitter were exceedingly liberating. I don't need that classmate from grade eight or that former colleague from five years ago to be a part of my "moments."
ReplyDeleteSeems I haven't learned anything this week. But I do believe this - NO writer is completely honest and open about everything all the time. We're all going to be our own gatekeepers to some extent. Maybe a few things just need a little time and a gentle approach.
Jennifer, your comment is a pot of gold. So much there for me to chew on. Am I mixing metaphors?
DeleteWrite fiction. Create wonderfully flawed characters to say and do everything you would like to say/do IRL. Anne Lamott said, "If people don't like what you write about them, they should have been nicer." Write whatever you want, Lisa. Just write. I miss you.
ReplyDeleteI have learned, thanks to an old high school acquaintance, that contentment is underrated. I have spent so many wasted years trying to be the Best at this, the BEST at THAT, and have lost some pretty good moments in the interim. So screw it. No more worrying about whether I'll "ever" be re-promoted at work (after "right sizing" knocked me back to hourly). I'll go in, do a DANG fine job with the 40 hours - and go home to my family. One of these days, I will gain the courage to give notice and wander away from that cancerous place, but in the meantime, I will claim back my life. <3
ReplyDeleteLisa, stop worrying about Karma. As I understand it, it''s not real. Let's worry about the real things. Like robots. Like tiny robots taking over your mind, controlling your thoughts, compelling your fingers to glide away at typewriters. You type there is no such thing as KARMA and guess what? You awaken the gods. You shuffle off from one's mortal coil. You go sea-doing, holding on to the back Miley Cyrus. None of these things are real, or converse are they the only things that are REA:LLL ...LET me know when you find out...Love Romius T. For your readers here there will be PARATAXIs {DO NOT EXPLAIN>
ReplyDeleteI am TOTALLY with you on these:
ReplyDelete3. Under extreme stress, I am ugly.
---- ME TOO
4. The happy pills had their advantages. Feelings suck.
----- Yep. Yep.
I am too in a writing bind, not wanting to be anonymous anymore, but also not really feeling able to be all the way out there in my own name. I know it should be a book, but with blogging there was the showing up every day and doing it. Audience and voice matter so much! xoxoxo
ReplyDelete