Thinking Out Loud
In October of 1999 I started writing a weekly letter to my family. It started out as kind of a joke about arriving to a family and friend get together at the cabin on the Duckabush River. It was vacant, the whole group had gone for a walk. It wasn't a bit messy, but there was a feeling of everyone disappearing in the middle of what they were doing, and I wrote a Stephen King type account of the weekend. It evolved and for well over a year I wrote a weekly letter, mostly E-mail, though I actually mailed them to several people as well.
It was one of several things which came together, turning me into an artist. I started being active and doing things, so I'd actually have something to write about. Four months before the letters, I'd quit a heavy chewing tobacco habit of twenty years. It left me with excess energy I didn't ever remember having. Then, four months after I started the letters I enrolled in my first acting class, Acting for Non-Actors taught by John Hazlewood.
I stopped the letters abruptly for several reasons. I was writing them in hopes of encouraging community within my immediate family and paternal step family. Well, it didn't work as there were very small contingents on each side with profound senses of moral/ethical superiority which made them intolerable to, and intolerant of each other. I was once part of the superior contingent, and thought communicating would bridge the gap. I was wrong, it was my journey, not theirs.
When my maternal stepfather died, my mom's husband, I got support from some of my step siblings, but not the ones I grew up with. Jack was cantankerous, crass, teller of tall tails, a veteran, and I really like him and I was the only person he considered to be his family. At one level it was slightly hurtful, even though I understood my siblings did not care for Jack. Mostly because they don't care for mom -- something I relate to all to well. I felt more connected to a number of my step siblings, the letters did help with that, but the letters had served their purpose.
In hindsight it is obvious the letters were mostly for myself. A tool to help me grow and expand. Once I grew to a certain point, I didn't need them anymore. Basically they were a journal I let others read if they wanted, and I missed writing them. Then Rachel told me about her blog, and I was off and running again. Again, it is a journal for myself, though I still find I'm tickled when someone refers to something from my blog, or someone I don't know stumbles across it and makes a nice comment.
It is an honor to realize someone has read my thoughts and briefly shared them in reading them. I'm sometimes joyful, sometimes dark, sometimes lucid, sometimes Bush'ed up. It is a very human contact. In reading other blogs I find the ones I like the most are those who share vulnerability, thought processes, and life building events. It's on the World Wide Web, yet something very intimate and human. Sort of the high tech antithesis of dehumanizing things like reality shows, the botox culture, and our insular lifestyles. We can't face a cashier when buying gas, we can't expose ourselves to uncomfortable realities or politics, we must stay in antiseptic cocoons to avoid any possibility of danger or discomfiting passion.
When it comes right down to it even these blogs are not terribly dangerous, though we are opening our cocoons a fraction and giving the world a peek. To carry the analogy further, if we stay tightly wrapped in our cocoons how can we possibly spread our wings? I believe we are overly cautious and timid with ourselves and children. As we approach perfect safety, the cocoon is tighter, thicker, stronger. I can't believe it is better to be a culture of long lived paling grubbish little larvae, than allow steps which entail very small risks, and allow us to break out of our cocoons.
I feel like I have just emerged from my cocoon. The wings are still wet and curled tightly to my body, though relaxing. Would it have been easier and quicker to shrug off my shell had I done it a couple decades earlier? Who knows, who cares? I don't. Living in a world with color and life makes those pupal questions lose significance. Interesting to explore, but of no lasting personal value once you have found a path that works for you. A journey is the thing.
A fun comparison. When I go on vacation I like to switch modes abruptly. When I have to leave for the airport or ferry in an hour I say, "Time to pack." My Dad likes to make checklists, carefully pack well ahead of time. Then he adjusts, repacks, gets everything just perfect, over and over again. I almost always get to the airport first. I think he likes to plan, list, and repack to start savoring the vacation before he goes. I like to wait, grab hold of my nose, and jump into the water. We relax and enjoy our vacations equally.
Who's to say my late emergence into life is not as good as an earlier one? I bet I am as happy now as I would have been otherwise. I look back on the worst mistakes I made in my life choices, those which denied decades of life, and they are now academic. It is an incredibly freeing thing to find myself a little wistful wondering what different choices as a twenty year would have made in my life today, and to sincerely answer, "Who knows, Who cares?"
It was one of several things which came together, turning me into an artist. I started being active and doing things, so I'd actually have something to write about. Four months before the letters, I'd quit a heavy chewing tobacco habit of twenty years. It left me with excess energy I didn't ever remember having. Then, four months after I started the letters I enrolled in my first acting class, Acting for Non-Actors taught by John Hazlewood.
I stopped the letters abruptly for several reasons. I was writing them in hopes of encouraging community within my immediate family and paternal step family. Well, it didn't work as there were very small contingents on each side with profound senses of moral/ethical superiority which made them intolerable to, and intolerant of each other. I was once part of the superior contingent, and thought communicating would bridge the gap. I was wrong, it was my journey, not theirs.
When my maternal stepfather died, my mom's husband, I got support from some of my step siblings, but not the ones I grew up with. Jack was cantankerous, crass, teller of tall tails, a veteran, and I really like him and I was the only person he considered to be his family. At one level it was slightly hurtful, even though I understood my siblings did not care for Jack. Mostly because they don't care for mom -- something I relate to all to well. I felt more connected to a number of my step siblings, the letters did help with that, but the letters had served their purpose.
In hindsight it is obvious the letters were mostly for myself. A tool to help me grow and expand. Once I grew to a certain point, I didn't need them anymore. Basically they were a journal I let others read if they wanted, and I missed writing them. Then Rachel told me about her blog, and I was off and running again. Again, it is a journal for myself, though I still find I'm tickled when someone refers to something from my blog, or someone I don't know stumbles across it and makes a nice comment.
It is an honor to realize someone has read my thoughts and briefly shared them in reading them. I'm sometimes joyful, sometimes dark, sometimes lucid, sometimes Bush'ed up. It is a very human contact. In reading other blogs I find the ones I like the most are those who share vulnerability, thought processes, and life building events. It's on the World Wide Web, yet something very intimate and human. Sort of the high tech antithesis of dehumanizing things like reality shows, the botox culture, and our insular lifestyles. We can't face a cashier when buying gas, we can't expose ourselves to uncomfortable realities or politics, we must stay in antiseptic cocoons to avoid any possibility of danger or discomfiting passion.
When it comes right down to it even these blogs are not terribly dangerous, though we are opening our cocoons a fraction and giving the world a peek. To carry the analogy further, if we stay tightly wrapped in our cocoons how can we possibly spread our wings? I believe we are overly cautious and timid with ourselves and children. As we approach perfect safety, the cocoon is tighter, thicker, stronger. I can't believe it is better to be a culture of long lived paling grubbish little larvae, than allow steps which entail very small risks, and allow us to break out of our cocoons.
I feel like I have just emerged from my cocoon. The wings are still wet and curled tightly to my body, though relaxing. Would it have been easier and quicker to shrug off my shell had I done it a couple decades earlier? Who knows, who cares? I don't. Living in a world with color and life makes those pupal questions lose significance. Interesting to explore, but of no lasting personal value once you have found a path that works for you. A journey is the thing.
A fun comparison. When I go on vacation I like to switch modes abruptly. When I have to leave for the airport or ferry in an hour I say, "Time to pack." My Dad likes to make checklists, carefully pack well ahead of time. Then he adjusts, repacks, gets everything just perfect, over and over again. I almost always get to the airport first. I think he likes to plan, list, and repack to start savoring the vacation before he goes. I like to wait, grab hold of my nose, and jump into the water. We relax and enjoy our vacations equally.
Who's to say my late emergence into life is not as good as an earlier one? I bet I am as happy now as I would have been otherwise. I look back on the worst mistakes I made in my life choices, those which denied decades of life, and they are now academic. It is an incredibly freeing thing to find myself a little wistful wondering what different choices as a twenty year would have made in my life today, and to sincerely answer, "Who knows, Who cares?"
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