“Rainy Day People”

by  Gordon Lightfoot

Rainy day people always seem to know when it’s time to call
Rainy day people don’t talk
They just listen til they’ve heard it all
Rainy day lovers don’t lie when they tell you
They been down like you
Rainy day people don’t mind if you’re crying a tear or two
If you get lonely, all you really need is that rainy day love
Rainy day people all know there’s no sorrow they can’t rise above
Rainy day lovers don’t love any others, that would not be kind
Rainy day people all know how it hangs on a piece of mind
Rainy day lovers don’t lie when they tell you, they’ve been down there too
Rainy day people don’t mind if you’re crying a tear or two
Rainy day people always seem to know when you’re feeling blue
High stepping strutters who land in the gutter sometimes need one too
Take it or leave it, or try to believe it, if you’ve been down too long
Rainy day lovers don’t hide love inside they just pass it on
Rainy day lovers don’t hide love inside they just pass it on

 

Do you remember what it felt like having a best friend, someone to share your secrets with, cry with when you fell down and scraped your knees, to laugh and giggle with over silly things and sillier people? Although, for most of us, that best friend definition reminds us of childhood and those long hard days of growing up and maybe never believing we’d get there, I also believe that we continue to search for more of the same throughout our existence. That feeling of warm welcome and always acceptance when eyes meet. Hugs and pats on the back when needed most. Someone who helps you stay in line without jerking you around. Someone who cheers when you succeed, and boos the competition when you don’t quite do so. Someone who lets you know that you are doing the best with what you’ve been given, respects any effort you put out, and knows you will give back the same without being prompted.

We grow up and get busy being the adults we never thought we would become. But there are always those days when the busyness stops and we realize that we need something more. As I started writing this, I could hear the old Gordon Lightfoot song lyrics playing through my mind. We all need rainy day people, a best friend, at some point or another. We also know that best friends grow up, change, go their own way, and fade from the present moment in numerous ways. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a rainy day best friend anytime, all the time? You can and you do. The very best rainy day friend you can ever have is you.

It begins as all relationships do: with a dialogue, communication of one sort or another. At the cost of repeating myself, the most important dialogue you will ever engage in, is that one with your own person. It is going on constantly, every moment of every day, but if you don’t pay attention, don’t listen and respond, it can fade away just like that best friend from childhood. Writing daily, on a personal level, is a deliberate conscious move to make a friendship with the only person you will always have with you. We are all rainy day people, if we allow ourselves to be. We are all best friends, if we want to be that.

Stop for a moment. Think about what you want in a best friend, who do you turn to on those rainy days that we all encounter far more than we’d like? And yes, I know that many of you will answer that question by saying that you find those things in God, or a belief system. Personally, I still need a Jesus with skin on Him, when the storm is raging outside and the lights go out and don’t come back on. I want a real voice speaking in my ear, words I can physically hear whispering comforting things, or singing a lullaby to soothe me. That isn’t to say I don’t think, or believe, that God will get me through, it just means I have realized that I still want someone to hold my hand while God does whatever God is going to do.

I used to ask a question when I found myself in the midst of one of those storms. People have a tendency to come to me when they need a rainy day friend. But when I’d find myself alone on one of those rainy days, I would often find myself asking the empty air, “Where is my Elizabeth, when I need her?” One day, to my own startled shock, after once again yelling that question toward the ceiling, I heard a distinct, but very familiar voice in my head, say with a lot of affectionate laughter, “She’s sitting right here asking that very silly question, again.” I had to join in the laughter and that in turn, felt like a warm well-needed hug.

But there is something else that is just as important about this truth and reality. We all fight loneliness and the fear of being, or becoming, just another lonely individual. We struggle with it and allow ourselves to be bent by that fear. We stay in places and relationships to avoid what we fear most. we allow people to remain in our lives long after they have lost any resemblance to the definition of a friend. No matter how many people, pets, or diverse belief systems we embrace, there always comes that moment when we must confront the fact that we are essentially alone within our own skin. That is the moment we most need the best rainy day friend within our own being.

No, this doesn’t happen over night. Most things of enduring value don’t. It takes practice, commitment, and day to day work. But if you are willing to do some of the things I am suggesting, I can promise you that you will find the very best rainy day friend you can imagine or ever dream up. So, get on paper and start defining what a best friend really is, start letting yourself know what a rainy day person would look like to you. Then ask yourself what you need to do to make that happen, how and what you need to do to become your own best rainy day friend.

Checking The Temperature

I have spent the last three days watching my temperature rise and fall drastically in both directions. I am speaking of my emotional temperature, not my physical one, although the physical one did some jumping around because of the other, I am sure. Many of us have thermometers nailed up somewhere outside that we can give a quick glance at and know what the physical reality of our environment is up to. That allows us to dress appropriately, be prepared when we venture out on whatever errands we will engage in. However, a thermometer doesn’t do any good, if we forget that its there and no longer take the time to consciously check it to see what it is reading.

Consciously checking our emotional temperature is just as, if not, more important. Had I ventured out yesterday, I might have been in trouble. As it was, I stayed in and weathered the storm in warm privacy with a bit of help from two friends who happened to call and ask how I was doing. Neither of them had any idea of the emotional thundercloud I was sitting in, but each, in her own fashion, gave me the necessary equipment to get myself outside of the storm, and keep me safe from gusting winds and torrential rain, with repeated flood warnings.

In her book, A Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris explains a wonderful little writing exercise: writing out your own emotional weather report. Mine, for yesterday, would have been approaching hurricane conditions with a gradual change in wind direction that will keep the storm offshore and away from human population. And Tom Waits does a bang up job in his song Emotional Weather Report:  

with tornado watches issued shortly
before noon Sunday, for the areas
including, the western region
of my mental health
and the northern portions of my
ability to deal rationally with my
disconcerted precarious emotional
situation, it’s cold out there…

I particularly like the way he adds specific directions to his report. Locations and directions are important both in the physical realm, and the emotional reality.

When people ask me for ideas about what to write, I always forget this one, but was reminded by my own journal pages from yesterday and today. I glanced at the thermometer, but didn’t let it register the day before. That is so easy to do. Our emotions are always there, always speaking to us, always telling us where we are and what we are headed into. We disregard, ignore, and even deny their potential for measuring our moment by moment lives. It might be very wise to write out a one or two sentence weather report on each journal page created. Make it the first thing, and then go on to whatever else might need to be said. I think I’ve just given myself another assignment. A very practical, but priceless one, at that.

What is the alternative? Watch TV and make sure I catch the weather report? We all know that is, at best, a great deal of guess work, and results only in possibilities, or a constant switching to the weather station for any new developments. Besides, there is no weather man alive who knows the temperature inside of my apartment and why would I depend on someone else’s (expert, or otherwise) definition of my emotional landscape? Yes, I had help yesterday. But not the kind that told me what my weather conditions were. The help, I received, was of the variety of gently chosen words that might lead me to the definitions, I myself, needed to make my own analysis (thank you, Marj and Sandy). And both women engaged in gentle laughter and affection while doing so. Can’t beat that.

Writing a daily weather report is a very creative way of assessing one’s reality. How long, how many days, months, years, have those dark storm clouds been resting against that distant horizon? And what about the weather conditions other people seem to bring with them? That constant shudder of chill so and so carries around and brings into any room she enters? Checking out the anomalies could open doors into possible working solutions. And yes, this is a metaphor: your pen the hand held thermometer, and your pages the opening you alone can set it to. All done in private with never anyone the wiser. Best of all, you don’t need a degree to be able to do it.

If it’s been raining too many days in a row, what can you do about it? Unlike real physical weather conditions, we can change the emotional conditions we are creating. If so and so enters your space, you will know that you need warming cover and can keep it handy and readily available. If, however, so and so turns out to be you, you always have the option to move yourself to Tahiti and learn how to acclimatize to much warmer conditions with lots of sunshine and balmy breezes. It doesn’t have to be work, it is an adventure, if you choose to let it be.

Taking your emotional temperature is a choice you make. Taking the time to do so is another. I sense a dust storm coming on so its best if I make sure the pegs holding down my tent are as firmly planted as possible and then do a quick run for extra provisions which must include Cedar Crest Mackinac Island Fudge, of course. That way, I can listen to the howling monster outside my door while enjoying my own special soothing treat, knowing all the while that the monster will exhaust himself eventually, and I will be ready to greet the coming, and possible, drastic changes in my outer environment. It’s only sand, after all.

Carved In Stone

Funny how the things we know about ourselves, and are conscious of all the time, are the most difficult to put into written words. ___Stan

This quote was left as a comment on my last blog. And I agree with it whole heartedly. Just as it is somewhat easy to find definitions for a friend or an acquaintance, but becomes oh so difficult to find them for ourselves, finding words to define ourselves and then writing them down, is even more difficult to do. Why is it the hardest thing to do when, as Stan says, we know these things and are conscious of them all the time? I think there are many answers and even layers within those answers.

The first one that comes to mind is fear. As long as something is in my head, it belongs to me alone unless I choose to share it. As long as it is only in my head, It’s just that, in my head. But bringing it out transforms it. Makes it different. Doesn’t necessarily change its meaning (although it definitely can), but it certainly alters its value. Inside, it has no value to anyone but myself, because no one else knows it. But outside, because it is personal, it can be used against me. In the hands of another it can become a tool or weapon to control, use, abuse, or dominate me. But, we are speaking about just words here, right? Words have power. Sharing them means sharing the power as well.

Have you ever had your words thrown back at you? I have, and it can be a delightful compliment, even funny, but can also be extremely wounding depending on the tone of voice and the intent of the wielder of those words. In ancient times, there was a belief that when you gave your name to another, you entered into an obligatory relationship with that person. That meant that that individual could come to you and demand that you owed him something, simply because he knew your name. You were obliged to give what was asked for. You were expected to stand behind your name, because your name was a definition that went far beyond simple meaning. It told the world not just who, but what you were. That may have to do with why, in later centuries, it became a high level priority to keep ones good name, to protect the family name from any and all scandal or besmirchment.

That transformation of value is even more apparent when we write the words, not just speak them. Writing those words, gives them shape, form, substance. It makes them real. And therein, lies the problem of difficulty we are addressing. As long as the words are only in my head, I don’t need to do anything about them and the knowledge they impart. I don’t have to act on them. Speaking them brings them out in the open, but writing them makes them my responsibility. It isn’t an accident that we say we are committing something to paper. We are. We are committing ourselves, entering ourselves into an obligatory relationship with those words. And before this gets too heavy and I freeze someone in the act of doing so, this all occurs in our heads.

From the time we are young, we have a distinct relationship with words, whether they are spoken or written. We are actually encouraged to respect both forms of communication and we do, for the most part. However, within the socialization process we must all take part in, there are definite glitches. Remember those layers I spoke of earlier? This is one of them. Along with respect, we also learn fear. We know that although they are only words, they can and do harm us on occasion. If we have been told repeatedly that children should be quiet and not speak, we are doubly afraid to go one step further and write, put those words out there where someone might actually see them, and hold us accountable.

Each of us has unique experiences during the process of growing up. And each of us has specific fears about the words we wield. The spectrum runs from total silence to a raging shout. And we can do all of them on paper, as well. Just as in the process of learning to write, we are taught that how we do the thing is more important than what we have to say, along with how we speak, we also learn that it is important to be very careful about what we speak. And many of us are taught, by repeated admonitions, that there are whole worlds of things we should never speak about at all. It may be only intimated that dire consequences will ensue, but we definitely get the message.

When I was growing up, we got the message that we were never to speak about sex. That’s right, never. It was a taboo subject. Yet, each of us was also encouraged to find a specific mate, get married, and produce children. On my twenty-first birthday, a group of us went out to a bar which was featuring a female comedienne. She did an entire act about how, as a young girl growing up, at every turn her mother would whisper, “Don’t do it.” Half-way through the act, most of the crowd was joining in on the punch line and shouting, “Don’t do it.” Then on her wedding day, as the girl was about to depart with her new husband, her mother stands before her and yells, “Now, you can do it!” Do it? What is it? Major glitch, yes? I laughed all the way through her act. But, inside, I knew it was far too real to be all that funny.

In today’s world, we often hear the phrase, “Get it in writing.” We are actually acknowledging that there is far more power in the written word than in a spoken promise or agreement. But, just because words are written on paper, that doesn’t automatically mean they are now carved in stone. Paper can be easily burned, torn to shreds, packed away in an attic, or left completely blank. When we are writing them in a journal, we are exploring, making discoveries, experimenting with the words themselves. Yes, we are committing ourselves, but only to the exploration of possibilities. We are trying them on to see if they fit. Far better to do that in private, don’t you think?

Because we are exploring, we always have the freedom to change our minds. But, if we never get those words onto the paper, we may never see them clearly, or actually know exactly how they fit, and why or why not. They remain up in our heads and we never have to do anything about the ideas they speak of and to. We can stay within the boundaries of our own little comfort zones and stagnate. Or we can commit ourselves to the exploration of the words. Preversely, I believe that if we don’t, we are carving them in the stone hard ground of our minds, always accompanied by that devilish whisper of, “Don’t do it.”

A Not So Brief Challenge

This is a meme, a writing prompt, an exercise I have found on several blog cites lately. Each one is distinctly different because it is flavored with the individual’s own voice and honesty. It fascinates me, and so I brought it back here and want to present it as a challenge to you. I have tried to make it easy to copy and paste onto another page to make it as comfortable as possible. You simply use each prompt to begin a brief statement about your own person. There are no wrong answers, no bad ones either. It is simply an encouragement to get on the page. I will do the exercise by filling out the statements as they pertain to the writing of this blog, and you may erase those answers before beginning with your own. My response is only meant as an example, while you, of course, are free to answer across the entire spectrum of your experience.

I am: deeply grateful that I found and began to do this blog.

I think: it is a challenge fitting my skills and abilities.

I know: that I couldn’t have done it just a few years ago.

I want: to encourage as many people as possible to find the things I have found in personal writing.

I have: wanted to do this for a long time.

I wish: I had trusted myself to do it years ago.

I hate: the idea that so many people have been discouraged, dismissed, ignored, even punished for seeking to explore the realm of their own person in this manner.

I miss: not hearing comments from so many who come here. I really do want to hear what you think, and feel, about all or any part of this.

I fear: not being able to sustain what I have begun, for any reason.

I feel: that I have finally found the comfortable niche that was carved out for me before I was born.

I hear: the sound of my computer keys clicking and it is music, tempered by the background noise of the fan that I keep on most days to circulate the air.

I smell: the fading scent of my own perfume, and the sweet breath of a whole lot of ideas.

I crave: Cedar Crest Mackinac Island Fudge Ice Cream

I search: constantly for words that will allow me to express all of this.

I wonder: occasionally, if I’m crazy, preaching to the choir, or just in love with the sound of my own voice.

I regret: having listened for years to those voices that told me I think too much, can’t always have what I want, am foolish, have nothing of value to offer or say, and am far from adequate.

I ache: for anyone who has ever been told repeatedly that they should remain silent to accommodate someone else’s feelings.

I care: about a great many things, one of them is the need for self-expression.

I always: get scared just before I click the button marked Publish.

I am not: anywhere near as afraid as I used to be.

I believe: that the more people who become aware of their own inner workings and actually deal with them, the better the world will be.

I dance: on paper.

I sing: poetry

I cry: far more easily than ever before and see it as a signal rather than a weakness.

I don’t always: come here knowing what I’m going to write.

I fight: with words, they are my weapon of choice

I write: every morning as soon as I awake.

I never: will be perfect, nor consciously stop learning.

I stole: the time to write for many years, now give it to myself as the ultimate gift of freedom

I listen: to others when they ask because I know how important it is to be heard

I need: my daily journal

I am happy about: the fact that this is the last prompt and I am finished.

Because I am the kind of cook who can never simply follow a recipe, but must add some of my own spice to the mix, I have a few suggestions. First is that I want to add more prompts to this list:

I am curious about:

I would like to investigate:

I find:

I used to:

I remember:

I speak:

I meditate:

I communicate:

I trust:

I get sad:

I am enlightened:

I need to learn:

I lack:

I am strong:

Okay, those can be optional. Add them if you like, or feel so inclined. And now that I have done the exercise in my own fashion, I would like to ask that you first do it while focusing on the topic of writing, especially about journal writing. That is what this blog is all about so we might as well stay with the topic. When you have finished, choose two or three of the prompts to share with the rest of us and put them and your completed statements on the comments below (again, optional).

Have fun, and write.

Addendum to previous instructions: I have created another page, on the sidebar for any and all responses to the I am statements in the challenge. Please click on Responses to A Not So Brief Challenge and put your I am statements in the area for comments. You can post as many as you like. Thanks.

Angst

I just dropped an entire gravel truck of angst on my journal page for today (vrrumph, and lots and lots of dust). That’s because someone else dumped her load of angst on me yesterday, after doing the same thing the day before. Four days ago, I wrote a poem about the angst I was repeatedly reading while surfing the net. I didn’t post the poem because it was full of (you got it), angst.

I have always thought that angst was anger, misdirected and confused, but none the less, anger. It even sounds like anger, but anger tied up in a knot. Because there have been so many knots of anger in my life, at the present moment, before coming here, I went to Dictionary.com to investigate the word itself. Surprise, surprise, it doesn’t mean anger. It means: A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression. Talk about a knot, hunh?

So, I went one step further. I went to the Thesaurus on the same cite and found these synonyms (words that have the same or similar meanings): agony, apprehension, blues, depression, dread, mid-life crisis, misgiving, nervousness, uneasiness, Weltschmerz . No anger. Okay, now we are getting somewhere. Those things helped me understand the poem I had written and what had driven it into being. It also drastically changed my sense of being put upon by someone near and dear to me, as well as avenues toward a much clearer form of conversation. But what the heck is Weltschmerz ?

Back at Dictionary.com, I found this further piece of enlightenment: Weltschmerz is a German noun meaning sorrow that one feels and accepts as one’s necessary portion in life; sentimental pessimism. My investigation ended right there because there was no Thesaurus notation on Weltschmerz, a word that I liked the sounds of, and thought were appropriate for that deeper meaning of melted sorrow that leaves a possibly permanent smirch on the emotional landscape. Have I mentioned that I do so love language and will be eternally grateful that I didn’t post the poem?

Nuff said, where is all of this going? I could take it in one of several directions. I could point out that whatever kind of writing one does, it’s important to use the readily available tools that are present to help one make oneself clear, as well as correct. Adding, of course, that it is sloppy, lazy, and disrespectful of what one is attempting to do in not doing just that. If you don’t care, why should your reader (even if your only reader is you)? Remember, that although you might think you are being clear as glass, glass shatters quite easily and makes a distinct sound when it does so, a sound that makes everyone wince.

In an altogether different direction, I could also point out that a journal is an excellent place to learn vocabulary, communication skills, and further ones own intelligence level by doing exactly what I did this morning. Check out the sources and get it right. Don’t make assumptions if you intend to do that in writing. And do that all in private, so that when you leave the privacy of your pages, your slip isn’t showing, whether you are speaking or writing. I could go on, but I won’t.

That brings us to my misconception about angst. Does it have any validity? I certainly think it does, but I was also jumping the gun. Anxiety, depression, and uneasiness often does lead to a certain kind of anger that is definitely tied up in knots of frustration. A negative approach that can be heralded with pumped up volume, biting words, intense looks, misunderstood communications, and a whole lot of other things that look, and feel, a lot like anger. When it is inadvertently pointed in your direction, it feels personal and calls out a defense posture. And, as we all know, fighting anger with anger only results in more anger, and thus many more, and even tighter, knots.

Because I love language and respect it, I am also deep into communication. There is, for me, nothing worse than not being heard, or being misunderstood. That can bring on Weltschmerz and that sorrow that one feels and accepts as one’s necessary portion in life, faster than almost anything else. Being a word person, is a disadvantage at times because it can and does result in the sentiment and truth of Tracy Chapman’s words, If I could say the right words, at the right time… I am divorced, after twenty years of marriage, because of just such an unconscious belief system.

Which, in turn, brings me to the one direction I intended to take here. Keeping a journal, carrying on the most important dialogue of one’s life experience, is a deliberate action that can, and does, resolve a great deal of angst. Untying those knots of anger is worth the time and effort spent on a page of paper, rather than the resultant war one might end up uselessly waging against another human being. There is far too much angst, and its resultant anger, in our world as it is. Why add to it? Especially when there is a solution that actually works?

“But, What Do I Say?”

Invariably, during every class I taught about personal writing, someone would ask this question, or a variation of the same. Many had a difficult time seeing themselves writing even one page, let alone two or more on a daily basis for any length of time into the future. The thought alone panicked them and froze them up like deer caught in the headlights. There are several reasons this happens and I’m going to discuss a few of them today, hopefully calming these distressed waters a bit. Although we each carry our own individual (and perhaps, peculiar) resistance level, there are some that are experienced by the majority.

One of the most familiar is the one we dragged with us from childhood, when we learned how to write. Learning how to write is actually very different from simply writing. Back in second and third grade, we were being taught the rules of writing, how to form letters, then words, then how to put the words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs, and so on. And we got stern reprimands when we didn’t do it correctly. Reprimands and all those red correction marks on the attempts we were making. In that long drawn out process, we learned something else. That what we wrote wasn’t anywhere near as important as how we wrote it.

That is as it should be, because that is what the learning process is all about. That repetitive contact with the material until we can do it correctly, with ease, and without a lot of thought process, right? I would wager a great deal of money that few, if any, ever get through that process without some amount of dis-ease about their ability to do it correctly. There are way too many rules, with accompanying exceptions, to get it down perfectly (yes, one or two might, but they are rare and have other problems, like neurosis). So, although we eventually do learn how to write, we are seldom comfortable doing it. And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue of what to write.

Stored, inside each of us, is the memory of each and every moment of our existence. And it stands to reason, that amidst those memories we carry, are the reprimands and red correction marks we received during our childhood learning process. Those are very real scars on our emotional landscapes, scars that will resist when, years later, we attempt to form words into sentences and then place them properly into paragraphs, and so on.

But, here’s the kicker. Remember, I told you there are no rules. That goes doubly on this one. If you choose to do so, you may never write in sentences at all, use dashes, ellipses (…), avoid capitol letters, punctuation marks, whatever you need to do to get on the page. Because, once you are there, you will begin to remember what you did learn back there in childhood. You will begin to remember, and even to use it. And guess what? There are no red correction marks, unless you want them and do them yourself, and why would you?

There are tools that can and will help you fill in the gaps of what you remember, from those school years, and what you may have forgotten. We are talking about personal writing here, not public expression. Because it is personal, therefore done for ones own personal reasons, it doesn’t have to prescribe itself to anyone else’s idea of how it should be done. Given some time and a bit of effort, you might be pleasantly surprised to find that you remember far more than you imagined. You may, or may not, eventually want to share what you are doing. That is your choice, and depending on how much you really want to share, you can then take the time to do some refreshing on those hard learned lessons from second and third grade.

There is only one guarantee in this process of personal writing. The moment you begin, you will start learning. But you learn at your own rate of speed, and get the freedom to choose what it is you want to learn about. The dialogue you open with yourself is possibly the most important one you will ever have. Don’t worry about doing it wrong, you probably will, and learn from that experience. However, no one will ever know unless you spill red ink on your own person. One very good way to begin is to write about all the reasons you shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. That can be a delicious secret you don’t have to share with another living soul, and I would hope that some of it makes you smile as you heal all those other red correction marks you may have gotten.

“But, what do I say,” you ask? Anything and everything. The choices are endless and thus, overwhelming when you first begin. Pick a place, any place. Describe your third grade teacher, how her glasses were forever sliding down her nose so that she had to look over the tops of them. How he always smelled a bit like the cigarettes he had in the teacher’s lounge at lunch time. How hard you struggled to figure out how to diagram a sentence and you still, as an adult, can’t understand why you had to do such a thing. This is all about you, and that might be what holds you back more than anything else.

When someone says that they just couldn’t imagine writing about themselves on a daily basis, what that person might be saying is that they are just an ordinary individual and that’s pretty dull stuff, so why bother? We do it because ordinary people often do extraordinary things. We might not think of them as extraordinary, but to someone who has never done them, that’s exactly what they are. I am constantly amazed, not only by the things I get myself into, but all the things that others do and never see as outside of that definition of ordinary.

I have a dear friend who is an expert seamstress. I’ve watched her whip up a birthday gift in a matter of hours, and then be surprised at the admiration in which I spoke of that singular accomplishment. How I admired and envied her skill and focus. She, in turn, once saw my skill with words as something totally beyond her own capabilities. Yet, this past weekend, she attended a workshop on learning how to publish the poems she has begun to pen. Granted, sewing machines still slump in fatigue when I pass them, but I do know where to go when my clothes need a tuck or two.

Our ordinary worlds, are only ordinary to us. They are ordinary because they are familiar. We automatically assume that anything that is ordinary is not noteworthy. What can, and will, make them noteworthy is someone who takes the time to make the notes. It makes no difference if those notes have no proper punctuation, or are filled with dashes instead of periods. They are notes and worthy of any time and attention we bring to them.

Crossing Over

Have been doing a lot of surfing on the Net. Exploring what other people are writing and what they are writing about. And, of course, getting sidetracked into my own personal areas of interest. One of those, perhaps the most basic one of all, is poetry. I essentially got into writing by beginning with poetry, and that will probably remain my first love forever. You know what they say about that first love, you never forget, find yourself daydreaming, remembering, and reliving those moments again and again. You might put it all aside for years, but at some point, it will come swimming back up to the surface, and there you are, once again caught in its embrace, drifting away on a tide of remembered emotions.

I, on the other hand, have been actively engaged in posting poetry on another cite, while writing these prose blogs here. That’s a definite no no in some places. Its been said that the individual who attempts to write both prose and poetry will do a disservice to both.  Its been said so often, that it has become a rule of thumb (unspoken law), for anyone who wants to write seriously and be published. So, why am I breaking that unspoken rule? Aren’t I afraid of going against the proclamation of all those who have gone before me and are obviously far wiser than I am? Yes and no.

I am also aware that a certain number of myths arise in any given discipline. Myths, in this sense, are false ideas based in some aspect of truth, or reality. Language has rules, or it wouldn’t be able to communicate clearly. If those rules are broken, the result is misunderstanding, or worse, gibberish. The rules are there to retain clarity. But, who made the rules? That’s a whole other book long discussion and not a task I want to engage in. Suffice it to say that the rules were made sometime in the past, and most of them were made through trial and error, experience, and so forth. As long as they work and maintain some good levels of clarity, don’t mess with them, right?

However, we, as living breathing organisms, do grow and evolve. So some of those rules no longer apply. If those rules of written language were created back in the days of Thees and Thous, and we no longer speak in that manner, our written language would and should follow suit and it has, thank goodness. But, some of those rules remain as no more than whispers and those whispers become myths.

A good way to know that is to think about what you believe is true of writers in general. Do you believe that all writers have to be a bit crazy to do what they do? Are they heavy drinkers, maybe drug users, or sexual deviants? Will they use anything they come in contact with as something to write about, even you? All of these ideas are myths based in what we know about the most famous writers we have read.

What about all those folks who aren’t famous, yet write every day, either making a living at the craft, or because they simply, personally enjoy engaging in that pastime? They wouldn’t fit into that myth of drunken, or sexual craziness that surrounds others like Earnest Hemingway, Theodore Roethke, or the Beat Poets and writers of another generation. And by the way, these same people were living out another myth about the need to overwhelm the senses with drugs and sex to be able to write anything of value.

I am not saying that myths are out and out falsehoods, they aren’t. They are based in some element of truth or reality. Yes, if you overwhelm your senses, create an altered state, you will write some very interesting and different things from what other people are doing. Even some things of value. However, if you kill yourself in the process, all you do is create ultimate silence and an end to further communication. That’s not the real goal of any writer, be he/she famous or otherwise. Personally, I’m still angry at Anne Sexton for shutting off a magnificent and necessary voice that had so much to teach me.

Yesterday, when I woke up, there were words dancing in my head. So much so, that instead of doing my usual type of journal page, I crossed all the lines and created something in-between poetry and prose. It was a direct result of all that web surfing I’ve been doing. It was a cross-over, a bridge between these two aspects of what I love to do. A blending of both into something separate and different from either one. On one level, it was scary because I had no idea where it was going. On another, it was exciting for the very same reason. Before I could give in to the fear of not being understood, I posted it on the splitting darkness cite, listed here on the sidebar in my blogroll. I titled it, Not My Usual Whatever.

I knew when I did that, that I was breaking that rule about writers who attempt to do both poetry and prose. I’m also aware that others have done the same and some of what they have written is extremely good stuff. That brings me back to my original question: why do it at all? Maybe because all rules eventually become myths? Is that even a possibility? I think it might be because I come here every other day and challenge my reader to do something that he/she might be afraid of doing. I have always believed that I can’t challenge someone else, unless I’m willing to do the work myself. I think I had to prove to myself that I was willing to do just that.

So what are the myths you hold about doing this writing stuff? Do they have to do with what you think you know about us crazy people who do this thing? Is that what holds you back, creates the fear that holds you where you are and away from what you truly want to be or do? Can you cross over those lines and begin something new, something different, something of deep value, not only to yourself, but to anyone who might come across what you have expressed? Are you willing to build a bridge and then dare to put your weight on it?

Crossing over isn’t easy, but it is possible. It is how we grow and let our comfort zone expand to accommodate that growth. And you might be pleasantly surprised at how many hands will be outstretched to help and to greet you. Mine is only one of them.

Applying The Psychic Brakes

I had never heard of psychic brakes until I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. In it, she talks about how we get a bit frightened when things begin to fall into place, move smoothly toward our chosen destination. It feels a bit out-of-control, so we apply the brakes to regain our own sense of being in control of our destinies. To slow down the process because we might make a mistake, mess up the whole ball of wax, screw it up somehow. And, of all imaginable horrors, possibly wreck the dream we have aimed ourselves at fulfilling. We also do that when we don’t believe we deserve to have that dream fulfilled, we aren’t adequate to the plan, can’t see ourselves actually standing triumphant in that place we have only harbored in our imaginations. What we do is sabotage ourselves, our dreams, our desires. We resist those things we want most to see happen, and we already know what resistance looks like (an underlined poor, fragile old woman).

Another definition for resistance is fear. Imagine, if you will, that you are driving along a curving country road, lined with huge oak trees. Its night, only your headlights to see where you are going, when suddenly you can no longer hear the swish of your tires against the pavement, all is silent. You are traveling on ice. You know that, you stiffen up every muscle, and the only desire you have is to slam on the brakes and stop the forward motion. You might start talking to yourself, telling yourself to relax, breathe, you do know what to do, you can pump the brakes gently to slow yourself down in increments, but the desire is strong to apply all those stiffened muscles to the task.

In this scenario, you know that if you slam on the brakes, you will more than likely put your vehicle and yourself into a deadly skid, sending yourself in an even more out of control trajectory, spinning helplessly, until something in your path (like one of those oak trees) stops the motion permanently. But even though we might know all of that in detail, the strongest urge is to slam on the brakes to gain control, to put a stop to the forward motion, but also to put a stop to that feeling of fear.

Gavin De Becker is the author of a very interesting book titled, The Gift of Fear. We don’t often think of fear as a gift, its an uncomfortable feeling, one that we’d rather not experience if we can avoid it. And we do avoid it. We do that by sticking with the familiar, the known of our world and experience. That is our comfort zone, the place that allows us to not experience those uncomfortable feelings like fear. Inside our comfort zone, we can move with some amount of ease because we know what to expect, and more importantly, we pretty much can be sure that what we encounter is something we can actually deal with, something that won’t challenge us to do, or be, what we are not, and don’t know how to do. That means we don’t have to worry about appearing inadequate, unknowing, silly, or foolish. We can relax, just be ourselves. But, what exactly is that?

Someone who doesn’t go anywhere, do much of anything, and certainly doesn’t challenge self to be anything more than a lump of inertia? A physical or mental couch potato? That is the danger of remaining too long within the confines of our well-established comfort zones. Inside of them, we can’t afford to grow or we risk no longer fitting right there in our comfortable little niche. And we also begin to fear anything that might move us outside of that niche. We become overtly limited, as well as limiting. Eventually, we not only stop growing, we literally stop living and begin to do no more than exist. Life becomes the same old, same old, mostly grey, because colors would call for a response and a response means an output of energy. What a deadly, life defying circle we create. All for the sake of feeling comfortable, all for the purpose of avoiding that uncomfortable feeling of fear.

What does any of this have to do with keeping a journal? Everything. Keeping a journal is picking up a pen, or sitting at a computer and making words. Making words is a difficult task because one must first think of the word one wants to write, and then follow it with another one, and so on and so on. And that is precisely what we are avoiding isn’t it, that challenge that will move us outside of our comfort zone? “Easy for you to say,” you think, “you are so full of words…” But, if you have been reading this blog, you know that even I can run away from the challenge.

Does that mean I fear making the words. No, I’m not afraid of the words, they are only random letters of the alphabet, put together in a certain order. Their order is what I fear, because I can hear them, understand what they are speaking of, and it is that which I fear. Remember, words have an uncanny magical power. That’s because they have both the ability of being spoken, but also of being heard. And they often change while in the air between those two different, but distinct, locations. Words can be changlings and they can transform both the speaker and the listener, even when those two individuals are the one and same person.

Just because I have some amount of ease with the making of words, doesn’t mean I don’t own and love my own comfort zone. I do, and am very territorial about said niche. But, I also want to grow, to continue to become the best human being it’s possible for me to be. I need the words, and have learned to live with the fear that making them entails. And because I do, I unwrapped that gift, and now know why I ran the other day, know exactly what prompted me to do so. Have asked myself the questions and found some surprising answers. Answers that allow me to not slam on the psychic brakes, put myself in a tail spin, and harm all those lovely old oak trees. What’s more, I did all of that while sitting right here in my only little niche, allowing my comfort zone to expand and accomadate this newer version of me.

Resistance

Yes, I know. I’m late. Came here this morning, sat down to write, and suddenly didn’t want to do that. It wasn’t because I didn’t have ideas about what to write. As a matter of fact, I had way too many and couldn’t make up my mind just where to begin. So, I just sat and stared for a bit, until my sister called and asked me if I wanted to go shopping. Shopping is not my favorite activity, by a long shot, but this morning I jumped at the opportunity. Off I went to spend money that is short, on a list of things I want, but don’t need immediately, a list that just keeps getting longer because the short money thing is a permanent fixture of my existence. So, why did I do that? Run away, escape to a place that only exhausts me and reminds me that my life is not all that I would have it to be? It’s called Resistance.

Resistance to sit and do the task. Resistance to writing, putting more words on paper. Resistance to this very thing I love to do. So why the resistance? If I love it, actually come to it with eagerness and even anticipation, why would I engage in resisting it? Why would I come here, all prepared to do it, then grasp at the flimsiest of excuses to remove myself from the clear opportunity to partake in it? Would you accept an, “I don’t know?” Maybe you would, but I can’t. I, after all, know the dangers of doing just that.

I know, for instance, that saying I’ll get back to it tomorrow, will more than likely find me accepting the next excuse that comes along. And the next one, and the next, until I find that instead of hours missing in action, I might be AWOL for a month or two or three. Even a year, maybe more. Been there, done that, and more than once, as a matter of fact. There is only one solution that I am aware of: resist the resistance. The only way to do that is by coming back here, sitting down, and writing.

Resistance is a natural part of the human condition. We don’t want to change, don’t want to move outside of our comfort zone, don’t want to upset the applecart, make waves that could splash us with a ton of cold water. We’d much prefer to sit back, get comfy and cozy and let it all go run the way it has always done. And mostly that means, without our input. It’s so much easier to let someone else do it, take charge, make the rules, assign the assignments, make sure that it all gets done. Then our only role is to complain when it gets screwed up or doesn’t work, and we even know exactly who to blame if that happens. And it certainly isn’t numero uno, now is it?

I mean, I could so easily say this is all my sister’s fault. She, after all, stepped into my space and enticed me, now didn’t she? She dangled all that forbidden fruit in front of my eyes, what can one poor (underline the poor), frail old woman do? I’ll tell you what she did. She shut down this computer, broke speed records taking a shower, getting dressed, and out the door, before she could stop and think about the very real fact that she actually hates to go shopping. That thought didn’t occur until she was belted in the front passenger seat, leaving the driveway.

But she did distract herself. She saw a huge hawk sitting up high on a tree branch. Asked her sister to turn the car around and go back and take a look. He was beautiful. Do you know the symbolism of the hawk? He is considered, by many, to be a spiritual messenger, soaring up high between heaven and earth, bringing messages from that far away Sky World, back to this more mundane one. And his message? “Remember who you really are.” Ummmmm, that didn’t work so well.

But her sister asked if they could go out to eat before shopping. More forbidden fruit, and certainly a distraction away from that silly symbolic message. So, of course, that poor (underline it), fragile old woman said, “yes.” It was obvious that that was part of the plan all along, and besides, her sister was driving so she really didn’t have much choice in the matter, did she? But, she did happen to mention that she never eats breakfast unless its at a restaurant, because she hates to cook it. So much more delicious when someone else makes the mess and has to clean it up. And delicious it was.

So, her sister drops her at the Super Store she prefers, and then takes off for the grocery store because that was the kind of shopping her sister needed to do. She climbs inside the battery powered cart and goes in search of poster putty. Can’t find it. Asks, but gets head scratches and vague directions to the other side of the store, of course. On the way over, she passes the Women’s Clothing and takes a quick peek to see if they have the kind of pants she prefers. They do, but she needs to try them on (hates that more than shopping), and finds that she’s dropped a few sizes. It’s been awhile and, did I mention, she really hates shopping?

She manages to get a few grocery items, then realizes that its probably time to go looking for her sister, who said she’d be back in about an hour and a half. Rides her cart along the front end of the store making herself highly visible so said sister can find her. While doing so, it occurs to her that she does need ink cartridges for her computer. She is a writer, you know, and will be needing more of it soon. Those particular items, of course, are at the far back of the store. She manages to get them, put them in her cart, and heads up front again, where her sister is pacing back and forth, looking for her. Check out, load up, and head for home and putting all of it away.

She comes in the bedroom to hang up her new pants, and sees a note from her daughter leaning against the monitor screen. Grabs the note and looks up to see a magnificent hawk, wings spread against the sky, on her screen. It’s one of the many photos she has saved to use for a screen saver slide show, and to remind her of that symbolic and spiritual message. She’s exhausted and takes a nap. When she awakens, she moves to sit in front of the computer. She needs to check out a poetry site that she recently posted on. Wants to know if anyone has responded. Does that, only to find herself back here, right where she started this morning. Have you ever heard a poor (duly noted and underlined), fragile old woman laugh out loud? It’s a very strong sound, and it has a tendency to shake up those demons called Resistance. They know what it means. So do I.

Resistance is a natural part of our being. And, we do resist the very things we want most and even need. We do it because the things we want and need will change our world as we know it. They might even change us.

Taking Out the Garbage

My oldest daughter came to visit yesterday. She brought two of her friends. One of them asked if he could use my computer to check his emails. I teasingly told him that he would owe me, and then snapped my fingers and said he could use the computer if he took the trash out to the dumpster when he left. He grinned and agreed. My disability doesn’t allow me to walk too far without pain, so we solved both of our problems and were satisfied.

That isn’t necessarily the case in our daily lives, where the garbage from yesterday can interfere with the experience of today. Feelings can follow us around, draining our energy, taking up mind space, and using thought gymnastics that are needed elsewhere. That’s just plain frustrating. I find that many of my journal pages seem to be brief summaries of the events of the day before, along with short notes about my own thoughts and feelings on those experiences. It is a sorting process and I do it first thing in the morning. Each morning. Sorting this from that, dropping a lot of it on those pages, like taking out the garbage.

I’m not saying that emotions, feelings, are just garbage. They do serve a purpose as a barometer of where we have been, allowing us to take our temperature and thus, clothe ourselves appropriately for the present moment. However, they can also be a troubling distraction in that present moment as I have already said. Carrying around a load of angst over something someone said, or did, may result in lashing out inappropriately at someone who certainly doesn’t deserve the lashing. And the weight of that angst, and the added guilt for misappropriated feelings, can get very heavy, very fast.

When we write out those feelings, even briefly, we assign them to a place of containment, a proper receptacle that can and will hold them until we decide how and when we choose to deal with them. And trust me on this one, if they are important, they will return themselves to our attention again and again. They will make themselves known no matter how much we may try to avoid them. And that too, is part of the sorting process, I mentioned earlier. If I find my journal pages repeatedly filled with a certain person, an idea, that just keeps popping up over and over again, I will move to deal with it far more quickly than otherwise. It is literally taking up my space and I want to use that space for other things.

So, what exactly, am I sorting? The trash from genuine inspiration. I really do love to write poetry and much of the poetry I write, comes directly from those journal pages. Many of them are actually Freudian slips of the pen that tickle my inner ear for whatever reason. Some of them are a direct result of that angst I dragged into today from yesterday. They have become even more important since I began writing this blog. The ideas for this writing also come from those journal pages. But, if I didn’t first write them down, they could be, and often are, lost in the course of living my day to day life. Because I have been doing this for many years, its a lot easier to spot the garbage and retain the inspiration.

Let me give you an example. Many years ago, I used an inordinate amount of paper writing about my boss of the current moment. The things he said, did, and the anger I felt over each and every one of those things. One day, as I leafed through those pages, I could see his name jumping out at me in almost every one of them. It finally dawned on me that this was no longer my journal. He, this man who had usurped my time and energy, was taking up squatter’s rights in what I defined as ‘my’ territory. We had been engaged in a silent battle of control for far too long and when I mentioned it to a fellow worker, he agreed and actually told me that we were acting like partners in an abusive marriage. As I paged through my writing, I could physically see that reality. Ugh!

I got busy and within three months had found a new career and quit my job. And yes, I may have done that eventually, somewhere down the road, without the prompting from my own words. But how much longer? How much more time would I have wasted, not to mention pages in the book of my life? I actually shudder at the thought.

That might seem like a drastic example, but how many individuals do you know who spend most of their time complaining about their present circumstances, yet doing nothing to change them because they simply can’t see what is happening to, and in, their own lives. They lack a barometer to help them to clothe themselves appropriately for whatever weather they might encounter. I, personally, would prefer to use my time and energy writing my daily pages than to take a happy pill that simply numbs the symptoms that might allow me to see my own path and the direction I am moving in and toward.

Just think about all the time wasted on guilt feelings of one sort or another. Guilt is not a feeling. It is a fact. We did, or did not, do something wrong. That has nothing to do with feelings, and everything to do with actions. Yet, guilt feelings are perhaps even heavier than angst. Put them on the page. Work through the feeling and resolve it. If you are guilty then find a way to make recompense. If not, tell the feelings to shut up. You can stop writing about them, unless they are comfortable and can be used as an excuse to not engage in some other activity. But all of that is the individual’s choice, unless he/she is unaware that all that tiredness he/she feels is directly related to all those guilt feelings sucked up like an absorbent sponge. And because we live in world that abounds with guilt feelings in every shape, size, and color, one will never run out of material, or have to stand in a line at a soup kitchen to get more.

So yesterday, I got someone else to put out the garbage and he got to use my computer. Fair trade? Not hardly, I also got all these words out of it, another page in my journal, some very real sorting, and another blog under my belt. Hope he got some extras as well.