tangents

A lot of times when I write - when I write for myself, that is ... in my journals or in my writing group - I write without editing ... and when I do that, I go off on all these ADD-like tangents, and I often lose my way. I usually find my way back (eventually ...) but when it's for me, it's OK if I lose my way, because I'm not trying to make a point, or be amusing or deep for public consumption.  (it's so easy to fall into that habit ...)  (to paraphrase some things that marilyn said a while back: when you're out in the blogging universe and you start to get some regular visitors, it can have an impact on what you're willing to say and how you'll say it; you can find yourself playing to an audience ...) 

When I'm writing for the blog, that can definitely happen to me; I start "writing for them" (whoever 'they' are) and when I do that, I can easily miss the stuff that comes out of me when I'm not writing with an agenda to either amuse, move, inspire, entertain, or make people think (or any of my other ulterior agendas).  Or be coherent.  It's just me writing for me.  And if it amuses, moves, inspires, entertains, or makes ME think, great ... (that's a large part of why i write in the first place).  But mining it for public consumption?  Well, that's just gravy.

So where was I?  Oh yes, on a tangent.

Lately I've been noticing that when I start to go off on a tangent in my blog musings I don't let them be.  I stop myself from following the natural train of thought.  (it happened on my last post - and another one that kerstin tagged me for that i started working on over the weekend.  i was really enjoying some of the prompts in these meme's, but i found myself holding back on telling all the stories that came up because i've made up this "rule" that meme's are more entertaining when they are quick and light ...)  But rather than just toss the tangents that started blooming, I've started saving them in a subfile of my blog folder, figuring I might revist them another time. 

And now these tangents are starting to pile up.  They sit there on my computer demanding attention with that wild Glenn Close desperation: "I will not be IGNORED Deb ..."  Just by their existence, they taunt me: "Why do you leave me here to wilt?  If you only took a little bit of time you could dig in and see what comes from your original inspiration.  But you do nothing ... you ignore me.  And then you kvetch that you have no time to blog or there's nothing compelling you feel like writing about ...?  But here I sit, perfectly good fodder, and you keep passin' me by."

Then there's a semi-related thread that got put under the "look at your life" microscope recently.  My good friend Ms. Marce-eh-leh was visiting two weeks ago, and she kicked my ass (in her charming, marce-eh-leh like way) about what I was doing to nurture my fabulous creative self in this recent sea of transition.  And I had to admit that I haven't been doing a lot.  It's not that I haven't been thinking about it ... not that it hasn't been on my mind.  But other than my daily writing for me, there's not a lot of creative play going on.  I think I keep waiting for a reprieve from all the upheaval and transitions ... thinking I'll make time when there's more time, but there never seems to be any.  Or maybe I just don't give it to myself.

Cause when am I NOT in transition?  I'm coming to accept this about myself ... I am the transition queen.  (should i capitalize that: Transition Queen?)  But hell, I am not unique in this - aren't we all members of that Royal Family in some form or another  -- whether we embrace it or not?  And so I find myself remembering again (life lesson #1, version #5,626,002 ...), that there's no getting around transition and change.  Change happens.  And there will be no reprieve given ... if I want it, I have to make it.  (damn, i hate lesson #1 cause each time i'm put through another version of it, it think: i can't believe i still have to learn this one!!  don't i get it YET?)

Now where the hell was I going?  Ah yes, several places at once, wasn't I?  And this was the point - sort of.  Or one of them anyway. 

I want to put some attention - some MORE attention - on my creative life.  And the blog has been a great place to play and practice with that.  And it feels like there's more to be had here, but I don't quite grab it.  When I ignore the I-Wanna-Be-An-Adored-Blogger slut who lives within ... and her first cousin: the internal editor (who is made pathetic by I-W-B-A-A-B's unresolved junior high school longing for approval), I'm able to go in lots of cool directions without a destination in mind - and I'd like to do more of that ... 

... but on the other hand, I don't always like to let all my little tangents hang out there "in public" where I have no idea who is looking/reading.  When I write without restraint or editing in my groups, I've created a safe space for the writers (and myself too) to experiment on the page.  We have some guidelines that help keep things safe/open, and the longtime members of the group have so absorbed those guidelines that I don't have to 'train' new folks as much as I used to - cause the group naturally holds the lines that make people free and comfortable now.  (it's very cool)

But with the blog, I don't actually know that all this revealing that I do is "safe."  As far as I can tell, I have a few loyal readers - mostly a handful of friends.  Very few of my friend-readers comment publicly (then again, some say they don't know how).  (commenting is certainly not necessary, but should you desire to comment publicly, my gal signy did a post on how to comment on blogs, so i'll link you to her's and you can read up on how to do it if you want to.  [my blog platform is a little different from hers, but you'll get the basic idea of how it works] ...). 

I also have a few loyal readers in some fellow bloggers who discovered me early on when Maria told them I'd launched ... and many of those folks I now consider friends.  (that's a very cool benefit of blogging -- connecting with amazing people who are kinda like you who you NEVER would have met if not for blogging.) 

A little while back I discovered that my younger brother (aka: bean) looks in from time to time; I don't remember telling him I had the blog, so it was weird to think that he might be checking in.  He hasn't said much about it, but even though I see him pretty regulary, we don't talk about too much of anything - cause whenever we get together, the majority of our attention is on the Beaners (his offspring: the nieces and nephew ... if he is "bean" they are, therefore, the beaners ...).

In theory, it's totally cool that he might read my stuff from time to time, and I don't really worry that he'll think I'm a schmoe or anything (anymore than he might already, right bean?) but I was kinda chicken (still am a little ...) (ok, sometimes a LOT) about exposing myself here and thinking that family and people I didn't even know, could read this stuff.  (but that's an existential dilemma for another day: life lesson #2 - you have no control even if you think you do ...)

So where was I?  Oh yes ... fear of exposure. 

And on the flip-side of that fear?  I love the public/performer thing. (i only want to be worshiped ... what's wrong with that?) 

So what's the point of all this?  Not sure I have one.  What I do know is that revealing ones self on a blog is an interesting razor's edge to walk.  You get to craft yourself for public consumption ... honing your image ("honey, i'm honed!") (that's not mine, i stole it from carrie fisher ...) ... while at the same time, part of your raison d'etre is to live creatively and to allow yourself to be transparent/revealed. (that is, if you're like me.  or like the other bloggers whose stuff i really enjoy ...). The blogging thing is empowering and scary, sacred and self indulgent ... and even from the start, I've found that it can be the ultimate personal growth workshop (if i let it).

Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't.  (let it be, i mean)  But I want to do that more.  Blogging has been a tremendous way for me to publicly "practice" developing material for my long-longed for and (greatly dragging-my-feet-on) performance thing.  Or whatever creative something I keep on creeping toward.  It scares me to keep going back to this longing for a performance something, but I do cause there's a lot of energy there.  (but who knows?  the energy could really be moving me back to public/motivational speaking ... or writing a book ... or ... ?)  But whatever the ultimate destination (if there is one), the blog has been a great development tool.  Directly and indirectly. 

Not sure why I felt the need to blather all this stuff out.  And it sure has been a long bit of blathering.  Maybe I'm just staking my claim for some less coherent posts from time to time ... not really sure.  But there it is ... tangented and slightly chaotic.   

For now, I'll guess I'll just let one of those filed-away tangents have its moment in the blogsun ... and the rest of it?  We'll see. 

When writing about stuff I keep in my purse in my last post, I mentioned how using the little bottles of hand cream that I get from hotel stay can call back the time that I stayed in that hotel ... and this tangent was birthed from there:

I have a basket full of shampoos, conditioners and soaps from hotel adventures over the last few years.  (i would often leave a set out in the guest bathroom for company; i'm so martha stewart!)  I also buy touristy postcards when I travel; I don't buy them to mail them to other people ... I use them as book marks, or I just toss them into my journals.  It's always fun when I pick up that book or journal again to discover the postcard that I bought in Sedona or the Catskills, or wherever.

And I keep pens from the more unique hotels where I've stayed - like the over-the-top and lusciously gaudy 'themed room' Madonna Inn in CA where I stayed twice.  (this place is not just a hotel; it's an experience ...).

I also keep matchbooks from places I've been ... and they don't just sit there on display - they get used. 

• there's the one with a big blue X on it that came from one of the ships I worked on;
• one from a favorite Thai restaurant in Sydney that was walkable from our house;
• a book with a cover painted to look like woodgrain from a cabin/hotel that I stayed in twice on the outskirts of Carmel, CA on one of my solo adventures up/down the coast;
• there's a matchbook from a restaurant where I used to go with my theater buddies for long dinners of raucous fun and debauchery - back when a night of that sort of thing didn't wipe me out for the following day;
• the satin matchbook "favor" from the wedding of a family friend.  The event was painfully extravagant, and it was also my first 'adult' social event as a teenager and I was utterly fascinated.   
• from a restaurant in Chincoteague, VA where The Guy Formerly Known as Schweetie and I had dinner when we stayed there to break up our drive down to the Outer Banks last year.  This was the first day of our swiftly planned holiday, and we were SO thrilled to be getting away ... and so grateful that TGFKAS did not have prostate cancer.  The restaurant was really lovely, and I had the most orgasmic shrimp scampi ever.  I offered some of it to TGFKAS saying that it was sex disguised as food and he concurred. Maybe it was our celebratory mood ... maybe it was because TGFKAS was not going to have to undergo treatment for cancer, but somehow we'd elevated that meal to near god-like heights.  We loved it so much, we'd actually planned to go back to Chincoteague this year en route to the Outer Banks just so we could eat shrimp scampi at AJ's again.  But alas, we split and that's the end of that.  Still, I think about that meal and I drool. 
• then there's the matchbook from a restaurant in Santa Monica where I ate olive tapanade for the first time on crusty Italian bread, and drank red wine at an outdoor table with a man I loved madly and hugely.  After dinner we walked back to our hotel (i have matches from there too), sat on our balcony that faced the ocean and watched the sunset just like in the movies and then went to bed (more a poem than a movie).  The matchbooks outlived the relationship - we have long since taken different roads - but I still feel a delicious nostalgia, and a huge gratitude for the place that relationship had (and the things it opened up) in my life whenever I pull those books from the bowl of matches.
• ... oy the stories go on and on ... there are LOTS of matches.

And then, some matches tell a collective story ...

When I was in college, my father noticed one of my brimming-with-matchbook bowls on my dresser, and I guess he thought I was randomly accumulating these matchbooks, so he started bringing them home from his travels.  I have matches from his trip to China, Italy, Israel; I have matchbooks from his various trips to Washington, DC ("my father met with presidents and cabinet mucky mucks, and all i got were these bloody matches...") and places closer to home - where he'd most likely gone out to dinner with my mother. 

I never had the heart to tell him that my matchbook collection wasn't about accumulating the books, but about anchoring memories.  For a while, I kept his matches in a separate bowl, but now his matches and my matches are all mingled together.  Even though the collection began as souvenirs and memories of places I'd been, it's morphed to become a thing that anchors my memories while it serves as tangible reminder of my dad's thoughtfulness and love.  And even though, like all parents and their kids, my father can push my buttons better than just about anyone ... cause (as they say in the 12 step rooms) he was there for the installation of the majority of them ... the matches are a reminder that when he's out in the world doing his thing, he still thinks to pick up a matchbook to bring back to me.  Who but a parent will do such a thing for 20 odd years?  That's a nice thing to anchor too. 

More tangents to come ...

Comments

[marybeth]

Re, creativity and performing: when are we finally going to get the Deb show? I can't wait my whole life. Just take these words of wisdom from a song written by yours truly: "Forget for just a moment that the others do it better. Put away your excuses girl, its now or its never. Write em in a big book and throw it to the bottom of the sea...."

I gather you're away on vacation cause I haven'T seen you on our MHS list lately. We miss ya!

MB

[Marilyn]

"...cause (as they say in the 12 step rooms) he was there for the installation of the majority of them." How did I never hear that before?? So true! Hon, I think you just got a jump on your one-woman show... ;)