freewriting on friday, #2.

For the last two days I have been thinking and writing about the year I turned twelve.  It's strange to write your way into memories - things you have forgotten that keep rising up from the well.  There's a lot to say: understanding of self-awareness, social hierarchies, perceptions of the world.  And there is more writing before it can be anything.

I realized today that I was trying too hard.  I was trying to find a theme in what I had written, some underlying message, maybe even a loose moral lesson.  I have killed a great many things by over thinking them, so as soon as I realized what I was doing, I stopped.

To make a break in my mind and catch my creativity again, I did some freewriting on other topics.  The piece of freewriting that I am going to copy here is the real thing.  I just let it go.  When I freewrite with a computer, I have a hard time keeping up with my thoughts by typing.  Hence the (many, many) typos.  I have to work hard to get to the place where I can just let words come out of me without any rules.  Every bone in my body wants to correct the mistakes and delete the things that are uncomfortable to say or to read.  But I'm just going to lay it out there and let it be.

The prompt: Write about a time you felt spiritual.

I felt spiritual during the church choir in Brewster. I can't remember what the song was or when the choir sang it, but it was beautiful and big inside and I fell right into it and felt something of god all around me. I had goosebumps across my arms and tears in the corner of my eyes. I was playing the organ and I felt so full inside, like something was flowing in me, like the waterfall that is so big and loud you can't hear the person speaking right next to you and I didn't have the power to even listen, just to take it in through my ears (almost wrote eyes, music in through the eyes, I like it). I think it's so interesting to reflect on the spiritual experiences I have had in church and what that means for me, someone who is struggling very hard to figure out where I land. I don't believe in god, but...? The question is big and hard. I have had spiritual experiences in church, moments were I felt surrounded by something larger than myself. I have felt it in the familiar hymns during Christmas eve. I have felt it in familiar Bible verses being read, hearing united voices reciting a creed or prayer. And I felt it in the song that the choir sang. I don't understand spiritual or what it means. I know what it used to mean to me and it was actually something to be fought I think. I was raised to elieve we aren't supposed to feel things about our faith, it's just given to us and just shut up and take it. It's so weird: Luther rejects logic and reason (as the Devil's whore) but demands this cold, emotionless faith from us. Well he understood (I guess) and so do I that emotions and feelings are fickle and sometimes perplexing - not always available to guide us to the truth. I understand that. I have feelings that I don't understand every single day. Spiritual in church spiritual in church I completely lost my train of thought can't rememb erwhere I was going Ok right I remember thinking about what SPIRITUAL means I guess I always think ofit as being something very large or something that makes me feel very small. I get the exact same feeling from a susnet and the ocean. Especialy the ocean. Looking out onto something so big so much bigger than myself I look out and I'm in it and I cant type fast enough to connect workds to my thoughts I am making typos left and right and even backspacing a lot still so the ocean and bigness and I'm swallowed up and somehow that makes us feel safe and maybe that's a place every human being is longing for and hoping to understand. we get the same thing from love, love of people, love of family, we get that feeling from what what else? maybe people who seek adventure, mountain climbing, rock climbing, sea kayaking, skydiving, all of those things make us feel small and somehow that feels good. Or maybe it isn't at all to do with bigness and smallness but being surrounded. You are surrounded by the sky at the top of a mountain. You are surrounded by the light in a sunset and the w aves catch your feet again again again. And in church, you are surrounded by people who are supposed to be your people. But more and more I realize that church and faith, well that's a gathering place for people looking for the thing we want and need as human beings. i don't know what that thing is but the church It's a place for looking, you can't find anything there. It's just a lot of people who are all desperately looking looking looking. It's ag ethering place for the the looking people. They have to amek things for themselves to find.  I have too much baggage and too much to sort through in my mind, too much influence from those around me. I just need people to talk to me about it, I need to talk about it. I need to sit down with every person I know and say, Tell me what you think about god. even people i don't know, every person I see I just want to ask them, TELL me how you do this how do you figure out god and life tell me how you do it we're all people in this together and i need to know how everyone else is doing it I need to understand how we as human beings make these choices (10 minutes).

Finally, a thought for this weekend.

Love me when I least deserve it because that is when I really need it. - Swedish Proverb

that barbie feeling.

Do you remember the pure excitement of playing? For me, it was the Barbies. I can still vividly remember that feeling: waking up on a rainy Saturday and knowing I could play with my Barbies all day. Maybe it was Legos, maybe it was a treehouse in the backyard, whatever. You know what I mean. It was a simple and consuming love for what you were doing. That feeling is hard to hold onto.

I have been thinking too much lately; about love, loss, relationships, family, faith, hope. I am forever baffled by the craziness of this life. We are these individual creatures, all alone inside our own brains. And everything, it seems, is about forging connections. Crossing the distances that separate us as human beings.

That balance is elusive. Cultivate and discover yourself; meanwhile, let others in and connect yourself to them. It's hard to get it right. I have been talking with someone lately about times in the past when we have allowed ourselves to be defined by other people. It's so hard to see someone else do it, but so easy to do it yourself. And one day, when that person is gone, suddenly you can't remember what life means without them.

I'm ready to crack the whip and just write. I have spent the past two days thinking about writing something substantial. I don't want to spend the rest of my days freewriting and collecting my mundane thoughts on life (as great as that is). I'm ready to actually lay the bricks down one by one and write something that you can really read.

I am afraid to do it. Whenever I try, I'm strangely evasive. (So I have a collection of posts here on writing about writing about writing...I think). But yesterday, I stared at the notebook on my desk for 10 solid minutes. I just stared at the blank page. I finally wrote in block letters: I KNOW I SHOULD DO IT. There's my answer.

I am always giving advice to people on making life decisions and it usually comes down to this: Do what you want. We all make our own choices. So do what you want.

I am very much lost in my own head these days. It's hard for me to bring people in and to shed light on my own reflection. There's a lot going on, very quietly.

I can't stop thinking about the Barbie feeling. This past weekend, I remarked that I wished we could have that feeling as adults. What a ridiculous thing to say. I know what gives me that feeling. Looking at a wall stacked high with books. Turning pages late into the night. A new pen. Writing nonsense and more nonsense and then suddenly -- there's something real and hard and electrifying. Losing myself in these thoughts and then slowly figuring out how to capture them on the page. I've got the Barbie feeling. So take your own advice and do it.

Every now and then, I am hooked on a thought or an idea. Just after I write it down, I stumble on a writer, a friend, someone who is having the same thought. At the end of the day, that's the best reason I know of to write. Connection.

Yesterday, I wrote:

A good relationship (of any kind) makes you a better version of yourself. It opens you, it gives witness to your passion and life. It lights up who you already are. But it doesn't replace any of that. Life is never, never, never just one thing. It is everything fitting together. I have had to learn this lesson the hard way, over and over. I didn't realize until today, just now, right now, that I think I actually have.

Today, I read on this blog:

It's important to understand that independence is key in preserving the relationships that matter most. [...] People are like puzzles, and there are a multitude of pieces that make us complete.

So I continue: love, write, connect, grow, learn, understand.

fall is here.





strangers.

I read this book once about quitting smoking. The only thing I remember is the chapter about how we talk about quitting. You should never say, I’m trying to quit or I’m quitting smoking. You should say, I quit. The idea is that language has the power to create something in us. Say it like it’s true. I think this applies to other things in life, not least of all writing. At least it’s something I’ve been practicing on myself, to what end I’m not sure. I write every day and I feel it someplace deep inside of me, so I don’t say, I want to write. Simply, I am a writer. Whether it’s garbage or not, whatever role it plays, it’s something I do and it is part of who I am. So I just say it quietly, in my own head.

A list of good things to do:
-observe
-note details
-remember

I have always been overwhelmed by cities for one reason: the people. There are so many people, people you don’t know, strangers. I take strangers into myself and digest them. I observe. I stare. I drown in the details - a shirt corner untucked, chipped toe nail polish, sad eyes. I imagine stories about people. They live lives in my own head, they go to work, they come home at the end of the day. I can’t help it. I can’t turn it off. I am obsessed with the lives of strangers.

Living in a city now, I find myself getting friendly with strangers in my mind. I see the same people on the streets each day. I’ve woven elaborate lives for them and they’ve become like characters in some novel that I walk back and forth through. The sweaty man with the labored run. The old woman wearing the fanny pack. The girl with long legs and bad posture. They’ve become part of the fabric of my day.

I also empathize with strangers, mostly people I imagine to be sad or alone. Sometimes the feelings in me are so powerful I have to hold myself back from acting out. I want to stop that man on the street, the one with the big headphones, close-trimmed beard, thin wire glasses, legs too short for his body - I want to stop him and say, Are you alright? Are you lonely? Are you walking back to an empty house tonight? Maybe we’ll drink a cup of coffee together and I’ll ask him what he believes about god, what he thinks about human nature. And he’ll go home that night and maybe, maybe he’s felt bitterly isolated and disconnected from humanity and I can remind him what it feels like to have a witness to your life and to your thoughts.

Maybe he isn’t lonely. Maybe I am projecting my own fears and emotional dysfunction onto him (it’s possible).

I want to remember the man at the street market in New Orleans. This is what I mean: people get into my brain, right into the folds of it, and they’re burned in there. The eyes, the expressions, the way the shoulders droop. It was June in New Orleans and the humidity made it impossible to walk quickly, to breathe deeply. I walked through a large, tented street market - cheap clothes, jewelry, New Orleans souvenirs. I only went in because I wanted to be in the shade. I walked through each aisle, glancing over tiny plastic alligators and Mardi Gras beads. And then I saw a man hunched over, seated behind a table. He was turned away from market perusers while eating his lunch. I caught sight of him through the back curtain of his booth. His eyes were low and he was slowly, deliberately cutting a hard boiled egg into slices with a plastic spoon. I stared hard while he thought he was alone. All day I couldn't stop asking, Who boiled that egg?

We’ve got to wonder at people’s lives. I hope someone, somewhere is wondering at mine. It is the most honest witness to life.  Not living, just pure human life.

tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll turn twenty-six.  What do I want to do with my next year on this planet?  Live hard.

1-knit a sweater
2-make cheese
3-go camping
4-conquer the F-chord on my guitar
5-run a 5K
6-be more honest
7-love
8-start cooking dried beans
9-make one new friend
10-write more letters
11-drink more loose leaf tea
12-open up to people
13-read one new author from the list of nobel laureates
14-visit Canada
15-start making my own bread again
16-less dairy
17-buy clothes with color
18-write often
19-tell jokes
20-make pizza in my cast iron skillet
21-apologize less
22-sew curtains
23-ride my bike in the city
24-bake a layer cake
25-paint the big canvas
26-yoga