when you see it.

I am stubborn. I hate to be told I'm wrong. I hate to be told what to do. I also have widespread insecurity about my talent and abilities and I tell you what: I have a hard time with criticism.

I know that it's something I need to work on.

Here's the thing with writing: it's not all objective. I can write a piece, edit it, read it through twice, feel pretty good and then discover that someone else doesn't get it. Outside of my own head, it's completely possible that it doesn't make sense.

I am trying to get serious about this. I am trying to live the writing life that I long for. I am coming back, again and again and picking up the pen. I am fully aware that a necessary step in my writing self-actualization (as it were) is learning to accept and get comfortable with criticism. I'm trying.

My usual reaction follows this pattern:
I send off the piece, it doesn't matter to whom. Total stranger, someone who loves me, whatever. As soon as I click the send button, my heart starts racing. I imagine them reading the words and feeling total disgust for the words, and obviously by extension, for me. Obviously each word I have written is a tiny little representation of my person and self-worth.

for listening.

say yes to yes.

Sometimes it's a Monday and you need to freewrite. Just garbage, you just need to get it out, clean out the gutter, empty the trash, get something moving through your head and your hands. I feel inspired today. I feel uninspired today. I have no desire to write about anything other than how much I hate my writing. I can accept it. These days come and go.

Lately, I have been easier on myself because I realize that, even when I'm not writing, I'm building the material in my head. I am always, always thinking about everything I see, about philosophy, about people, about life.

I know I still need to write though.

I can or I can't. I want to or I don't. Whatever.

I have been thinking lately about what I recently heard someone call chronic powerlessness. That is, he thought we all suffered from censoring and limiting our own dreams because we feel held down by you-name-it.  Power structures, social structures, relationships, religion. I see it all over in my life. We all get it, don't we? Sometimes I think it's nothing more than a coping mechanism - it is easier to expect less or nothing and never be disappointed. Well let me say it again: WHATEVER. I can deal with disappointment. I will not deal with fear and immobility. Write something, write something. Write.

woman with the gray bun.

This happened first: I tried to make myself write something about lists. Or write a list. I don’t know, it wasn’t working. I was staring out the window and taking unnecessary bathroom breaks. I was trying to mold my mind and fool my creative juices into producing something other than what they want.

Here’s what I really want to write about today: a stranger. I write at the risk of sounding a little crazy. I might be because I make friends with strangers in my mind. I’ve said it before: I see the same random sets of strangers each day as I walk to and from work. I spend about an hour each day walk-commuting and passing by people on the street. The familiar ones have nicknames in my head. I’ve imagined various lives and stories for them. I feel relieved when we pass on the sidewalk. I wonder where they are when we don’t.

My favorite stranger is the old woman with the gray bun. I always pass her at the fence around the big green space by the college. She’s average size with a steady walk. Her hair is always pulled back, center part, into a bun. She wears large framed plastic glasses, the kind that rest on your cheeks and lift up and down as you talk or smile. I have never seen her talk or smile, but I imagine it would make her glasses dance. She always wears a long skirt and sensible shoes. A fanny pack is buckled over her sweater or turtleneck. She carries a large leather briefcase in her right hand and her right step hits a little harder. Yesterday it was cold and she was wearing a yellow quilted down vest. Her glasses were a little foggy.

distractions.

Most days, I bring one or two pieces of fruit to work with me. Usually an apple or an orange. You know, I try to be healthy and fruit is good. Here’s the thing: I almost never eat the fruit. I like the idea of eating the fruit, but when it comes down to it, when it’s 3pm and the sun is beating through my window and the fluorescent lights are buzzing and I have the slightest headache just behind my eyes - well I’d rather run across the street and get a burrito filled with cheese and a cookie the size of my head. Just the thought of other face-sized food options turns me off to the lowly apple sitting in my bag on the floor.

Someone who loves me has kindly deemed this my purse fruit.

So I’ll just own up to it: it’s not uncommon for me to carry one sad apple back and forth to work all week and never eat it until one day, in the midst of hunger crisis, I’ll fish the bruised mushy thing out of my bag and eat it. It happens.

Today I discovered the trick to getting myself to eat the fruit.