A Memoir-ish Post to Begin With
Once upon a time, long, long ago, my notebooks were my respite from a loud, confusing world. My hearing loss meant that people often sounded like they were speaking a foreign language; I could catch bits and pieces of what they were saying, but I had to reconstruct the rest based on sight, context, intonation.
It was a lot of work. I was tired all the time. So when I would retreat to books, it was like I could finally wake up and come alive. And my notebooks—my journals—were where I could communicate to the world, at least in theory. In truth, I never published anything in those journals. But they were valuable for (among other things) the sense that I could articulate and communicate--something I never felt able to do in the Real World.
The hearing loss was one issue, but there was also the truth that I have always been, and still am, very shy. I've learned to "fake it" over the years, of course. And my shyness can even seem to disintegrate among certain friends and certain types of people.
Still, I'm generally much happier, and I can express myself most truly, when I'm alone and in my notebook. It's where and how I work out ideas and come to new understandings. When reading nonfiction, I often write as I read because I'm not content to just take in the information. Even with fiction, I'm constantly underlining, making notes, circling things, thinking.
When blogging became a thing back in the early 2000s, I jumped on board. What a relief to be able to write, and have people respond! When you journal as much as I did (and still do), you get lonely. Thoughts are wonderful companions, but the companionship of, and the sharing of ideas with, other humans is important too. So blogging met a deep need for me to communicate. I made some friends through blogging that I still consider friends today, even though most of us have never met.
The blogging community I was in, like many of the blogging communities back then, died down after a few years. As with many women bloggers at the time, my blogging life dwindled as I became a mom and had less and less time for writing and online community. And as Facebook and Instagram and Twitter became more popular, we all started thinking and communicating in shorter, and usually shallower, bursts.
All of that was fun. The short, pithy statements that could make people laugh. The cute kid pictures. The occasional shared meme. But on a "fun" scale of 1 to 10, social media has always ranked at about a 3 for me, approximately 1.5 points higher than video games you can play on your phone. So why was I spending so much of my life on it? Blogging had also taken time, but at least I felt that I was communicating meaningful things, and getting real feedback. Making real (if virtual) friendships. But with social media, I had a deep and unsettling sense that I was wasting my mind.
Last year, I gave up social media for Lent, and it was then that I realized how addicted I was to it. It took a couple of weeks for me to stop mindlessly checking my phone, even though I'd removed all of the social media apps from it. I stopped taking so many pictures since there was no prospect of sharing them immediately. Since I wasn't posting anything, there was no need to check back regularly to see if someone had commented on or liked something.
After six weeks, I knew that the social media addiction could not come back. I wouldn't let it.
That was last spring. I've managed to keep social media in its rightful place, for the most part. I've unfriended or unfollowed a lot of people, and I don't post so much anymore. I've gotten behind on what people are doing, since I rarely scroll through anything.
All of that scrolling is noise for the brain. My brain feels so much quieter now.
With the quiet has come the desire to write more substantive things. Essays, mostly. With so little background noise, I can now hear all of the many thoughts as they come to life in my mind. I want to write about so many things. Most importantly, my spiritual life has undergone some major changes in the past year, and I want to write about that in particular. More than anything, I want to write about that.
As a mom, and a person who works full-time outside the home, and as someone who volunteers and takes music lessons and commutes and even tries to exercise occasionally, I have a hard time making space to write. There are so many things competing for my attention--and that's after I "cleaned out" my life earlier this year and let go of several commitments.
So I have all these thoughts, all these ideas, all these insights, and they're not going anywhere because they don't get written. I'm reminded of Sylvia Plath's rather disturbing poem, "Stillborn." She writes of her unfinished, unfulfilled poems:
It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.
I start essays, and I jot down thoughts. I come to discoveries that I sometimes share in words, with myself, on the commute. But I don’t actually share them with people. There’s no time to write, and even if there’s time to communicate in conversation, my shyness ensures that I say nothing. And so the thoughts die, while I remain “near dead with distraction.”
Time is a problem, and the shyness thing is a big problem. I honestly think the shyness is a pride problem, and something I need to overcome, but it's where I am now; if I try to communicate anything of importance (to me) in conversation, I'm sick to my stomach for three days, feeling naked and vulnerable and embarrassed.
I'm a writer. Even though I haven't written regularly in a while, I'm still a writer. And I think writing is the best way for me to communicate things ... and perhaps by writing, I can deal with the pride issue that’s hiding under the cloak of shyness. Because I want to be more than a writer. I want to be able to speak, to teach, to communicate in so many other ways.
And that is the blog post for today. I have a list of essay titles and notes in my real-life notebook, and I hope to do something with those here, or elsewhere. Thanks for reading, if you're reading. And I hope to share more soon.
It was a lot of work. I was tired all the time. So when I would retreat to books, it was like I could finally wake up and come alive. And my notebooks—my journals—were where I could communicate to the world, at least in theory. In truth, I never published anything in those journals. But they were valuable for (among other things) the sense that I could articulate and communicate--something I never felt able to do in the Real World.
The hearing loss was one issue, but there was also the truth that I have always been, and still am, very shy. I've learned to "fake it" over the years, of course. And my shyness can even seem to disintegrate among certain friends and certain types of people.
Still, I'm generally much happier, and I can express myself most truly, when I'm alone and in my notebook. It's where and how I work out ideas and come to new understandings. When reading nonfiction, I often write as I read because I'm not content to just take in the information. Even with fiction, I'm constantly underlining, making notes, circling things, thinking.
When blogging became a thing back in the early 2000s, I jumped on board. What a relief to be able to write, and have people respond! When you journal as much as I did (and still do), you get lonely. Thoughts are wonderful companions, but the companionship of, and the sharing of ideas with, other humans is important too. So blogging met a deep need for me to communicate. I made some friends through blogging that I still consider friends today, even though most of us have never met.
The blogging community I was in, like many of the blogging communities back then, died down after a few years. As with many women bloggers at the time, my blogging life dwindled as I became a mom and had less and less time for writing and online community. And as Facebook and Instagram and Twitter became more popular, we all started thinking and communicating in shorter, and usually shallower, bursts.
All of that was fun. The short, pithy statements that could make people laugh. The cute kid pictures. The occasional shared meme. But on a "fun" scale of 1 to 10, social media has always ranked at about a 3 for me, approximately 1.5 points higher than video games you can play on your phone. So why was I spending so much of my life on it? Blogging had also taken time, but at least I felt that I was communicating meaningful things, and getting real feedback. Making real (if virtual) friendships. But with social media, I had a deep and unsettling sense that I was wasting my mind.
Last year, I gave up social media for Lent, and it was then that I realized how addicted I was to it. It took a couple of weeks for me to stop mindlessly checking my phone, even though I'd removed all of the social media apps from it. I stopped taking so many pictures since there was no prospect of sharing them immediately. Since I wasn't posting anything, there was no need to check back regularly to see if someone had commented on or liked something.
After six weeks, I knew that the social media addiction could not come back. I wouldn't let it.
That was last spring. I've managed to keep social media in its rightful place, for the most part. I've unfriended or unfollowed a lot of people, and I don't post so much anymore. I've gotten behind on what people are doing, since I rarely scroll through anything.
All of that scrolling is noise for the brain. My brain feels so much quieter now.
With the quiet has come the desire to write more substantive things. Essays, mostly. With so little background noise, I can now hear all of the many thoughts as they come to life in my mind. I want to write about so many things. Most importantly, my spiritual life has undergone some major changes in the past year, and I want to write about that in particular. More than anything, I want to write about that.
As a mom, and a person who works full-time outside the home, and as someone who volunteers and takes music lessons and commutes and even tries to exercise occasionally, I have a hard time making space to write. There are so many things competing for my attention--and that's after I "cleaned out" my life earlier this year and let go of several commitments.
So I have all these thoughts, all these ideas, all these insights, and they're not going anywhere because they don't get written. I'm reminded of Sylvia Plath's rather disturbing poem, "Stillborn." She writes of her unfinished, unfulfilled poems:
It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.
I start essays, and I jot down thoughts. I come to discoveries that I sometimes share in words, with myself, on the commute. But I don’t actually share them with people. There’s no time to write, and even if there’s time to communicate in conversation, my shyness ensures that I say nothing. And so the thoughts die, while I remain “near dead with distraction.”
Time is a problem, and the shyness thing is a big problem. I honestly think the shyness is a pride problem, and something I need to overcome, but it's where I am now; if I try to communicate anything of importance (to me) in conversation, I'm sick to my stomach for three days, feeling naked and vulnerable and embarrassed.
I'm a writer. Even though I haven't written regularly in a while, I'm still a writer. And I think writing is the best way for me to communicate things ... and perhaps by writing, I can deal with the pride issue that’s hiding under the cloak of shyness. Because I want to be more than a writer. I want to be able to speak, to teach, to communicate in so many other ways.
And that is the blog post for today. I have a list of essay titles and notes in my real-life notebook, and I hope to do something with those here, or elsewhere. Thanks for reading, if you're reading. And I hope to share more soon.
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