To say my writing, my attempts to write, my thinking, my attempts to think have been muddled these last few weeks would be an understatement. Clarity of thought and of purpose is elusive. I feel as though I’m sending smoke signals through the fog.
Lying in bed, groggy and ignoring the cat, one of my first thoughts this morning was how mentally engaged and also mentally tired I felt. I thought about how I may have to move from Memphis up to State College so that I can live rent free for a little while until the world calms down and I find my new place in it. I thought about how I want to shape a new world, or at least my place in it, or at least one piece of my place in it. I thought about how I would like nothing more than to sit on the beach and do absolutely nothing, or go live a quiet, uninterrupted, uncomplicated life: one in which I get up, work whatever job I have, come home, enjoy the company of pets, nature, a partner… There, in bed, I felt this pull towards really wanting something calm, simple, and wildly unambitious. These thoughts, these feelings suddenly epitomized the fight or flight response and how I, and probably many others, teeter-totter between the two. Do I find something and engage (work, a cause, a passion) or find a way to disengage, bury my head in the sand and enjoy the quietness of being? Does it have to be an either/or proposition? Suddenly, I felt like one of my favorite childhood toys – the Weeble… wobbling between action and inaction, fight and flight, seeking and hiding. A slow walk through ambiguous gray. An appreciation for the dance between light and shadow as the sun filters through forest trees.
About a week or two ago, I hid (made private) nearly 300 blog posts and wrote a revised introduction to this blog. I had just shared on Facebook a few paragraphs about the protests here in Memphis. I figured it might be time to push the blog out into the world, and share the link. Facebook is not the forum for long-winded and wandering thoughts – sharing made sense. Now, more than a few days later, I’ve shared two or three other Facebook posts, and have yet to direct anyone to this site. I feel a level of discomfort in building that bridge. In many of the hidden posts, I’ve grappled with this notion of a public self and a private self. As part of an experiment in making myself more open and uncomfortable and free, I have intentionally tried to blur the line between those two selves. And now, with a good opportunity to push on that discomfort, I find myself shrinking from the challenge. What’s worse is that I’m putting almost as much effort and thought in to what I’m saying on Facebook as I am here.
This morning I came out to my balcony to read, enjoy a second cup of coffee, and maybe write. I read a poem or two. I stole from Adrienne Rich the line “sending dispatches in to the fog” and re-wrote as the title of this post, sending smoke signals. I tried to write a poem about my frustrations with thinking and writing. I tried to write about how for the better part of a year, my primary preoccupation has been with love and all it’s complications and now I’m focused more on justice and equality and the social contract. And this morning, in bed, I found myself swinging back to the concept of love as I longed for simplicity. I wish I could pursue both love and reason… each with equal measure. For a while I had been trying to make a daily observation about the sky. It was a way to practice seeing. As my preoccupations shifted, I stopped the daily practice. This morning on the balcony, I looked up and wrote: “For once, the clouds move right to left. The winds have clearly changed.”