I often feel a little off, guilty, and/or embarrassed after sharing something confessional and personal. That audience thing nags at me… I ask myself: am I ok, by which I mean comfortable, with other people knowing these things about me? Family, co-workers, friends? The answer is almost always no, I’m not comfortable with any of that. I get confused about myself, who I am, and who I might want to be. Am I a public person who wants to be private? A private person who flirts with being public? Or maybe I’m just someone who wants to be seen, but only by those who are looking? Perhaps I’m the car wreck from which you can’t avert your eyes? I’ve been writing and sharing my thoughts and my life for almost three years here on TurtleSloth. The fact that I’ve never shared a link to this blog on social media, never publicized it should be a clear sign of my ambivalence. I’m ok with my small exercises in and dalliances with authenticity and transparency being found, but I sometimes wonder what I might learn from practicing restraint. Are there things I should hold back – for either myself or for some truly inquisitive future?
And of course I do – hold back that is. I’ve written a handful of poems these past few days, maybe three or four. And tonight I began a long series of short poems. This morning, in the car on the way to work, I wrote a small treatise (a few short paragraphs) on the similarities between love and writing – how both command our attention bringing everything under our gaze to life in new and surprising ways, and how the adults and parents in us tries to silence that wondrous inquisitiveness:
Much of writing is about learning to break down the filter between your mind, your voice, and your pen… learning to let loose the chatter, letting that six-year-old narrator with the surprisingly good vocabulary talk and yak enthusiastically and incessantly about everything. And when the parent steps in to censor or quiet with thoughts like “we don’t need to describe everything,” or the adult insists on some higher form of art by saying “not everything is deserving of poetry or attention or exposition” kindly show her out of the room, tell her to shush – her time will come soon enough and in good measure… because, on some level, of course she’s right. There will be time enough to edit, but for now, get it down. Get it all down.
I was in love once. Deeply, madly alive and alert. In that euphoric and unsustainable sprint, the adults in both of us grew quarrelsome and tired. The outside world, the editors and censors, knocked one too many times telling the children in us to keep quiet, mind our manners, sit up straight, and clean up after ourselves. These were the arguments about schedules and needs unfulfilled and being left out or needing space. These were the evenings when wonder grew quiet and the children grew tame.
Love and writing (and I suppose all passions) tap into the same enthusiasms and acute ways of seeing – unfiltered and sometimes messy. It, this child’s view of the world, this way feeling and seeing, is not for the thin-skinned and easily bruised. Knees get scraped and the world of adults often disappoints. Love and poetry, with all its play, beauty, exploration, and sadness is not for the thin-skinned. I’m not sure if we can have it any other way.
It, the note above tapped out on my phone, made sense in the moment. Undoubtedly, it’s influenced by the essay I read on the pure joy that is possible if we let our child-like wonder roam free – if we can keep the parents and adults somewhat at bay. And maybe that’s why I share – the confessional, the personal, the questioning wonder. Perhaps this is my surrogate, my cheap stand-in for that other type of love – my barbaric and unrefined yawp stretching its legs, practicing awe, waiting for the next time around.