Stop All the Clocks

My mom admits that she’s not a great communicator; she prefers to write what she wants to say.  I’ve learned a lot about her through written communication and though I yearn for a more intimate relationship with my mom, I am the same way.  I write what I want to say.  Writing is organized and can be edited and it helps my brain to settle and focus.  The written word has weight and carries something of the eternal with it; the written word is participation in the dialogue of humanity.  It is what’s left.

Writing instead of vocalizing is also distance.  My self, my heart once removed scratched onto white space.  It’s easier for me to write than to speak; this white space a place to put my self and my say.

That said, not only do I not know how to say this, but I don’t know how to write this.  When my mom called this morning,  she  could not say the word either.  But she called and we spoke to each other and wept.  My mom told me what it was. My mom has cancer.

There are the words, there.  There.  For all their distance and for all the white space surrounding them and holding them and bearing them up, the words are not distant enough and it hurts and I can’t say anymore.

Instead, this is what others have said in their grief:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

…let the mourners come.                                   Auden

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.                                     Dylan

In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.   Jesus

And this is what my mom wrote:

I’ve lived long enough to say, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, but if I must my first response cannot be anger at God nor hurt feelings of Him not protecting me; instead I know whatever it is that this is about, I must say I will face this furnace and if He saves me wonderful; if not it is still good.  He has already given me more than I could ever have hoped for or wanted and if I get more, I will be grateful.  It’s still hard.  But everyone in their life at some point has to look into that furnace and everyone better have a speech prepared for that moment.

Much Ado

I’ve wanted to do (is blogging doing? writing? blogging? making?  How can I blog without knowing the language?…ugh) a blog for a couple years now.  So this is it, dear reader.  I created this blog page last January, meaning January, 2010 and have had the inaugural blog, typed as a Word doc, in my purse for several months.  And yes, I used this very Word doc to spit my gum into. 

Okay, so here goes:

The problem with autobiography is that it is autobiography.  Because autobiography is utterly reflexive, it’s trapped, like the funhouse room of mirrors.  Autobiography, this blog, can only reflect itself, no checks and balances.  How am I not myself?  (Go to 5:10…but the entire clip is hilarious and sardonic and worth watching)

No checks and balances…except time.  Time is one hell of a check on my balances.  As much as I am who I am, I’m not the same person I was ten years ago.  Getting older has taught me that; getting older is just a regular mirror (no funhouse) to look at myself and, hopefully, gain wisdom.

          In starting this blog, writing and reading oneself a day or two or weeks/months later could be, shall I say, shattering.  Let’s just hope I’m honest.

It seems then, that the self becomes the ultimate editor of the self in the autobiographical blog.

Except for the readers.  Audience is another check, another editor.  Blogs are an existential experiment.  All I do, right?, is write myself and then read others’ comments. So how, then can I not be myself?  When others comment on my self: I then rewrite remake reblog my self.

So why has it taken me this long to get into the blogging game?  The following excuses:

• I worry that the Blogosphere will corrupt literature and writing and language
• What if blogging makes me a lazy writer?
• I’m not a disciplined writer at all.  (Thus nullifying the above excuse.  Can’t be[come] a lazy writer if I don’t do any writing.)
• I’m barely a disciplined person.  And writing a journal, writing a blog–among most other things necessary for a successful life–takes discipline.  Discipline that I don’t have.
• What will other people think of me?

Except that this is all wrong.  Autobiography is itself an edit of itself.  How can I not be myself?  When I write my self.  What separates me from my self?  An expansive gulf of white space and language.

Some of you may think you’ll get to know me by reading this blog and you may think that this is a blog about me and my comings and goings, E’s milestones, but, truly, it’s an explanation of what I think of my life.  Anais Nin: We see things as we are, not as they are.

That said, this is a little about me, in no particular order.

I am 33 years old.  I am cis, I am straight, I am white, I am middle class, I am a survivor, I am able-bodied.  I am in a job that is becoming more and more dreadful.  I am in a job that I do as my mission because I have a passion for justice, but I’m doubting more and more that this is my calling.  I am married and believe that I need to be a better partner, because he so deserves to be loved so much better than I give now.  I am a new mother and love motherhood more than I ever thought I could.  I love Jesus so much and not enough and this grieves me.  I am a pessimist, but not a realist–actually, I’m an idealist and, others tell me, I suffer because of this.  I drink around 4 cups of coffee a day (but it’s totally fine!  Read this).  I am a Steelers fan…ergo, I am a person of great contradictions.  I am very jaded which is not very Christ-like.  I love literature and writing and postmodern theory and feminist theory, but love modernist literature the most.  I have a mental health diagnosis–a dual diagnosis!–of major depressive disorder (with dysthymia) and PTSD (Vonnegut would say: faulty wiring).  I have a BA and am a seminary graduate.  I have recently decided against law school.  I love birds and gardening; I am a feminist.  I am a liberal, I am a fiscal conservative, I am a dash libertarian (seriously, people, civil rights!).

I am a minefield of potential blog topics.

So I think this blog is really about me parsing myself, the world, trying to figure it all out.  There are days or moments that I truly cannot figure out the meaning of it all (or why those words weigh so much mean so much), days where I stand in solidarity with Qohelith: everything is meaningless.  And then there are days or moments when I get it.  Lately, it’s been a manic swing between these types of days, but I believe, rather, I have to believe that the meaningless days or moments are a symptom of my faulty wiring and not the truth.

Say it with me (uh, with me and Hemingway): It’s pretty to think so.

These are my confessions.  This is my participation in the dialogue, my oeuvre, palimpsest and all that.

Oh, and I am a tooouuuch dramatic.  And probably take myself too seriously.  Which is why everything you just read is probably crap and hopefully you can enjoy the blog from this moment forward.