Writing Isn't Safe or Dangerous

I'll take a minute before I start a big day of work to thank those readers who have appreciated me and let me know they are fans of my writing. I got discouraged about the blog, not sure about all the nuances of why, but I stopped posting the link on Facebook and immediately stopped getting readers. That added to my discontent about FB and how we all use it. It's a bulletin board and a short cut and it has made it easy to rein in our bandwidth and limit our input...we let it filter our experience and suffer for that. Yet it is such a condition of our collective life that we love it too. It allows us to keep in touch and think that we are covering all the bases of this complicated social life, but it makes us vulnerable too and this time of year especially I really want to limit the ways I lay myself open to what does not serve me.

I do know that laying myself open is one of my strengths and it is welcomed by others as an example of an almost careless courage that is an antidote to fear. The first time I consciously acted this way was when I was involved in a deep friendship with someone who struggled with some sociopathy. He wanted to be kind and loving but he could almost not help being predatory to get his deep needs met. When I realized that to be his friend I might be prey, I decided to surrender emotionally and not fear my transparency and lack of defenses. I made the choice to open all of my thoughts to him and would send him my journals, first drafts, etc. We actually wrote a sort-of-good novel together in six months that remains one of my most exciting writing experiences although I doubt I will ever get it out and do anything with it.

The interesting thing about predators and prey is that once you manage to move in close to the controller, you become an ally and in the circle you are protected and only the outsiders are prey. Of course the danger is that you take on characteristics and habits of the predator. They seem right and useful. I was able to allow myself to be dismissive and critical and laugh at others. I have that part of me, though I suppress her actively and try to do what Thumper taught me (If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all). I sharpened my wits and my writing got really good and except for the troublesome guilt and shame over being mean, it kind of worked as long as I was in close to him.

Of course that eventually fell apart and he turned on me with a vengeance and discarded me in an ugly way, which did a lot of damage to my psyche, damage I had invited in my naivete. Coming out of it (the whole relationship took half a decade) I counted myself lucky that my trust and innocence was so strong that I was able to still be that good girl, even while tempted to be the inner bad girl, and I learned some fantastic life skills like empathetic listening and the differences between romantic and rational thinking and relationship behavior. I got a great education in codependence and anger patterns, came out strong in my own defense over time and still count him as one of my great teachers and intimate friends even though we have had no contact in many years and probably never will.

It was a terrible example (a good example of what not to do) for my then teenage son, as I was obsessed with the relationship during a time when my son needed a much more focused parent, but then again I brought my son and his friends along in my learning process as much as I could. The struggle for nonviolence in a violent world and the ability to listen well and really analyze emotions and other people helped my son with his own psychological studies of highschoolers and those who try to control them. My son never was someone who submitted much to authority and I helped him get some skills to at least figure out what he was thinking and feeling. It's impossible to say what parts worked and what parts didn't. I took his existential crisis seriously and got him some good allies of his own and I think that really helped the separation of son and mother which we had to get through no matter what. He loves me now, in his mid-twenties, and all is pretty well between us. He is a fine and strong person and I don't have to worry about him.

But I have never wanted to be an authority. I'm okay with being thought of as wise, but some of my writing here has seemed pontifical and romantic to the extreme. I do deeply love the Market and Fair communities with all of our flaws and tendencies, but often I lack compassion for the individuals...at least until I get to know them. Each one has that soft underbelly where their wounded parts are held, and each one can be hurt. Even the strongest and most dismissive of us have that tender pain that they hope no one will see. I hate putting my own out there for people to dismiss. I hate my weaknesses as much as the next person. I despair of my intolerances and hesitate in so many ways to act, fearful that I will be found out and somehow skewered.

Maybe that is why so many people are afraid, to speak out, to ask questions, to persist. Fear causes us to clam up when asked about something we are not sure how to defend. I struggle with policies I don't support, because my respect for the process leads me to think that once a policy is made, I need to get behind it and help with its implementation. The nonprofit policy change was one Market thing I didn't support and hope to see as okay in the long run, but I still feel it was a selfish choice and shortsighted. I notice that one of the main complainers about the nonprofits isn't even selling actively at our Market now, so I feel that because of a small number of complaints we threw the baby out with the bathwater. I may be wrong. I don't have a vote and many people who do, voted, so the group process worked and the decision was made. Whether it was right or not, it was done. It's a year later and even reversing the decision won't help now.

As with the relationship described above, the unsettling parts do settle, and often the right parts do overcome the wrong parts. It isn't that simple as a duality; few questions in life really are dualities. I tried to learn not to think in black and white...apparently that is a fundamentalist and Catholic tendency that we learn and must unlearn. Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell...you can easily see that nature provide far more shades of grey than dualities. Someone said to think in threes. I try to see a spectrum as well. Easy with things like gender...I can certainly see that there is a spectrum of gender-based characteristics that varies with the individual. Same with many human traits; no one is all this or all that. It helps to think in more vague and indeterminate ways, even though it is less secure and safe to keep questioning things. Nothing is all right or all wrong.

So it becomes hard to make definitive statements and I am uncomfortable doing it here. I can't tell you that everything is fine and right and good. Some things are. Some things are intolerable and tragic as well. I don't have the wisdom you seek, or maybe I do have something that will help you along the path. You get to pick up what serves you and discard the rest. I act as a witness most of the time to just try to articulate what seems to be evident and unspoken. I try to be helpful. That Girl Scout stuff resonated deeply.

I'll try to keep putting it out there even when it makes me uncomfortable. There is plenty of important work to do in my small universes. We are going to be called to defend our home in the Park Blocks and we are called to keep our Country Fair on the track that serves the most vulnerable of us. We are all facing death and loss in every way, so we are called to keep our own ship sailing in favorable waters and we are always called to do as much for others as we have the capacity to do. It can be a tiny thing, as those multiply. It can be a big and stunning thing that makes us cry every time we remember it. I was lucky enough to have both of those this year, to be on the spectrum of giving and receiving, and here we are again in the season of giving.

I bought myself a big jar of capers and some pink salt. I think that is all the presents I need. I got thanked for writing. That is more powerful that seeing a published book to me. I have more work than I can do in this lifetime so I see that my life will always be as full as I can carry. I have my gifts. I hope I can share them enough to fill you all up too. Have the happiest highs and the most heartfelt sorrows and keep on going. Soon it will be Jell-O Art season and Opening Day and all the glories of spring shall return. In the meantime, enjoy the hope, the fires in snow, the piles of dead leaves that feed the worms. Don't focus on the parts you don't like, try not to complain too much, and wear something fuzzy and comfortable. Saturday is Wild Wild West fashion day, and Sunday is Faux Fur and Feathers. Let's have some fun in there. Let's try to keep the most important of our senses, our sense of humor, intact as we travel through this often confusing and troublesome life.