More Incomplete Thoughts
Part II
A continuation from the collection of drafts unpublished. We begin nearly one year ago. We go to the thin winter.
If I may, I have a new gift for you at the end— But it is only a gift if your ears are anything like mine.
You tell me.
November 4, 2024
Pop Quiz Kid
What do you do when you doubt yourself?
When does a passion become an obsession?
Is an obsession always a bad thing?
Can you trust yourself when led by a passion?
An obsession?
Should you trust others to tell you your passions are too much?
How could they know?
How do you?
November 9, 2024
The Question of the Holes
Deeper than ever before
I thought was just going to write a simple book. Then it became a memior.
I thought, fine— I can handle that.
Now, I am learning about trauma.
Fair to say, things have escalated.
Quick facts about trauma: It is bad. It hurts, and messes things up.
It filled me with fear.
With a silence.
But the weird one is, I now know it filled me with holes too.
This is a thing, these holes.
Gaps. Crevices.
Possible canyons.
Hollows— could be filled with all sorts of things.
I think of them as places in my body that once held a part of me— intangible parts, but something inherent, like my imagination or, or my hope. Once gone it leaves a depression. A crater where I can feel something is vanished, where something is missing. Perhaps if you get enough of these holes you become a depression yourself. Maybe that is what happened.
I thought I dodged the scary and obvious void-fillers. I never did the scary drugs, I wasn't a wreck at twenty two like I could have been; I was dating my future husband instead. I figured I had done fairly well. When I did find something to fill the void I felt these things were safe and helpful.
That made me wonder if I was fixed— or maybe, at least I could be…?
Not that I would know, but the worst part is— this can destroy more than the trauma did, this the question of the holes. The question of ‘did I find the fix or have I dug in deeper than ever before’?
I have been telling myself if I can get this book finished it will answer my questions. Everyone’s questions. But it seems that new daunting inquiries pop up and I am left feeling indistinct. My world now feels nebulous. I am scared to sit in front of my computer and see what I might say. What will come when I learn more about me? I grasp at letters and they tell me something I have to grapple with, something other’s have to grapple with... that is wrenching to deal with. Privacy, hurt, harm, love, need. It’s all there.
It makes me feel wrong, this ghostly writing.
I was fighting the ghost in the last copy. I sat so ever present and made sure the whole truth wasn’t on the pages despite being as honest as I could be. It is amazing how the mind can allow the games. The deceptions direct the show rather than allowing me to accept and deal. Rather than allowing me to direct.
I never have directed the show.
It has always felt easier to hide, so I doubt baring myself.
I am a bursting emptiness and if I get this true and full I will have to be me.
Nothing has ever been more disconcerting,
and
I have never wanted anything more.
November 11, 2024
Writer’s Anchor
I am anchored.
It is like blocked but instead of no ideas you have a rumination. You are stuck. In it. Hooked into the sand rendered immobile. Purposely immobile. Latched. Digging in, digging in.
I think being blocked and being anchored are caused by the same thing:
Fear.
And I think all the fear comes from being misunderstood, unaccepted, all those shades of disconnection. For me, all those disconnections come from a lack of authenticity.
I have long been fearful of being disposable, for many reasons rooted in my childhood and nourished by my assumptions all these years. To keep my place, to keep the peace, to find a way I made myself what I thought would be accepted. I honestly thought I was doing what I wanted and how I wanted, but the focus was always on maintaining the role of being accepted. Maintaining the way in which I was viewed from the outside by others, that was paramount, the most important part of my existence was how others saw me.
Until it wasn’t.
A couple of years ago I decided that had to stop. I wanted to know what my viewpoint was. And I wanted to be seen from my viewpoint. I decided that was all I needed to focus on. My sense of authenticity needed to be the most important part of my life. What I didn’t realize was how much this would impact everything. I was very naïve. Maybe inconsiderate about how much trying to get real with myself would affect others. I thought I wasn’t too far off from myself, I figured it was a slight tilt, a lift of my chin, a catch of the right light and I’d be there, but now I am always upside down, in the shadows— and I have been, and that is part of the story too. I haven’t handled this well in many ways, and I have to ask if I am being authentic or just destructive?
Both? Is it possible the answer is both?
November 14, 2024
Whatever Ails You
My hands shake. More so my left one, so I worry it isn’t due too much coffee or nerves, I assume it is the ticking clock of whatever will ail me. It makes me think my time is speeding up.
I think of my grandmother and how her hands shook. Was it the drinking? Her nerves? Whatever ailed her?
She died having lost herself. She had dementia in the end. I wonder if she ever knew herself. I think she knew she didn’t. Maybe that’s why she drank. I see myself in her in so many ways and I worry. Some days it propels me and other days I think I could just quit, be an alcoholic like her. My family would know what to do with me if that was the situation. We’ve all done that path a few times.
But I brought something new into the family. And my hands shake.
Will my children worry about catching it? Did I keep them safe enough so they won’t catch what we all seem to catch: This life?
These shaking hands?
November 15, 2024
Curiosity or Performance
my offbeat underbelly
I am trying to learn my steps.
I am trying to be precise. To count. To be on beat.
To know what comes next and be ready.
But I have no grace. I am watching my feet.
I’m trying to write while moving.
I am exhausted
and I am not a dancer. But look,
See how I move anyways… all my missteps practiced before you,
or must I have it right first?
No ugly underbelly? Just a performance at the end?
I must confess,
I don’t want the performance.
That is not the part that will matter to me.
I don’t care about the end.
I am off rhythm but finding something, and it makes me curious. It feels like anything could happen.
Are you at all curious too?
November 16, 2024
Looking for My Muchness
My muchness… it was a fleeting mist about me, made me daring. And I liked it. I felt brave and capable when it smoothed out my valleys. It made me more. It changed me, made me big enough to make some headway in this world.
Maybe I got too big. Either way the winds came, the sun shone. The mist vanished,
I am little again.
I told someone I was frozen and they asked if I was truly frozen or afraid of losing the narrative. They said I could be paralyzed, lost in my blank mind or I could be afraid my words will be taken wrong and I won’t be able to fix it.
Ah.
So then I am not frozen, I am editing myself.
This Mast is the only consistent place for my words now. This side project is all I am doing now and I feel it must be obvious I am not even able to give the writing I once was offering here.
I was absurdly confident when I started writing here nearly a year ago.
Now I must decide if I am simply absurd.
Easy answer: The world is off kilter— not me.
Real answer: Maybe it’s some, and none, and both.
Why some? Because I am accountable for all I do even when the world is shit.
Why none? Because the world has been shit, and my piss-ant mistakes should not be the issue.
Then both… because I am not an idiot, I am only stubborn.
I think maybe I should be quiet for a bit. Hibernate.
Winter looms and I should curl in on myself.
I am fearing the weather.
I fear what is out of my hands.
I should try to be gentle with myself.
I don’t feel strong enough for this. I only want to be more tender,
then more tender. Then more.
I have been strong as long as I care to be strong.
This is how it goes now.
I am soft, I am curled in on myself.
I curl my back open on some days and straighten tall enough to hit these keys, I unclinch my hands and hit send.
Maybe by spring I can unfurl myself enough to collect my words, get to more of the real work. Until then, I will be soft, softer, and oh, so quiet.
Then I will be able to hear again, and when I do, I will have my muchness clinging to me, and I will gather my words like precious eider down. Something worth
November 17, 2024
Writing While 4x More Likely to Die
We are all given choices of how to be in society, and we pick.
That’s the game.
Dare I say, I think part of issue is we are making choices before we know what we want. We are expected to be before we are.
I honestly thought I was doing what I wanted and how I wanted, but the focus was always on maintaining a role of being accepted. The way in which I was viewed was paramount. Without this external confirmation, I felt my existence could be voided.
If I wasn’t seen in connection to another, I wasn’t worthy of being seen. I think I feared being the focus. I needed some sort of cover, a deflection, somewhere to hide. I was selfless—
do not hear generous,
hear absent.
Nearly two years ago I decided that had to stop. I went to bed one day and knew I needed to be different. I woke up determined to be seen from my viewpoint. My time of living through everyone else was over. Carving into my authenticity was to be the most important aspect of my life. What I didn’t realize was how much this carving would lead to cutting everything up. I was very naïve, even inconsiderate about how much trying to get real with myself would affect others.
Now, it makes me pause. I fear doing something more to cause further distance, but I am beginning to think my path is an orbit. Sometimes I am far, sometimes I am right near, and right now I am off alone, thinking to myself.
I recently happened upon Gabor Maté talking about authenticity. He referred to a study of more than 2000 women that were studied over a ten year period. They learned that women who were not able to be authentic, those who were unable to speak their feelings freely, were four times more likely to die than a woman who felt free to be herself.
That says so much— I want to ask you to read it again.
Being true to who we are matters more than being quote/unquote happy. Perhaps without authenticity you cannot be happy.
It certainly feels that way.
When there is an internal wall, a disconnection from who I am, how can I engage in the world fully? That separation gnaws at me. Mentally. Physically.
This is real life. There are no easy answers. I got myself into a mess by trying to sort myself out, I cannot stay where I have landed, so what am I to do about it?
Exactly what I said I was doing almost a year ago when I started these missives to you. I am writing a book. I am writing down all that happened. I will write what happened to me, what I made happen, and how it all impacted me and the people I love.
It will be authentic and maybe one day I will be too.
There is a lot to be said for hiding the way I have, there is a lot to say about a culture that demanded it of me, and the countless ways I agreed. There is even more to say about a late disagreement with a society doesn’t want to hear it. This story is needed because I know of too many people who are looking to understand if they made their lives or if they accepted a role in one.
November 17, 2024
Losing the Narrative
My hips hurts, I don’t know why. And my rolled ankle won’t heal.
I think this is aging.
I tell myself, type faster before your fingers refuse to obey— and then I do not write.
I do not obey myself, why should my hands listen?
I have been thinking of shaving my head. I need trauma informed care or a hair appointment to not be equal not the cost of a car payment.
I am told I am getting it wrong. I am told I am hurting people in making myself feel better, so now all my healing seems false. I doubt myself and my wishes. My goals.
I feel I have to hide myself away. Punish myself for getting it wrong.
I was absurdly confident when I started writing here nearly a year ago.
Now I feel I am simply absurd.
November 17, 2024
Worlds Collide
a publicly private collapse
It is strange to write a book of your worst and best days. Imagining that people will read it. judge it—what I really mean is they judge me.
It is strange to write blog where you share the mapless road. Making too many stops to get much of anywhere, feeling it can be a nice road to roll, but where am I leading you—
Me?
November 25, 2024
Untitled
I spent four decades waiting. I didn’t know I was waiting, but I was. I see that now. Then once upon an unplanned day I found myself in a tiny cavern looking up at water falling and I instantly felt like it was time to try— I could go ahead and give being alive in this world a chance.
For some reason, standing beneath something rare made me feel like everything was. Maybe even me. In the roar and the cold mist, I realized I had been wasting— waiting. I remade myself, within that water right then.
I could see possibilities seeping from me but I felt like very few noticed. and I assumed those who may have seen something in me knew something I was just learning. Like they saw something I should have long noticed, something rare. & that made me pay attention. I felt drenched in my dreams and after feeling unseen and unalive for so long I melted and fell into a million drops crying over a cliff. I fell, and fell, and some days I think I am falling still.
I fell in love with every possibility of who I could be, and in a way, anyone who said they saw something in me. I didn’t know how deeply I wanted to be seen the way I wanted, and not the way I imagined people wanted me to be seen.
I felt as if I had been seen one way for always. As something to be had. I was had starting at eight years old. In some ways, probably younger, which I why able to be had at eight. I have known this kind of being had ever since— Fucking gross.
But.
This was new. I felt human and whole. Not just something to be parsed apart, possessed. I was not Had. In fact I was un-had for the first time ever and it made me feel worthy of a chair and pen more than I ever felt worthy of my bones. I thought my words could be read, that my story was worth the time— and better than any blank page. It made me start to believe I maybe I could be worthy of my bones too.
I had felt bad about so many things in my life, that I had a hard time believe anything good about me. Suddenly I thought I could be seen in a tender way for my words. It was a salve for my oldest wounds. It came to mean the world to me.
I let it carry me— far from home.
So. I fought everything, everyone because how could what started the spark of who I was supposed to be, how could what made me daring and alive be bad? Even in my heart, especially in my heart, how could I dare to call it inappropriate?
I know inappropriate. I can taste it on the wind, smell it with the dew. Trees try to help carry some of it. They hide it in their leaves, and that’s why they wither and fall; every year there is just too much to hold.
I was too sentimental to accept that I was wrong, I would have rathered abandon myself than reduce my feelings to a mistake. If I am bad for that then I will never be good
December 5, 2024
Working Title
I changed the title of my book.
The one that still isn’t written.
I think it is a mindset thing. A framing— how I am thinking of this thing as a whole. I have been circling the loci of what I need to say, of what I have been trying to say. I have my words. Really. This time is different.
Changing titles isn’t the biggest deal, and if published by a big house I wouldn’t even get a vote. So it can all be moot, except it isn’t. When I wrote the first draft I changed the title a few times. At some random point I began calling the book, quite plainly, Home/Heima. A notion of feeling torn between my home being here in the desert, and the a nod to how I felt at home in Iceland. It was never a title I took seriously. It gave me a place to put some thoughts. Then on page 164 I wrote I felt trapped, flightless. I said I was a Dull Bird.
Pretty quickly, maybe that same day, that same hour I went and changed the document name to Dull Bird. The book was named, then finished. Now it is an artifact I study sometimes.
When I started the next draft I knew I had a lot to change, a lot to do and it felt like I was destroying everything in the process. I took a butchered song lyric from an early nineties song and made that my working title. I figured it wasn’t plagiarism if I had it wrong all along anyways. I do that. Butcher something, assume I have it right. Make a whole thing of it— while I have it all wrong…. It’s a talent.
This World is Over is what I had called it when I sat down with it all reordered and cut down. I could see how I had changed everything, my world was over, but I had left out so much. All of the catalysts were still tucked away.
I was still tucked away.
Forget Iceland is something I have been told
January 4, 2025
Untitled
We all come from childhood. We make ourselves from such riffraff as hollow bones and hallowed feelings.
Eyes and the heart.
How do those make a person?
Memories: whole days, the found, then lost; slight glances, a sigh— the sliding doors of our ears and mouths… they makes us, and we are expected to restrict what we let in and keep out. Do this from infancy. Who could possibly get it right?
We have no choice but to end up a mess. A human…
And here we pause again… would you like a present?
Your gift… should you choose to accept it.
A playlist that says all I try to articulate, thank the gods someone else put it in a song
Thank you so much for these. You are so graciously vulnerable, and even though our experiences are different, I recognize myself in these reflections. I’m reading this reminded that THIS is why we write: to connect, to find the common humanity. I will return to these, likely many times. THANK YOU