I lived four lives...

Well, that last post wasn't very spiritual (or unique...I think almost every woman on the planet has mother issues!) but perhaps it was cathartic. And I'm only airing my issues here because they've been an obstacle to my getting to where I want to be.

In that way, that last post was successful because it helped  me understand how my writing actually serves many masters:

1. One master is my therapist oversoul who wants to help me out by listening and occasionally critiquing my world view.  This master is often frustrated  by my lack of insight.
2. Another master is surreptitiously entrepreneurial. She wants me to make money off of my writing and doesn't care too much for the soul searching, unless it improves my ability to sell something. Of course, she vehemently denies that money is the end game because she considers it too crass.  That lack of self-esteem is a problem.
3. Yet another ruler is my pragmatic side.  It's the aspect of my personality that says just continue to produce and practice, keep writing, learn how to be a better craftsperson, organizer, and communicator.  She's the taskmaster.
4. The final  boss is my creative self...who simply derives a great amount of pleasure from the process of writing, from the work of imagining to the act of committing thoughts to a page or screen.  This master is typically the one that encourages me to write but gets short shrift when I shift into another mode.

With all these conflicting messages and roles rolling around in my brain, I find it very easy to get sidetracked and discouraged.  But perhaps now that I'm aware of these very diverse personalities, I'll be able to proceed with less confusion...at least that's the operating principle I'm going to try to work with!

Mine, mine, mine

There is a habit that my mother got into whenever we had the infrequent phone call.
“Well," she said, "you could always put this in your book!”

“This” refers to some incident she was recounting about a student she worked with or a relative that she’d recently visited back east. Or it was in reference to an experience she had at the store when inserting herself into the life of a stranger or engaging with a previously seldom referenced neighbor.

No matter what it was, I was uniformly uninterested in her well-meaning suggestions, her insistent desire to insert herself into my “writing process”.

A natural promoter she’d say, “You should get together with this person. They are fascinating. Can I introduce you when you fly in next Tuesday? You could write about them.” Of course the answer would be an unambiguous no.

“I don’t understand how a person who wants to be a writer can be so uninterested in people,” she’d say with obvious frustration. “How can you write fiction if you’re not interested in meeting people? I’m feeding you these wonderful stories…how can you not want to use this material?”

How indeed? But I wasn’t interested in the people my mother wanted me to be interested in. I didn’t want to talk to her myriad of diverting friends and acquaintances. And I had no desire to be displayed to her friends as “my daughter the writer” and then later pimped out to profile her pals as characters in an anecdotal narrative, a benefit as it were to her associates for being her confederate.

Out of frustration, one day I finally said, “Mom, I’m not a fiction writer”.
“You aren’t?”
“No. I don't write stories”.
“Then what kind of writer are you?”
I struggled to come up with something.
“I’m a technical writer. I like writing help texts, manuals...and maybe and reviews and publicity”

“Oh…well sorry all this time I thought you wrote fiction.”

The next time we spoke she said. “I have a wonderful project for you. I’m trying to put together a cotillion for girls of color, a societal coming out party for them and I want you to do the PR. Won’t that be a wonderful opportunity for you? Plus we’ll get to work together!”

“No Mom. That's not what I want to write about.” I had no intention of publicizing an event that taught little girls how to dress up and be pretty prizes for boys. I think she must have had temporary amnesia about my 14-year marriage to a woman.

“Well, then what DO you want to write about?” Apparently if she couldn’t see it, couldn’t sing my praises about it to others, and couldn’t get it for free, then my writing seemed more fiction than reality.

---

Later, she privately wondered to my sister if I were passionate about anything.

Well, I am. But these conversations got me thinking about my writing and why I so loathed her trying to put a name to it.

My writing has always been an escape, a very personal shelter that I rarely let others into. It is unequivocally, in all it’s flawed execution and stilted phrasing, in it’s inexact and imprecise use of language, in it’s self-referential and dubious thematic structure (almost done here) in it's damaged, broken and warped way, MY misshapen offspring. And I don’t want to share my ugly baby with my mother right now, no matter how desperately she wants me to share it with her.

It’s one of the chief reasons I blog anonymously. I then get to devote a small portion of my universe to exploring me without the confines, obligations or designs of anyone (read especially my mother).

If this makes me a hateful child, so be it. But this is a singular act of defiance for a daughter who was the good girl for most of her formative years.

A return to letter writing...I hope

I hate being on the phone. In the age of digital mobile technology, it’s awkward. It’s hard to hear the other person and often stymieing in terms of useful discourse. I like to think about what I’m trying to say before I say it and being on the phone short circuits that process. It also has the regrettable consequence of violating my privacy. Anyone within earshot gets to hear what I’d usually prefer to keep to myself.

That’s why when email and then the rise in texting emerged I was thrilled. The emphasis is in trying to communicate ideas and concepts via words not little, pre-rehearsed sound bites. Plus I’m way too distracted by life to actually spend time in a one-on-one conversation by happenstance. If I want to communicate with someone face to face (or receiver to receiver) then I like to plan it, not get stuck in it by default when I’m in the middle of taking a shower, cleaning out my office or enjoying Battlestar Galactica. I consider timing…my timing… to be primary to me, not the province of the person calling me.

This week I’m taking this asynchronous communication model even farther. I actually took pen to paper and wrote a letter. It wasn’t anyone’s birthday and it clearly wasn’t a holiday. I just felt that the distance engendered by a letter slowed down the whole discourse game. That distance gave me some room to breathe. Allowed for some time between the call and response.

I appreciate that psychic space afforded by written dispatches. As a fairly defended person it allows me to discuss things more thoughtfully rather than being placed on the spot (and I say this despite the recent spate of Twitter bashing. Actually I love the economy of language that Twitter imposes. Such constraints are not always a bad thing.). As a life-long introvert, writing gives me the ability to consider and then address a more comprehensive platform of my ideas, examining them for flaws, and misrepresentations. Even as we dive headlong into the twilight of books, newspapers, letters and the like, I still believe there is a place (as was found for radio) for the old tools of connection, if only as a tool to narrow down the clamor of our many trains of thought.

I hope today’s letter will be my first of many.