An Optimistic Soap Box

Dear Kate,

I read the date of your last letter and was riddled to shame at the length of time I’ve allowed to lapse for my response. However, as I re-read your thoughts, it sparked the same emotion I felt the first time I read your words a month ago. Why it took me so long to respond… I don’t feel right making excuses, because there are none.

The emotions corresponding with your words first dealt with your talk of following J wherever his life may lead. Upon first glance, I fluffed up my feathers of female independence and thought NO!! You should be foraging your own path, and fitting his life to yours. But then I realized my own shoes would follow the capt’s half way around the world and back for two reasons. The first reason is simply because I love him so much, I would never want to be apart from him. His life and mine flow along the same path so effortlessly that I do not feel I am losing any part of my own identity in accompanying him. The second reason is as simple: his life would lead me on the road of adventure I so much adore in this existence. So my thoughts back to your willingness to follow J – I pray that his life will lead you on that adventure, positively influencing your life’s accomplishments. I know you have the commitment with him, I simply pray the second piece won’t lead you into a life of settlement. I do believe you know as well as I that life is truly an adventure worth living.

The second emotion that bubbled from your letter deals with comparison. You are a wonderful person: intelligent, talented, creative. Yet you compare your gifts to those of J. You should be looking to him more for inspiration perhaps than comparison. You are both truly differing people with differing abilities. I fear when we begin to evaluate ourselves against those we admire, we will always fall short. We will never be good enough – You really have your own talents and passions without need for personal judgement based on another's life. I have found that I could many times set my own self up for doubt if I compare myself within YOUR shadow, rather than using it for inspiration. You amaze me, yet I know I have my own abilities outside of your glow. There is no comparison. I fear that when we stumble into a life of “us vs. them,” we set ourselves up for certain failure! We will never be as good as “them” because we are “me’s.” You are the individual with the individual talent – a talent you need to tend to rather than compare. I’ll never be as good a sailor as the capt, but that’s ok, that talent belongs to him. I am simply along for the ride, silently learning as much as possible to become the best I need to be at his sport.

Finally, as to your thesis: Sometimes the topics we choose as “easy” may be those towards which we feel some form of passion. In other words, what you may consider “easy” may not be so for another whose passion falls in another field. For you, your love is in the evolution of the short story. Another may hate the idea of the evolution, and rather focus on the writers choice of pen name. There are so many pieces. Like I mentioned before, both in my previous letter and within this paragraph, passion is that in which we find ease because we love the topic so much. You need to write about what you love: music, thrift-stores, painting, short-stories. Don’t feel your life is so humdrum that you believe it would make for a boring tale. I believe Jane Austen’s tales were not about very interesting lives, yet she wrote them with her own passion – threading that flow of emotion needed to grasp a reader’s adoration. Simply: it is fine to write about those things which are “easy” because they are often the things we care most about, thus weaving the ribbon of interest based upon our own experience and zeal.

Best of luck to your writing, ma cousine.
Paix,
Leigh

Dear Leigh,

I know exactly what you mean.  Though I enjoy many things--a good book, writing an interesting sentence, painting, awful fashion shows on tlc--I tend to lack passion about any of them.  It's become particularly apparent to me in the last few months, when I've found myself faced with the question of what I want to do after graduate school, and when I've found myself questioning why I'm here to begin with.

From the beginning, the professors reference our THESIS, that horrible paper we'll be writing next year, and from the beginning I've been trying to figure out what mine is going to be on.  I like creative writing, and I like reading, so maybe I'll look into the evolution of the short story as an American genre, yet this idea fails to excite me beyond "oh, that'll be relatively easy to write about."  Other people have chosen eras that they love, authors that they love, yet I...I just like to read.  I like a good story.  I like to know about the people who wrote the story, and I like to know how that comes through in their work.  Yet, still, none of it excites me beyond "oh, that book sounds interesting; I think I'll read it if I can find the time."

Then I watch and listen to J, who agonizes over his stories, who turns out wonderful and original prose, who can argue passionately about a number of things, and I feel as though I'm failing in some way.  As a human, am I not supposed to have a calling?  

I haven't touched my most recent painting in a month, I can't seem to come up with a good story let alone finish one, and a thesis just sounds like a chore to me.  Afterward...honestly, I'll take a job wherever J plans to finish grad school, as long as it pays okay and seems somewhat interesting.  I'll have weekends to clean and do my little hobbies like sewing and painting and thrift-store shopping...

It seems like I'll live a life where my passion won't be translated to paper.  I'd love to be a writer, but my life up until this point has been entirely too average, and I don't care to write about it.  I wish I could make it relevant to others, and I wish I could think of an era of English literature that inspires me, but the truth is I just want to be able to enjoy my family and small occupations comfortably, and that's not really novel-worthy...

So I don't really have an answer to it all.  I feel similarly to you, and most of the time I'm pretty much okay with that.  Every now and then, though, I wish I had an intense interest in medieval linguistics or...Rudyard Kipling...or...writing the next great american novel.  I just don't have that thread, as you say, to weave through my writing that makes it exciting and relevant enough to be said to have passion except on the most superficial level.

My cat just began to snore.  I think it's time to go to bed.

Love,

Kate

Prioritizing Passion

Dear Kate,

I love the memory given by your mother in her letter. Here was her daughter, wanting a walk, but content to fend herself. Consequently, mom reevaluates the importance of her choice in this situation, and decides instead to spend good quality time with her daughter. So often in our society we miss this quality time…Look at your closest relationships now. You, like me, are content in solitude, but appreciate good quality time spent with those dearest to our hearts (though the actual number within that intimate circle only requires the use of one hand to count).

Just now I sit writing you, alone in my home, content with the music in the background and the snoring of the herd. I had spent some needed time reading a great book, a gift from the capt. costing him only a quarter. Soon I will be leaving for a drive over to my brothers, and though capt has had a long rough day, he has chosen to ride with me the hour’s distance to Destin. I have to go regardless and would have gone alone, but he who had the choice decided going along for the ride mattered. And I love him a little more for that decision. Now this obligatory ride will become one of good quality time spent with a wonderful companion…a nice break from the monotony of obligations.

Alluding to your letter though, these sacrificial decisions must be balanced on either side of any relationship for bonds to hold. It sounds like your friend in Atlanta demands all from you with little to return. I do not wish to make assumptions, but I do often find myself constantly in the shoes which cause me to bend backwards to others. And slowly it results in great weariness. I find I often have to take a step back and let the plate fall. If it doesn’t break, I’ll eventually return it to its place. (Luckily the doc’s plate shattered, and I am a happier person for it!) So I pray for the sake of your relationship with Atlanta – I pray she assists in keeping the plate of your friendship spinning, so you alone are not drawn to weariness, risking the break of a special relationship.

Now to shift topics –

I finished a book New Songs in an Old Café by Robert James Waller. It is a collection of essays written mostly for the Des Moines Register. I bring this up because I felt his essays were filled with such passion! This passion emitting from his pages led me into deeper thoughts. One essay, which actually is a commencement speech, deals with the topic of Romance. And I get it. I felt it did a fairly good job describing my lifestyle: open to the joys of life, in whatever form they may mold – music, nature, solitude, poetry. Like I said – I get it. When not bogged down by family strains, I embrace those joys of life: the dawn of a new day, the colors of a sunset, the uncertain adventures taken in life, the tune of a strummed or hammered dulcimer, the acceptance of dogs unconditional love. It is all beautiful.

But I do tend to lack passion. This passion is not directly spoken to by Waller, but you can feel it in his works. I discussed this with a friend over lunch, and friends idea was practice…the more you write, the more passion becomes apparent. I agree with this, but I just feel there is something more. I once learned at a soccer camp that practice made permanent. If I continue to write with lifeless allure, then my future writings will continue to embrace nothing. I think, obviously, we need to write about topics of which we devote a great deal of care, and to immerse yourself into that about which you do care. Learn it, live it, feel it, understand it. This way you can accurately defend your position with not just scholarly knowledge, but experience. This passion draws you towards certain books, events, adventures, lectures. And when you write about said experiences, your words flow from your mind faster than your fingers can write. There is such energy emitting from your pencil, others feel rather than read your writings. Back to the Waller example, his essays may not have dealt directly with things which interest me, but I felt emotion boil up inside as I experienced his words.

So, my question…where is my passion? (rhetorically speaking) Where are the emotional ribbons I need to weave through my words? What do I care so much about that I am leaving feelings rather than ink? I like many things, sure: natural freedom, local produce, French lifestyles, panting dogs, irresistible food, sensational grace. Yet I feel I lack that extra oomph to passion. I’m not upset over this, just in awe. I pray perhaps this realization will spark a desire to deepen my knowledge in said areas, so I too can write with the emotional conviction seen in so many writers (Kingsolver, Lamott, Bryson, Quinn).

Paix, ma cousine,

Leigh

Spinning Plates

Dear Leigh,

I love your plate-spinning metaphor.  Reminds me of a Radiohead song...I'll come back to it.

For now, I have to focus on the strange tension between wanting to be left alone and not wanting to be alone at all.  I can't really expound on being happy flying solo, because (though I found plenty to do with my time that I don't do so much now) I wasn't happy on my own from the day I understood that each person is supposed to have somebody.  Even in first grade I pined over some boy or other.  It's acculturation.  Occasionally over the years I've hit points where I felt content on my own and proud of what I did with my time, but always I returned to a place where I felt bitter toward people yet ultimately wanted to be a part of the successful heterosexual partnered group.  I never could help myself, and I recognized that as a weakness of sorts.

Back to the spinning plates.  My parents were supposed to come visit this weekend, but, due to weather, have canceled the camping trip whose return route would lead them directly past Blacksburg.  It's rescheduled for two weeks from Sunday, when my friend Laura has planned for me to go visit her in Atlanta.  Part of me looks on this rescheduling as a blessing, because it's one more reason for me not to go see my friend.

I'll explain.  In August, she and I tried to plan a time that we could see each other.  Fall break seemed like a good time, so I said all right, if I have enough money.  The thing is, I don't have enough money.  And my tires are balding.  And a week ago my car wouldn't start, opening my eyes to the catastrophe that breaking down on the road would be.  And, because of Jeremiah, I'm suddenly more concerned about my own mortality.  And I don't like talking to Laura much anymore... Yet, in spite of several good reasons to not embark on a 6 1/2 hour drive to Atlanta, I can't bring myself to tell Laura I'm just not going.  The dynamic of our relationship has always been "do what Laura wants."  Which was fine, since I'm a generally passive and eager-to-please kind of person.

So I feel guilty that I don't want to go on this trip, because it will put me further into a debt I've finally started to repay, because my vehicle is aging quickly, because I honestly can't afford to spend the time away from my desk.  I feel guilty that part of me is glad my parents rescheduled for the 12th.  I feel guilty that I've changed so much that when Laura talks about how one of her goals is to be making six figures in X years I feel disdainful, which isn't fair...

All of this reminds me of a letter my mom wrote to me when I was six to be delivered when I turned 17 (we lost it; she found it again this year).  In it, she tells the story of a day when she was cleaning the house.  I'd asked a few times recently to take a walk on the trail in the neighborhood park, but she kept saying "later."  Then, she said, while watching me play quietly on my own as she cleaned, she realized she had her priorities all wrong.  She asked if I'd like to go for a walk, and, she says, my eyes lit up.  We walked, and she listened and enjoyed my six year-old's excitement as I chattered about everything I saw along the way.  Her advice, based on this and my continual deference to my brother's wishes, was to not be afraid to do what I want now and then.  It's good to want to make other people happy and to go along with their plans, but sometimes it's also good to have your own or to say no to an idea that you don't like that much.

It's the best letter I've gotten and reveals a tendency we have in our family to not want to inconvenience anybody, to the extent that we'll be visiting in the same town and not call to say hi, because we worry we'll just bother or interrupt (my brother, aunt Brenda, and Uncle Michael were all in Blacksburg a few weeks ago...I found out halfway through the weekend in which they visited...never got a call.  My response: to also not call and risk bothering them).

So, right now, Laura is the plate that is slipping.  I think, however, that it may be okay to let that one fall this time.  I want to see my parents; I haven't for more than an hour or so in months.  Seeing her that weekend would also mean not seeing them until...Thanksgiving?

I hope you're doing well.  Life seems to get stressful this time of year.

Love,

Kate

Side Show in the Circus

Dear Kate,

It is interesting, this thought of independence. I was mulling on it more this morning, and many of the thoughts I hatched were alluded to in your letter. I have been slow in my response, still allowing some time to heal old wounds. But I feel on the fast track back to my ol’ self, regaining some of my tough outer skin, disallowing silly remarks to stab deeper than the speaker intended. Though there are still times when I just want to curl up and cry. For example, just Tuesday some walker with her stupid perfect dog walking leash-less by her side made a comment about my herd walking. Molly went slightly ballistic in her own puppy way at the sight of this other dog, causing my other two to pull each way, trying to determine the cause of an ADD puppy’s excitement. I thought I handled my herd fine, for one who is out weighed and out muscled by the combined hounds. Individually, they are wonderful, fairly well behaved dogs…with Molly’s puppy-ness exception. But together, they feed off each other’s excitement and curiosity. It is tough, but we do well.

But then there are the days I want to shoot them to the moon.

Independence is a funny thing. I am reading the book Into the Wild about a boy going into the Alaskan wilderness to live alone for a while. The deepest form of independence, if you ask me. I sometimes think that is where I would like to be, living in pure solitude with no human contact. However, I believe it would have to be more or less a temporary fix, just a short time sans human contact to defrag from the demands of society… the same as those you highlighted in your letter. Yet I know I will never be truly free of the demands of my kids, my friends, my family, my dogs. So, I do try to find “me-mo’s”: me moments of quiet solitude to ease a troubled soul, tensions pulled tight by social demands, my thin bands of sanity unraveling. Sadly, it is not quite so poetic as a Walt Whitman journal entry, but my quite times are the best I can supply in my current situation.

Basically life is nothing but plate spinning. You sit on stage, spinning a plate on a post. Yet the crowds did not come to see you balance one plate, so you start the next saucer a spinning, then the next, then the next. How many plates can you get moving before the first one falters and you find yourself unable to rush back to keep it balanced. Our social demands are like this. Mom and dad want a visit, brother wants a party, friends want a sponge, kids want a lock-in, dogs want a walk, boyfriends want attention, ex wants a reunion, the self just wants a vacation.

We are never truly independent. There will always be a demand from someone lurking in the shadows. But I think this independence can be healthily embraced if we can find, or demand a compromise from other parties. One of my college youth made a great comment the other day: She is happy when she is single, and happier when dating someone who is compatible. Obvious remark. But the first line is where we falter. Being happy solo. I have been there. Unhealthy relationships have caused me to lose some of this independent confidence. I tend to a personality which would gladly give all and then some for those around me, and often it is to the determent of my own happiness. But I am again feeling stronger these days, and more ready to take on the world, demanding more compromise from friends, work, and dogs. You and I tend to be the same in this, we let others tramp over our strive towards independence. We have to learn to butt in on those conversations to give our own related grievances, to demand the family make the drive for a visit, or, as you have done (kudos to you)…detach from the phone for moments of uninterrupted silence. “Just say no” is not only a slogan for drug use. Independence is not just about being solo, it is about forming healthy relationships, where we can be happy in our solitude, and happier still in our balanced relationships.

Just so long as no one makes a snide comment on the erratic behavior of my puppy…Molly’s an idiot, I know this, but she’s a cute idiot!!

Vivre en Paix

Leigh

"independence" has a price

Dear Leigh,

There is definitely a danger in independence, in that if you choose to be independent in some areas then others will assume that you want to be independent in all areas, or that you are always capable of self-sustainment (monetarily, emotionally, whatever).  Your post came at a time when I'm struggling for a little independence, not because anybody is trying to hold my hand or because my parents are too involved but because I want to prove to myself that I can survive.  Luckily, so far I've gotten along all right with the knowledge that there's help if I need it.

That's where the difference is, isn't it?  I know that, if I need it, I can call mom and dad about rent or car repair or health insurance or any number of other concerns, and they're close enough that I can even run home for a weekend.  They remind me of this every few weeks.  I sometimes wonder, though, about my friends. [segue into slightly new topic]

I have good friends.  They're great people, and I like hanging out with them.  Recently, however, I've begun to tire of the demands of these friendships...one friend always wants to hang out but it's usually at a time inconvenient for me now that I go to bed by midnight and try not to drink (I'm poor, and alcohol's not all that great most of the time), one friend is upset that I'm not at my place much but instead at J's (last year when she started dating her boyfriend she disappeared from her apartment and moved into his), and another is upset that I don't have my phone by me at all times anymore (but how many times in the past years has she really listened to me?  It's always been about her problems).  

I know that my irritation is immature, and that's why most of the time I ignore it.  But every now and then I want it to be about me, and this is where I come back to your original topic.  My theory is that, because I'm a quiet and usually passive person, I've attracted friends who are not, and in so doing had to depend upon myself emotionally for most of the major events in my life.  When plans are made, I usually meet others on their side of the spectrum of compromise, and if I don't feel listened to I don't complain because I really don't care to butt in.  My journal listens to me.  Family listens to me.  So maybe, through all of this, I've given people the impression that I'm fine on my own, that I don't need listening ears, too.  Perhaps you've done something similar.

What's worse than immaturely feeling slighted or put upon by friends who really do mean well most of the time is that, now that I'm trying to do things my own way for once, I don't miss them much.  I don't miss going out on Friday nights with them, because what fun did we have, really?  I don't often miss listening to another problem and being unable to share my own.  Sometimes I'll have a day where I just want to hang out with girls, and then I do...but get pressured to go back to my old passive-listening/passive-partying self when I'm with them.  

I guess what I'm getting at, in a really long-winded way, is that being an independent person is being a contradiction, and that it is difficult to balance both sides of this contradiction.  As people, we occasionally need other people or want other people to care about our needs.  As independent people, we like to be able to function just fine on our own.  I feel as though I'm just beginning to enter the kind of independence you've had for a while, and that I'm leaving another kind of independence (or dependence on others' needing me, depending on how you look at it) behind.  Some embrace the change in me, like my parents, but others (justly) find it difficult to realize that, while I'm happy to listen when I can, I'm not their 24/7 listen-to-my-sob-story or do-what-I-want-to-do person (I don't classify you as one of these people---I'm sure you know that, but I wanted it to be said anyway).

Time to (independently) go to class.  Stay dry, and if you need a place to stay make it known that you need one.  I'm sure people want to help; they sometimes just don't realize you want them to.

Your cousin,

Kate

Be Afraid, be Very Afraid

Dear Kate,

It’s interesting how swiftly and busily a summer can go… for you and me. For me, summer’s are filled with work and trips and overnight events which leave me either away from a computer or simply not in a desire to keep up with the blogging network.

But my summers have been filled with youth trips and stress and dogs! So tonight I write you in a sense of a continuation to our last posting… the interesting issues of family dynamics and in the new ideas relating to the summer of the “traveling pant-suit.”

The doc and I are no longer together for reasons I’d rather not digest over this blog. So I am again free to my independence. However, my self-sufficiency is only a coveted situation on some aspects, like those revolving around not having to deal with other's drama. Or, when my house is a mess, it is the fault of my own hand and the twelve paws of the dogs which are my children. Yet, financially, I hurt, and emotionally, I am alone. Often, I fear the later one more than the former.

And that brings me to my complaints, though I wish not to make this sharing of ideas a column for the pity party of one, staring me. I hope that what I stress in this, our first letter after a summer hiatus, be a note of understanding behind my own traveling pant-suit of one.

One of my final trips was a personal trip to St. Louis. This trip was a supposed vacation involving only the four in my family, my brother and I, my mom and dad. All went well, though I was expected to, and gladly accepted to, act the responsible one during my brother’s shenanigans. We would go out each night, despite my weariness, and stay till the crack of dawn. My brother would party hardy with long lost friends, and I would sip beer, and enjoy the occasional conversation from mutual friendships…gained through my days as designated “get the boy home safe” driver. Our first night we arrived home at 4:30 in the a.m. with parents grumbling- to be expected. I would have rather walked in with enough time to rest and get a good sleep before awaking in the early hours to spend a supposedly event filled day with the folks. Plans had been made, and sadly adjusted to compensate for my brothers hangover. I think, and perhaps am wrong in believing so, that my parents would have been more disappointed had that been me needing the day’s recovery in the dark and cold basement. But the next night, the parental unit stayed out until the wee hours, needing the last full day of our trip for some recovery. Interesting how that works.

And don’t get me started on my feelings after I actually made it to “mass” with the parents: yes me, the “pagan” youth director… I wondered silently as my parents filed up for Eucharist, if they would have been more upset had I partaken, or if they were upset because I had made the decision not to follow their ritual… I really don't know why when I go to my parents, my "pant-suit" is stripped away and replaced with toddler pants. Like my responsible pushing thrity being is really an irresponsible pushing twenty aura.

Now the scary part, the part where I do often feel more like a Hilary, than a simple me. I’ll clarify quickly by saying, though I admire Hilary Clinton for her ideas, I shudder at her ability to stand up to opposing crowds and male-full jeers as she empowers the female race. I am not as stand up as she, though I do act in opposition to the female being viewed as the “weaker sex.”

Tonight I sat up at my bar with “Matt,” “Em,” and “Ray.” Em and Ray are married and in a sense help out Matt when needed. Matt is a great friend of mine, and has helped me in as many tough times as I hope to have helped him. There we sat, discussing this impending storm, and I hear a bartender friend offer his home, should Matt need a place to run. This bothered me to no question, and I haven’t a straight answer as to why? My home too is in a flood zone. Should a storm come this direction, I too have to leave. I am alone. I have three dogs and a cat. And though I know my “children” are part of the reason I have not had the sincere offers of evacuation sanctuary, I also somehow think I put off a beacon of such independence that friends either think I have someone to take care of me, or they think I am already taking care of myself.

I don’t know. The point of this letter revolves around a thought of the independent female. Do we put off such a light that others are afraid to offer comfort to us when we are in times of need, or do we put off a sense that we are already taken care of? In other thoughts, do we act as if we are repulsed by the idea of another’s offering of a helping hand?

I myself admit that I cannot live life alone. I also admit that I am so damn independent that I tend to fail at relationships. But in times of crisis, I still need a friend. I still need help, just as my MALE friend Matt at the bar.

Much love, but please, don’t mistake my words for bitterness…

Ta Cousine,
Leigh