Oh Groan!

I wasn’t going to write today.  I was going to take the day off, and for a split second, I didn’t feel guilty about that choice.  A split and fleeting second that was over and replaced before I was able to enjoy it.  Then the crazy crept in.  As I looked at my Twitter feed, all I could see was post after post from Suzi So-and-So and Wendy Whooseywhatsit letting the world know that they’d just completed their 6,483rd day of daily posts which made me realize that yesterday was my 31st day and if I neglected today then tomorrow would require me to restart my counter back at one and then what was the point of discovering I might be a writer if I was going to waste my newfound resolve to WRITE by starting the new year off with a failure and that’s no way to set the tone so here I am vomiting out my neuroses yet again…..*deep breath.

My trouble today is two-fold:

1.  I am hungover.  Like, I-might-die-if I-stand-up-too-quickly-because-the-blood-will-rush-to-my-head-and-I-will-pass-out-in-a-crumpled-heap-which-will-upset-the-precarious-balance-of-my-stomach-and-cause-me-to-choke-on-the-vomit-that-comes-up-as-a-result HUNGOVER.  (I am *this close* to deciding that binge drinking should be retired with no pomp to my rapidly growing Murtaugh List. One whiskey shot?  Delightful.  Five?  In conjunction with an equally ridiculous number of Drop Top Pale Ales? Totally stupid.)  Any type of thinking that goes on whilst feeling this horrid is bound to be flawed in any number of key ways.  I am finding that it is incredibly difficult to concentrate on much else besides the pounding in my head keeping rhythm with the waves of nausea in my stomach.  Although, if I were to regale you with even half of the things I ALLEGEDLY did and said upon returning home last evening, I’m certain you might pee yourself from laughing so hard.  Drunk Jen stories notwithstanding, many of the brain cells I use when writing are still sweating out the poison I soaked them in last night.

2.  I had not foreseen the trouble I’d have with writing unprompted.  That was one thing that my Inner Monologue, in her infinite wisdom, neglected to worry about when naming her objections to the challenge I’ve put to myself.  Last night was the first night in 31 that I went to sleep NOT thinking of how to best answer a question.  (Admittedly, the only thing I was capable of thinking last night  was the verbal equivalent of the fetal position, but you get my point.) Reverb10 was an excellent running start, but its end has posed a stumbling block.  Today was not the day to be faced with that obstacle.  I’m not really in fighting condition right now.

In the end though, it looks as if I did get a little something onto the page, and I’m glad about that.  Tomorrow I shall begin in earnest figure out this trouble.  I know I want to write, and I know now that I want to do that everyday.  What’s left to figure out is the what of it all.  What are my expectations of the things I put out there into the world?  What will it all be about?  What are my topics?  Today was for questions (and gallons of 7-Up), tomorrow will be for answers.

Core Story

The Prompt:

What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.) (Author: Molly O’Neill)

“Do I contradict myself?/Very well, then, I contradict myself./(I am large–I contain multitudes.)”  -Walt Whitman; Song of Myself

My core story cannot be quantified, cannot be defined.  It is unique to me and the same as yours (and yours, and yours…).  It is vague and specific; malleable with hard, definite edges.  Large and small, beatific and devilish, it evolves with the tick of the clock–appearing to be one thing or another depending on the angle of the sun.  I cannot contain it, but it is mine definitely, even as it stretches its roots into the fabric of all it touches.

As my words flow out, so does my story, reaching toward you, feeling for that handhold, fumbling for that lightswitch.  Tomorrow, I will be different, but today, right now, this second, I am the following:

I am a girl, and hopefully always so, woman never seems to fit.  I am masculine in force and tall in spirit.  I wrestle and engage adult issues, but am ill at ease in an adult world.  I am lonely, even amongst the hoards on my exodus and I assert my independence even as I cry over not being claimed.  I believe in lesson and that which consistently reinforces that I’m never faced with something I don’t have the tools to interact with.  I live for a deep breath; it’s the only thing that remains constant whether I have planned meticulously or just taken a blind, running leap.

I am a seeker, and, more now than ever, I seek to touch upon a truth–THE Truth.  That universal verisimilitude that is mine, yours, ours and theirs.  I seek to find a purpose and a road through this human condition; that one string that vibrates in tune to my own vacuum cleaner hum.  I look to wake up in the morning with my face toward the sun, inviting the day’s experience in, even if it looks to steal everything I own.

This year, I will live like I mean it; with importance, and the knowledge that the Secret Meaning is tangible and available to me.  I will write, taking that path as far as it leads, because I know that something lies there at the end.  I will share what I have, what I know, what I’ve learned, but so will I keep and hold close that which I’ve earned and come hard by.

I will remember this year’s lessons, and do right by those I love.  I will appreciate the small beauties and take in the minor scrapes.  I will remind myself to live by the simple tenet that I am small and the world is large; that in living freely and on a grand scale, I can make a mark and be marked on.

I feel big things for this coming year.  I can see the pendulum swinging straight into the light.  My story is not yet fully told, and it will be many things before it’s over, I’ll be damned if “boring” is one of them.

Let’s bring it home with a little more of Mr Whitman’s divine words, shall we?

“I too am not a bit tamed–I am too untranslatable;/I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

Defining Moment

The Prompt:

Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. (Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice)

OH!  I so wanted to rail at this prompt.  I wanted to throw a wordtrum and slam my laptop shut to prove my point.  I was, in fact, just about to, when a few things danced through my brain, wondering: “what about us?”

1.  It’s a challenge.  Of course it’s going to stretch my limits and patience, else, what is the point?  I’ve accepted, and to back out now, well, it’s just not in my nature.  (This does NOT stop me from TOTALLY agreeing with Stereo.   I had really been hoping for some firecrackers to close this challenge out with.)

2.  The folks at Reverb10 have worked hard to put this together.  As I understand, this is only the second year.  Can I not forgive growing pains?  Further, I remember actually reading something saying that part of the point WAS GOING TO BE to see if we recognized recurrent themes in our answers.  Perhaps it’s not the questions that are so much the same, but the way we filter them through our own life lenses.

3.  (As a direct result of taking a breath and holding in said tantrum): Wow, I actually DO have an answer to this that is different than anything I’ve said previously.

Haters gon’ hate.  Today, I’ll keep my Haterade to myself.   Besides, I told you, I have an answer!

…

I’m having a series of defining moments right now.  And it’s kind of exciting.

The Other: I’m beginning to think that I could, maybe, perhaps, possibly, be a writer.  *gasp*

My inner monologue: You were an English major, of course you can string a few words together to answer a question.  You’ve also read thousands of books, so of course, those strung together words will sound marginally coherent…you’ve had good teachers.  But you know and I know you’re faking it at best.  All you need to do is go and read the words of some of the people you’ve been introduced to through this challenge to know that you’re in no way good enough.

The Other: But I think I am…I mean, look at…

My Inner Monologue: Look at what?  Huh?  There’s no way.  What would you write about?  Where would you begin?  What do you have to say?  What’s your perspective?  Who’s to say that perspective is even interesting?  Who’ll want to read?  What does that even mean, WRITER??  You can’t lie to save your life.  So fiction is out.  Are you really talking about articles for papers and magazines?  Please.  There’s no way.  nu-uh.   (repeat.)

The Other: But there is something.  There IS something, SOMETHING telling me that I’ve got something to say.  It’s there.  At the bottom.  In the back.  Under all that other stuff….

______________________________________________________

Me: When it comes to writing, I’ve never really given a second thought.  In school, I’d accept an assignment, sit down, write it, hand it in.  My journalling was the same way.  At the end of a day, I’d take 15 or 20 minutes, vomit all over the page, and  go to sleep.

When I started Reverb10, I was hoping for a way to synthesize and absorb my year.  I was looking for something that would take the episode of Hoarders my brain had become, and help me tidy it up and stash it away so that I could move on.  Like my school assignments, I just sat down each day and wrote the prompts, absolutely blithe to have something intellectual and absorbing to occupy my time.  With the exception of one or two, it was easy, and I was mostly done and free to read everyone else after an hour or so.

Over the course of the month, I’ve received a fair number of messages and responses to my writing.  Some from old friends, some from new, many from the Reverb community; but all saying something kind about my voice.  I shrugged it all off.

Inner Monolgue: Nothing that comes that easy really matters.  If you haven’t tried, have you really done anything?  Of course people are commenting.  They’re your friends.  And those Reverbers?  They just want you to read their stuff too.

Me: But yesterday, yesterday something changed.  Clicked.  Snapped.  I sat down to answer the prompt with what I meant to be just a little love letter to my husband.  When I was finished, I re-read and then published.  I didn’t feel as if I’d been particularly brilliant.  As with almost every other time, I was content with what I’d come up with.  It said exactly what I was feeling, it painted exactly the images I was seeing and it left nothing out.  It was simply, what I wanted to say, period.

(that might strike you as terribly blase, but it’s the truth.  I always say what I mean to say, I just never feel as if any of it is terribly profound.)

Fast forward to tens of minutes after I’d posted, and the comments began pouring in.  Something I’d written struck a chord, twanged a string with the people who read it.  That had been happening throughout the month, but yesterday was different.

Yesterday, I started to believe what people were saying, and here is why:  because the majority of the people who commented are people who I’ve been reading throughout this challenge.  They are people with enormous amounts of talent, whom I respect, whom I feel, wouldn’t waste their time blowing smoke up my ass.  (You wouldn’t, would you?!  Because if you would, you’re sitting there right now laughing at my silly, silly idea….) After all, who am I?  What could that possibly gain?

What started as a modest, honest, little love letter, has become a seed.

If this stuff comes easily to me (mostly), and I harvest an unquantifiable amount of joy from it, and people are responsive TO it,

Could I be

Should I be

Might I be…

A writer?

This I shall be exploring in 2011.

New Name

The Prompt:

Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why? (Author: Becca Wilcot)

Good ahfternoon ladies and gentlemen.  Now entering the grand ballroom: Lola Agnese de Terza, crack columnist, heiress to the Louboutin fortune and muse to the white sand beaches absorbing the sun on the southern coast of Spain.

Lola is a lady of fashion, not fad.  Attired in mostly skirts and tank tops of black and grey and white, they are her accessories that stand out boldly, proclaiming her brash personality;  enormous cocktail rings and gigantic bucket bags, tinkling chandeliearrings and layers upon layers of necklaces, gauzy scarves and vintage bracelets.  When not barefoot on the beach, she’s in sky-high heels; always sporting enormous sunglasses and a tan.  Miraculously, her skin is impervious to the sun’s harmful effects and her hair is long, dark, straight and shiny, shot through with the beginnings of silver that reflect the twinkle in her dark, dark eyes.

Twice divorced and once widowed, she is now perpetually single and circumnavigating the globe, in love with each new dish/city/culture/affair.  Her articles for Italian Vogue and the New Yorker fetch a pretty penny which she donates to small community causes in each of the cities she frequents.  A proponent of eating and living locally, she speaks out against large corporations and encourages citizenry to produce what they need in a self-sustaining manner.

Quick to smile AND temper, her emotions show all over her face as she lives for the sake of living; out loud, with a joy and enthusiasm overflowing.  She cooks for friends, large, sumptuous and simple meals, ingredients fresh from the market or farm or sea.  At these parties, wine is sipped out of fishbowl glasses while everyone laughs and reclines in hammocks or on cushioned chaises covered in the fabrics she’s gathered in her travels.

At night, she sleeps soundly and with ease as the roar of the ocean blows gauzy curtains into her bedroom, casting filmy shadows on the walls by the light of the moon; low-toned chimes playing music for her dreams.

Future Self

The Prompt:

Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?) (Author: Jenny Blake)

Okay.  What?  Is my future self giving my current self advice?  Or is my future self giving my future self advice for the upcoming sixth year?  I’m confused.  How did I just get caught in an episode of Sliders? Further, this prompt also assumes that I would take advice from myself.  Which I might not.  Basically, I’m digging in my heels here.  I can’t fathom how to give myself advice from a standpoint of having experienced experiences that I haven’t experienced yet.  I’m just not that astute and fiction isn’t really my thing.  So instead, I’ll take the bonus question for $1000, Alex.

Dear 21 year old Jen:

Oh for crying out loud, are you drunk?  No, no, nothing.  I didn’t mean anything. Huh?  I’m laughing because you crack me up.  Yes you.  I haven’t changed at all.  Pour me one, wouldja?  What?!  Carlo Rossi?  Chablis?  You can’t be serious….shit, I forgot you drank that crap.  Yes, of course I’ll have a pint.  Hand it over.  Yeah, a straw too.  And pack that bowl.  We need to have a chat.

You, my girl, are currently in the midst of what you’ll later be inclined to label as the most carefree and happy time of your life.  With the benefit of hindsight at my disposal, I’m going to make a couple of suggestions that could serve you very well in the upcoming years and perhaps save us both quite a bit of angst.

(Pardon?  No.  Uh-uh.  NO!  Your mother did NOT send me.  I really am your 31 year old self.  Yes, yes, I know that it’s graying.  Yes.  I see that line every day.  Well then quit smoking.  No?  I didn’t think so.  I’m still struggling with that so, shut up.  Can I continue now?  Yeah?  Thanks.)

1.  You hate your hotel major.  I’ve got news for you, kid, you’re going to continue to hate it.  So drop it.  Bite the bullet, stay another year, take a minor in Women’s Studies and make your second major Journalism.  You need to start RIGHT NOW to listen to your gut on things like this.  It’s not going to get better, so get rid of the romantic ideas of what COULD BE, and move on to something you’ll actually love.

(Oh, enough.  Enough of the what-ifs.  No.  No, that isn’t going to happen.  You’ll spend three years working for way too little money while other people take credit for your work.  AND you’ll drink way too much because you loathe what you do so badly.  I don’t know.  Well, it certainly can’t be worse.  Okay, fine.  A bottle of vodka says that Journalism is a better decision.  No, I can do WAY better than Stoli.)

2.  Follow through with the opportunity to get certified as a group fitness instructor and personal trainer through the gym.  You’ll never regret it.  It’s something you’re going to forever wish you’d done.

(Because I said so.  Really?  Okay, What size are your jeans?  You wanna know what mine are?  Yeah.  Sorry, that waist isn’t going to stay that way forever.  Huh?  Yeah?  Oh.  Thanks.  Well, I work at it.  You should start now.)

3.  Put half of everything you make at the bar away.  Don’t touch it.  EVER.  I’m FUCKING SERIOUS.

(Because you already should have traveled more than you have.  Ha.  No smart-ass comment I see.  Good.  Start now.)

That’s it.  Yes, really.  What?  Yes I remember him.  Oh, don’t put too much stock in it.  He’s got a big dick, but he’s fucking crazy….AND he writes terrible poetry.  Plus, you’re going to have an amazing New Year’s Eve.  Just don’t get too drunk….Trust me, it’ll be worth it.  No.  No hints.  Okay, just one:  when you think you ought to take the chance and call someone, do it.  No.  You get nothing else.  You’ll overthink it.  No.  You’ll overthink it and then make an ass of yourself.  As it is, you handled it just fine.

Okay.  I’m going.  I love you.  You’re doing fine.

Me

Try

The Prompt:

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? (Author: Kaileen Elise)

I don’t have anything witty for you today, dear reader.  The answer to this question is a straightforward one.  It’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to prior to reading today’s prompt, and it’s something that I think is high time I addressed in my life.  It’s the only possible answer I could have given today and it’s on constant repeat in my inner monologue.

I want to find a job that is personally fulfilling AND financially rewarding.

Look, I’m a smart cookie.  I’m business savvy and decently educated.  I’ve got two aptly named B.S.s; one in English Literature and one in Hotel/Restaurant Management.  I wasn’t long out of college, working in a hotel as a Director of Revenue Management when I discovered that the time I spent on that degree was totally wasted…because I hated it.  And so I turned to my English degree.  But what the hell do you do with a degree in English?!  So when the Navy moved my husband and I out to the PNW, I said “NEVER AGAIN” to hotels and signed on with a temp agency.

That was fun for a while, and they placed me at the front desk of a parking company.  At the end of my contract with the temp agency, the company hired me on as an area manager in what I consider to be my first “big girl” job.  I spent four years with that company, discovering that I had an acuity for operations and problem solving.  I was outspoken and brash, and, to speak frankly, did the shit out of that job.  Unfortunately, running between 75 and 115 parking lots in Seattle WAS NOT rewarding in any capacity.  I loved the people I worked with, but hated the company.  And, even more importantly, hated the fact that parking, as an industry, is TOTALLY NOT IMPORTANT.  A lesson in capitalism? Absolutely.  A schooling on lead hunting, customer/landlord relations, expense management and firefighting/problem-solving? Definitely.  But food for the soul?  Intellectually stimulating?  Gee-I-Can’t-Wait-To-Go-To-Work-In-The-Morning fulfilling?  Not in the fucking least.

A two month hiatus over the summer and a number of consecutive months of return (doing nothing productive, mind you) have me HERE.  Or, as seems more fitting, NOWHERE.  I am unemployed, in the center of an area that humorously calls itself the Tri-Cities (we’re looking at a total population of about 250, 000–which is deceiving in itself because what you’re looking at is basically a sprawled out, suburban area with NO URBAN COUNTERPART) and have no earthly idea what the hell it is that I’m MEANT to do.  But, instead of seeing it as a cracked, half-empty glass of warm Coors Light, I’m taking a chance and seeing it through beer-goggles as a half poured pint of ice cold pale ale.

And so, in 2011, I’m going to radically change the way I usually do things.  I’m going to TRY some stuff out and walk away from it if it’s not what I was looking for.  I’m going to apply to anything and everything that strikes my fancy with an eye especially for those things that challenge me, make me a better person, and mean something to the world around me.  I’m going to try to use that English degree in some capacity.  I’m going to try to put myself on a path that, down the line, won’t mean I wasted years on a hateful slog.  I’m going to try and remember that the retirement fund that has driven me thus far won’t mean anything if I look back and realize that the money I worked for meant selling my soul.

What I’m going to do is try and be that smart-assed and successful bohemian girl I pictured as I was drinking celebratory beers with friends for college graduation.  I’m going to try and believe that it isn’t too late.

Writing

The Prompt:
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

With apologies to Mr Babauta, I admit that when I first read this prompt early in the morning, my heart sank a bit and I was disappointed.  I had been looking forward to another soul-search; a query that would be just as at home if rolling off the lips of my therapist.  It was only after I resigned myself to a short post in answer that I began to think seriously about the things that I do to keep from writing.  (You see what I just did?  I just cheated again…changed the question to suit my purposes.  Looks like this might become a pattern….)  It turns out, there are a number of issues I have that I’ve never really addressed.  So, you see, my original apology is quite a sincere one.

When I was 9 years old, I received from a neighbor, a blank lined diary for my birthday.  It was cream-colored and leather bound with a little lock and a key on the side.  The tiny lock and tiny key proved superfluous and were immediately thwarted by my tiny, prying mother the second she realized I was using it for its intended purpose.  For the next 10 years, I religiously kept a chronicle of my life, documenting every small detail; from my dreams of one day being as beautiful as those raven-haired, italian cousins at whose weddings I was just old enough to join the adult tables, to the overwhelming crushes, to the discovery of pot and sex and Ani DiFranco.  Like my to-this-day idol Anais Nin, I recorded my life as if it mattered, as if someday,  a daughter might look at me with contempt and disdain and I might produce these volumes and say: “You see?  I do get it….”

Shortly after college began, though, I lost this habit.  For no good reason, the chronicle ceased, with only random pages stuffed into notebooks after something especially notable occurred.  I shake my head at myself still, for discontinuing this practice during what I once would have stated as the time in my life wherein I changed and grew the most.  (I know better than that now….every stage is noteworthy and important—but it was my 20s….aren’t we all mesmerized by what we’re learning in our 20s?)  Regardless, THINGS got in the way.  Weekend trips to see a boyfriend that I would break up shortly after beginning my university career.  Trysts with the slew of boys that would follow.  Practices for a new-to-me sport called rugby.  30 page English papers for Dr. B__ who required the entirety of my attention and effort in all her assignments.  Binge-drinking and bartending, hangovers and laundry.  LIFE got in the way of my writing.   The living that should have been food for all of those hungry blank pages is what I allowed to keep me from writing.

These days, it’s life still, but even more than the decay of all those years is the obvious superiority of everyone else. It’s Pope who stays in my mind:  ”…shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.”  When I was young, I believed in my writing.  I was proud of my twists of phrase and sharp tongue.  I’ve since drank deeply from that Pierian spring though, and I’m sober.  I know people personally whose knowledge and talent towers over mine.  I’m embarrassed and tongue-tied when confronted with their prowess and ability.  Daily I cringe at my lack of knowledge.  I stand in their shadows, shrinking, hoping to remain quiet enough that my own obvious ineptitude stays hidden and doesn’t call attention to itself.  How can any effort I make even begin to compare to these giants that I admire?  What is it that I can contribute that could be more meaningful or pertinent or better said?

But, enough is enough.  I know that I can’t quiet that voice, that obstreperous voice, that keeps whispering to me of my idiocy.  I can’t silence it, but I can stop paying it so much heed.  The answer to the latter part of today’s prompt is no, I cannot eliminate that voice from my life.  I cannot eliminate it, but I can find a way to work around it long enough to say some things.  I can name that voice and call it out and take away some of its power over me.  I can write anyway. In spite of.  Regardless.  Notwithstanding.  And so I shall.

I scoffed at this prompt, Mr Babauta, but in the end, I appreciate it and marvel at its hidden power.

fin.