Thank you for joining me on my journey!

just another blog from a comfortable white woman who may or may not have shit of value to say

12 MAY 2022

Last week something of great significance happened in my personal life. It was incredibly painful; a relationship ended. I spent one of those days, I've only had a few in my life, where my face seemed to independently cry while I was going about (or trying) my daily life. There are memories in every nook and cranny of this house. Out of that pain and brokenness and sudden void of space, a small light emerged.... perhaps now I had the time and space to write the book that's been rattling around in my head for over a decade.

Writing a novel is very on brand for me right now, what with my midlife crisis neatly coinciding with a bizarro clown president and a global pandemic. I figure...why not? What else could go wrong?!

Is this a literary blog?

Dear God no. This blog exists because I left Facebook and now my lengthy missives and rants need somewhere to go. But in actuality, I'm not releasing this blog until I'm almost done with the book. So my future readers can follow along on the journey to make the book, plus whatever mess pops up in my life (or the nation) during the time I'm writing. I may occasionally bemoan some character's stagnant development or the inevitable writer's block, but this blog will be way more about the holistic person producing the book than just the book itself.

Why should you read? Especially if they're in the past?

Because I'm funny. Sometimes. But really, because I'm honest. And I'm raw. And I'm not photoshopping and airbrushing my life. I think people want to know the human being behind a work... I know I do. Watching Warhol and Basquiat documentaries gives me the illusion that I may understand their work a little better... and I want anyone who reads my work to understand where it comes from. Please note, I am in NO WAY comparing myself to the afore-mentioned visual art masters. Hardly. I'm just saying I think people like identifying with the people who produce the art they consume.

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What makes you different?

NOTHING. Literally nothing. I am a middle aged white woman who went through a shitty childhood, like a lot of us did, and if you saw me in the grocery store your eyes wouldn't bother to rest for a moment....it's kind of like a superpower. I feel invisible! Invisibility is a really underrated superpower, by the way. I feel like with the advent of self check-out, us invisible types could really make a difference in our family budget's bottom line if only such irritants as morality and virtue weren't involved. I'm not especially interesting, I'm not tall, I have no identifying features, I don't possess eye-catching beauty... OR deformity... so I'm literally just part of the background 90% of the time.

So why would that make you want to read what I write? Because invisible is not boring. Invisibility means I observe, a LOT, of human nature happening around me. My favorite place to sit in concerts is near the back because I can see the show and I can watch people as they enjoy the show. That's pretty magical to me. I went to a progressive jazz show recently, and I closely observed the entire room...I was all the way in the back. Most of the audience was couples. Clearly one member of the couple, in almost all of them, was more excited than their date to see this particular performer [it's very free form jazz, so it could possibly just sound like a cacophony at some points to a newcomer]. I'd read a little bio of this artist, however, and it was remarked that he had the keen ability to read a room and shift his performance to suit the audience. He's from NYC, Brooklyn, so I'm sure his audiences were typically more engaged than ours was. The people who bought tickets to see such a show in Norfolk, Virginia were mostly stiff white academic types- there were only a handful of POC in the room. So he adjusted the show after a wild, fourteen minute introductory jam session, and after the ensemble slid back towards more traditional jazz stylings, the reluctant date partners seemed to perk up, bob their heads, sit forward in their seats, and were more comfortable enjoying a more familiar sound.

My enjoyment of that night was less about the phenomenal auditory experience (which was truly delicious) and maybe slightly more about watching the crowd and watching how he led the ensemble but really was manipulating a room full of people and feeling their responses and guiding his music accordingly. It was, as it always is watching a master at work, impressive beyond measure.

So yesterday I cried. All day. Really without stopping much. Today I began this blog, downloaded Scrivener, cleaned out my fridge, and shaved my head [partly because I had a hot flash cleaning out the fridge, honestly]. I feel naked as a baby and ready to begin on yet another journey. Onward!

~m