The Name of The Wind

I was deeply touched the other day by a piece of writing by Patrick Roffuss a section of the book "The Name of the Wind" where the main character was facing the destruction of his entire family by an unknown enemy.

Sometimes I can go a long time without feeling deeply, emotions are inconvenient, they make it harder to concentrate. But emotions can build up if we don't have an outlet for them and become destructive to our well being.

What can be done to prevent shutting down emotionally? I write things down. My mind is always churning with ideas. Sometimes there are things that I am frustrated about, sometimes I really want to express my thoughts to someone but I don't have someone readily available so it goes into writing until I can discuss it.

Stories have a power to reach a part of peoples psyche that is sometimes difficult to reach. We have become so guarded these days, closed off from each other, I think that part of the reason is that we don't spend enough time interacting with people in real life. It turns conversations with others into stiff encounters because we don't have the time to really talk.

The only relief that I have found form this lonely existence is through good literature, and then not every interesting story is one that gets past my guarded barriers.

I was listening to "The Name of The Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss and heard this passage. "I hope they spent those last few hours well. I hope they didn't waste them on mindless tasks: kindling the evening fire and cutting vegetables for dinner. I hope they sang together, as they so often did. I hope they retired to our wagon and spent time in each other's arms. I hope they lay near each other afterward and spoke softly of small things. I hope they were together, busy with loving each other, until the end came. It is a small hope, and pointless really. They are just as dead either way. Still, I hope."

Here is where my heart was touched and I found myself crying, open to the pathos of that scene.

The other thing that really helps me to break out of a long closed off emotional spell is music. Patrick and I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody when it came out, even though I had known a little bit about Freddy Mercury I didn't know a whole lot. I found myself crying near the end and left feeling like I knew the man a little. Today I've been listening to the Carpenters, I can't hear Karen sing without my heart opening and tears flowing. There are many songs, hymns, that make me cry. I turn to them when things seem bleak and I can't find anything else to take my mind off of my situation.

Sometimes talking through things helps. For me it's hard to know what to say. I hate to draw attention to myself.

For now I am happy enough, I've come to a place in my life where things are pretty good. It sure feels good though to feel something pure and sweet, a reminder of simpler times. That's why I love books and music.

SG 

Subtle courage and weakness

It is in the nature of all creatures to seek self-preservation, to fear the unknown. It is easy to retreat when facing an intimidating foe or challenge. It takes grit and courage to face the unknown.

Today I ran across an article about a boy who is being bullied. Stories like this usually recall to mind my own youth and how I handled being bullied.

I was different from other kids, I didn’t understand how they worked. Every day I searched for clues, so I observed others closely. I noticed the easy friendliness of some, and how other kids gravitated to certain charming personalities. But I couldn’t discover the trick of it. There was a swirling miasma of chaos that I was wading through that made it difficult for me to pay attention to the teacher and which made it seem like I was always surrounded by loud noise and hostile people. I sought my chair quickly whenever I would enter a classroom and would stick close to the wall when I was walking down the hall. My stomach always felt bloated, my head ached, I was usually tired, and I was lonely, I wished for a friend to sit with at lunch, to play with at recess, to stand with me against the foreign environment of school.

I had a cousin who was the same age as I, he was intelligent and proud of his intelligence. But he didn’t understand the subtle cues of timing in order to curry favor with the teacher and to avoid the jealousy and hatred of the other students. He knew the answer to the questions and would blurt them out with his hand raised in excitement and I could feel the seething annoyance of everyone else around me. I wanted to disassociate myself with him, trying to avoid being painted with the same brush. But I also wanted to help him and stand up for him.

School was a testing ground. The early years were OK enough, I wandered around in the back of the classroom and ignored everyone until the teacher called me to sit down. It was bearable until the second grade when the mean kids started to make things more difficult. They would trip me as I walked up the stairs, talk bad about me behind my back, and point at me and laugh. In the third-grade things got more intense, I would hide from them at recess, scuffling around the building lest they call out jeers at me. Sometimes I would be able to play on the swing set or hang from the monkey bars but sometimes I was so overwhelmed that I had to hide. 

I’m not sure what grade I was in when they decided to trap my cousin up on top of the double slide. He was screaming at them and crying, the playground monitor didn’t notice or didn’t care. I drew up my courage and went to confront them. I can still remember the acrid taste of acid in my mouth as I told them to let him down. One of them was meaner than the others and she decided to test out the fighting skills that her Dad had taught her. She pushed me with her chest, getting right up in my face saying “want to fight?” over and over. I was barely coherent, muttering to stop, stuttering “no, I don’t, just let him down.” Somehow it ended, I think one of her friends pulled her away.

I didn't feel proud of myself for standing up for my cousin, I felt scared of retaliation. Luckily the school decided that it would try an experiment, they had us divide into different classes to give us a taste of middle school. This got me away from the worst of my tormentors, most of the time. The only time I got stuck with them was in math class, I was stuck in a remedial math class (because math was a swirling miasma of confusion for me) and the mean girls pressured me to give them the answers to the homework assignments. I didn't like this, I wanted out. So I went home and instead of going out to play I sat at my desk working through every chapter in my math book and answered every homework question in the book through the weekend. Then I brought it all in to my teacher and turned it in asking that they put me in the other class. It worked, though the math didn't stick in my head very long so I continued to struggle with it through most of my schooling career. 

This felt like a win but in some ways it was a defeat. Instead of facing the true problem  head on, I took an unconventional way out. I suppose that is a valuable skill in some ways but a crutch in others. At least I've found it to be so when I've used this tactic in other areas of my life.

The last time I really faced these bullies was at the end of the school year in the 6th grade on the very last day. It was hot, our desks had all been cleaned out the day before and there really was no reason for us to be stuck at school except for some arbitrary requirement set by the school board. The kids in the class were bored and had turned to picking on my cousin again and I had had enough. Somehow I gathered up my courage and marched up to the front of the class and told them all off. Didn't they have anything better to do than pick on him? Didn't they know he had feelings too? What made them think they could do that to him? I think the teacher was astounded, the kids dumbfounded, my cousin shocked, but I was too embarrassed to stay in the classroom any longer. I think there was an hour left but I took off and walked home burning with embarrassment the whole way. At least I had the whole summer before I had to face any of them again. When I went back to school I really didn't see the kids from my class, in fact I've forgotten who witnessed that outburst, sometimes I wonder if I really did that or just imagined it. It seems real enough. 

Was this courage? Or was this weakness? I'm not sure. It felt like a bit of both. 

Later in life, in my marriage I found myself alternately facing things head on and retreating. I do the same at work (though to a far lesser degree). 

What does courage really look like in life? I think that facing things, not letting them slide is a big part of courage. Subtle things can make or break relationships so facing them is an important aspect of a courageous relationship. This isn't about nit-picking, it is about acknowledging boundaries and speaking up when a boundary has been broken. 

There is more for me to learn about courage, and facing my weaknesses. The child I was is still there, I need to stick up for her, I can find a way.

SG

I Miss my Bloggy Friends

2008 was a pivotal year for me. I had been a stay at home mom with my daughter Roxie for 2 years and I had loved being able to be with her. Yet pressures had been building up in my marriage for a long time and I felt trapped. I had no recourse for companionship (other than the limited friendships that I had at church) so I started a blog in September of that year trying to find other like minded people to discuss things with. Through that process I found many new friends and we formed a community by visiting each others blogs and commenting on their posts.

Blogging was an important step for me, I had been living in a narrow world and now I had an international audience to share my thoughts with. I had CathM an English major in England, Michelle an office worker in Australia, Renee a cancer patient in the US, John a wander, a poet a lovely lost soul who always managed to help me find my humanity. There was Rick, a trucker poet in the US and STAR a thoughtful poet in the UK. Christine a wonderful poet, and selfless friend. There was Ajey who later became an important part of my life and Graham and Mike, those two were hilarious posters on each others blogs and as random pop posters on mine and other peoples blogs.

It is astounding how much can change from year to year. I was living at the time in a duplex and life felt hopeless some times. We didn't have enough money to pay for things, let alone save any money up for a home of our own. There were things broken that I didn't have the power to fix (though I fixed many things and replaced the blinds) but for the most part I tried to take a philosophical approach to my situation, finding solace in the nearby river trail and park that we could walk to.

I would take pictures along the way and find a sense of fulfillment in making artwork out of daydreams. We had group picture challenges every Friday and I would post my finds.

I tried to learn how to make all of our food from scratch, I loved the challenge of making homemade tamales, spaghetti, lasagna, bread, cinnamon rolls... everything I could. Then I loved sharing the recipes with the blogging world.

What I'm saying is that I woke up this morning feeling a sense of loss for what I had in the blogging community. I've found myself in much busier circumstances and it's not often that I take the time to get out and create but I'm trying to change that.

To old friends, I miss you. To other bloggers, I look forward to discovering your blogs.

SG