Personal

I have been thinking a lot lately about the purpose of my blog, thanks to the prodding of Mr. B. I don't really know what I want it to do or be or say, but I do hope that it is Authentic. Honest. Me. It's never that simple, though, is it? My favorite illusion is that reality is easy to portray just because it is; that I should be able to express myself in writing as seamlessly as a painter captures a scene; that the artist is merely a translator of immutable truth rather than a creator of perception, possibility, plausibility. I want there to be a right answer. I want there to be a right me.

Things have turned wompscoop these past few years. Up is down is a hundred miles of wind in my face till my eyes are stuck shut and my mouth tastes like cotton balls. I have found my way into a place where I apologize for still holding on to my mom's death, and I question every thought that ends up at her as being too personal. I suspect my feelings of self-pity, of over-indulgence. I second-guess my tears. I stick with topics that don't make anybody cringe or ask. I do not like this place I have found.

I learned something today from the following number from So You Think You Can Dance: life is personal. It's nothing but personal. We all mirror and allude to the existence of each other. Even the pockmarked, grizzled face with raging blond beard that belongs to the goth get-up. Even the man with an open flannel shirt shrouding his bronzed potbelly. We see each other. We see ourselves.

So I'm not going to ignore the fact that this dance depicting a woman with breast cancer meant something big to me.



I hold on to this:

"People learn from the truth even though the truth is a mess."
--Peter Elbow