Why Write?

Why write. To be honest, that is not the question, but I like the question for a title better than, Why Publish? I write all the time and doodle. I have journaled for most of my life. I have written for publications and with the right audience, I have been well received. I add right audience because I used to write columns for the weekly county organ in the small southern town I lived in. I wasn't exactly those people's cup of tea.

I am a little sour on publishing, on being seen. I am so southern - so aware of what people think, and at the same time, a person who is incapable of conforming. You have met my type, the non-conformist. Yet I try to conform - until I don't.

Why write, why publish, why open myself up to others opinions, sometimes hurtful? Why?  I had a career as graphic designer/artist/typesetter. I have grown quite used to being invisible. Nobody ever says, who did that beautiful ad?  How did the phone book get so many glorious pictures, what a fine layout.  

I think of myself as invisible. After all, I am 66 years old. I have been invisible since my thirties, when my cuteness turned to stress and lines. It was strange to begin with, this invisibility, but it has grown on me. I depend on it. Unseen, unnoticed, doing my own thing. 

Did I mention, I finally left the south? Eight years ago, moving to to the Rogue Valley, I became even more invisible. The norms around me are quite different. It is OK to be different, to wear a weird outfit or two, to show up as oneself. I have watched myself expand and then contract in this atmosphere.  As life does, it has thrown some curve balls at me. And lets not forget the pandemic that drove us all inward for two or more years... I embraced this on my farm, living with my husband Carl and our dogs. Poking my head out again is a trial.

So why write? Why let anyone know what goes on in my strange little head that has quite a few narratives going on? Maybe if I write, if I share, someone, somewhere will feel strengthened, will shift how they think for just a moment, allowing change to happen.

We are all afraid of change. The world is in hyper drive and damn our fears, it is full stream ahead in a world imagined by all the Sci-Fi writers the world over.  Awhile back, I listened to friends discussing AI. Each person held a different perspective how this sudden influx of artificial intelligence will influence our reality. I realized, in different books, I had seen many of these perspectives unfold. I find this comforting, we have had many people imagining alternate futures for us for awhile. 

Why publish? Why add my voice out there when there are so many voices screaming to be seen. I've grown comfortable with invisibility. Maybe too comfortable.

We are living  through interesting times. I am a southern voice dissenting with politics that flourish there. I left there for a place that had decriminalized marijuana. I am comfortably stoned now, why add my voice to discophany? Isn't it dangerous to disclose oneself, to let anyone know what is going on in that brain sitting behind the blue eyes?

Yes it surely it is. But a life without risks is boring. I pledged to myself at about age twenty to live an interesting life, not necessarily a good one. I was five or six when I learned to ride a bike. I immediately wanted to form a scary fun club - but I had not takers. I seemed to be the only one who enjoyed scaring the crap out of myself with adrenaline rushes. I rode down steep hills, wrecking, I even had a concussion after a fast glide down and the gravely turn at the bottom spinning me out of control. I still enjoy the thrill of swimming in a river (especially rivers in Oregon where there are no water moccasins. I can tromp near and in creeks without the burdensome worry that a venomous snake might bite. Oh, one might not believe what a relief that might be.

Do you want to know these things, dear reader? Do you want to know what I believe and value? What you like to peek into the stories I tell about MOTU (Mother of the Universe) or Wolf and Raven, or Elorac and her grandmothers?   Chuen and Oc, lost in Meso-World? Are you interested in another opinion about the world? 

My friend Karen, encourages me to put my words out here. She asks me this question as I open this blog and think about that seductive publish button. She wrote to me, " dig deep into why you hold back when you KNOW your writing is healing, revealing, insightful.

Bear with me as I explore this. What is written above is not digging deep. It is the initial chatter before I dig deep in this. 

I hold back precisely because I know and have seen how powerful words can be. I run away from power now. Finally the little girl who sped down steep driveways on her bike, plunges into the Rogue River for a swim and who used to swim with the snakes in the Ocmulgee in Georgia has become cautious. Why?

Oh life has bitten me in these last years. Some of my descendants live hard lives and typically I want to take the blame. What have I done to cause mental illness, domestic violence, this plunge into societal darkness. I can't quit blaming society's dark turns on my own self. How is that for an inflated sense of responsibility. Sure I do know I could have made different choices and lives would be different. But would they be better? Autism, mental illness homelessness have fallen on those I love. I am helpless with their addictions, their responses, if they seek help. I have come face to face with my own powerlessness. As a middle class educated white woman, I mistakenly thought I was a savior and I could help people fix their lives. I discovered not only could I not fix others, but they could break me. And during the pandemic, I stayed home with my broke self and got used to this new shape and it's contours. 

Nothing stays the same. I am not the only one suffering. I have resources, friends and place and methods to find healing. Maybe I hit the publish button so we all understand we are in this together - suffering and celebrating. We are all attempting to find footing in a world that is changing faster than we can handle. We are all looking for someone who might can articulate how to stay afloat when the cosmos is swirling around us chaotically. 

I have my stories. I can share. I have to be careful not share other people's stories when their stories touch mine. I have to give them the invisibility we all crave when our lives aren't shiny and happy. 

Blog entries should not be long. Should not contain more words than a person can handle on the screen at once. We are a world of soundbites. who need our answers to be short, easy to read, exciting and fast. If you are to read me, there may be more words than you can process, (there are so many words in the world, everyone, we all think our opinion is important (the why I don't hit the publish button story). My story as a middle class white woman who has had so many entitlements are not the words we need to feature these days. Yet my story isn't typical (whose is?). I search for ways to become irrelevant and allow the next generation, the other colors in the world to flow into their sunshine. 

Maybe that is what is needed. For a white woman to admit she shouldn't be the star, and to make room for the rest of the crowd to be seen, to have their days of visibility. Maybe if I write, I can help myself and others find this path of non-dominance. Maybe we can search for ways to allow the world to change and shift as it must and for us to find meaning, not in being the brightest star in the room, but being within a constellation of diverse and colorful stars, blinking and shining in our imperfect way.