Thoughts about it

Quote of the day:

Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze. Wallace Stevens

What better way to think about quitting than to blog about it? For, I can assure you, the torment is acute!

Yes, of course I am heavily influenced by what Danny says in his comment to my previous post: "Too busy with new job and upcoming BOOK PROPOSAL? " My forced sabbatical is rapidly coming to an end and new obligations and commitments loom up ahead even as they are full of promising and different adventures. However, I know that usually the more I have to do the more my energy grows - so that cannot be why I am thinking about calling it a day! That sounds more like a baloney reason.

No, no, for me, of course, there has to be something else, deeper, psychological. I once took a life-changing grief counseling course as part of my minor for the doctorate. At the beginning of classes our Professor asked us why we chose to take his course, and, he added, "Don't give me a baloney reason." He meant that we should think more deeply about why we might be attracted to a grief counseling course, other than generally wanting to be a counselor or even as a requirement. At the time I realized my reason had to do with abortions I had been encouraged to have as a young woman. And, indeed, I then proceeded to grieve my unborn children for a period of three or four years, with Frantz's expert guidance, as if, finally, having been given permission to do so for the first time. It did not stop me from being Pro-Choice nor did it explain to me why I had become an advocate of quality care and education for young children. Indeed, I have understood that my passion for early childhood education came from my need to understand more about my own inner child development. As Frantz once said, "We tend to teach that which we want or need to learn."

I have never really allowed me to enjoy myself - simply, fully, and completely. I see I thought about this way back in January when I first started blogging. As soon as something starts to feel like pleasure, my brain clouds over with guilt, nostalgia and pain. When I was young and sang in a couple of piano bars or around a youth camp fire I would enjoy it so much. And then, wham! The next day I woke up with my throat aching and presto, coincidentally, I would develop a throat infection.

Blogging gives me pleasure. Terribly, purely and utterly. It is like singing silently through the keys. Like discovering myself over and over again. Somehow as I write alone here in my study these past six months watching winter turn into spring and summer outside the wall of window overlooking beautiful Fairmount Park and the old, old trees of Chestnut Hill, I find myself. Jumbled feelings of years and therapies gone by that have confused and traumatized me seem to fall onto the screen of my computer and take some kind of clarified shape in my brain.

I simply become able to express myself.

Is it the fact that there is a supportive and interested audience out there, I wonder? As Winston said so correctly in his comment previously: "I believe we as a community, and some as individuals, are equally important to you." Is it the time in my life when all came together - as I bid farewell to a third and deeply meaningful period in my life in dear old Buffalo, New York at age 55? Was it the influence of a strong, loving, supportive and constant friendship with Charlie who died four years ago this very week?

Or was it the years of Bob, the therapist's relentless and focused reminder that I do not have to buy into an old myth about me: that I am a bad person who causes trouble, as if destroying people, or ruining their lives when expressing and being true to herself?

Or perhaps I just simply love writing.

I have been reading through my archives lately and thinking about which piece I like the most, and why, and where I was in my head when I wrote it: There's this, or this, and I especially like this one about grief - it's all about grief! And I did so love wondering how or if the blog nurtures me.

So back to the thinking board I go ...

... and while I think, and in between preparing for my new, fall position in my mind and on paper, or writing that proposal Danny was reminding me about (so sweetly) - I guess I will have to gather "new impetus," as Jean suggested in her comment.

For, what can I say? I love blogging. It gives me so much pleasure in writing, and the reading of others. And sometimes what I have to say is worthwhile and interesting and, so far, doesn't seem to ruin anyone's life.

Thank you, all, for bearing with me as I struggle with my "out of confidence" and navel-gazing once again.

Comments

[Ronni Bennett]

E.M. Forster said, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

For me, that is what my private writing has always been - a way to figure out what I think or believe.

Before blogging, I kept hand-written journals, then a computer journal and like my blog, they were not as much about daily life as about issues, using my own experiences, reading, conversations with others, etc. to help figure them out.

I'm not so introspective as you, Tamar (we each do these things in our own way), but perhaps we are alike in that seeing our thoughts on the page helps clarify what we believe. For me, the need for clarity in a fuzzy world drives my writing, which reflects my thoughts and - wow, sometimes in all the writing, I begin to make sense of this or that for myself.

What's different about blogging (from private journals) is that others respond - they agree, disagree, argue, expand, throw another point of view out there and there is great value in that, privately and for all of us.

And in all this figuring out life, let's not forget our egos - if you're going to publish it out there where anyone in the world can read it, pride requires a semblance of sense, organization, thoughtfulness and reasonably good writing. That certainly improves one's thinking.

We give and we gain here in the blogosphere and it is valuable, as you and your blog are.

Perhaps, when you're back at work, you won't be able to blog as frequently. That's okay. But yours is a voice I think many of us would prefer not to lose.

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

Ronni says it perfectly. I second her comment.

[Gemma Grace]

And that goes for me too!

[Winston]

"Sing again, with your dear voice revealing a tone of some world far from ours, where music and moonlight and feeling are one." -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

[Tamar]

Words fail me. Thank you all so much for your appreciation and support as I struggle with this. It feels good to keep on blogging when I know that my voice might be valuable for some. I shall find a way to make it all work...

[Fay]

From the spike in hits from Australia, you may have noticed that I'm back here again. I add my voice to those encouraging you to continue blogging and not only because of the "kesher mishpachti"! The others have expressed exactly why we think you should keep at it.

[Tamar]

Fay, How wonderful to hear from you. I'll check out my "stats" to find you again. Thanks for your encouragement. Lots of love. I hope you weren't too sad leaving Ha'Aretz. I was!

[Brenda]

I've been blogging for just over a year, and hit lots of crisis points, written everything I had saved up all those years, and then discovered a new world of writing... finally coming to the same point, there really is no one or ultimate reason to blog. I simply enjoy writing, sharing writing, reading other writers, commenting, being part of an on-line community of writers... And it may be no more than this: the process itself. And I've grown as a writer and artist, too, with the support and feedback, and am amazed at the journey I've started on, and don't know where it's going...

Tamar, sometimes we need small breaks, but not blogging would be like damming up a river that's widening and flowing, having already sprung, deep in the wilderness of our souls, pure and fresh...

*hugs xo

[Tamar]

Brenda, How beautifully put. I wonder what I would do without blogging. Tonight at dinner, talking with friends about blogging and the community of bloggers I found that I was not only proud of us all but also thankful to be a participant in this - our own dear blogosphere.

And so, I am thinking I will just have to find a way to keep on blogging... don't want to lose this community...not now - not yet!

[Natalie]

Adding my voice to the chorus, the choir. Each uniquely individual voice matters and is needed. I hope you don't decide to opt out, but if you need a breathing space, take it and don't worry. We'll wait.