On NOT Writing [jana]

In a recent email from an old friend, she told me to feel free to send along any new creative writings I had on hand, as my writing was sometimes entertaining. The casually dropped comment rankled like a mosquito bite. After a few days of this, I decided to explore a bit further into why I was feeling like Thomas Kinkade would if one of his paintings (a real one, of course, not one of the assembly-line artistically-daubed-by-a-Kinkade-trained-artist prints) had been tagged with a crude symbol in spray paint.

For one, it made me think about just how much my writing has dropped off since I left California 2 years ago. Previous to this, I had blogged nearly daily; all through college and the two years following, chronicling lighthearted anecdotes, angsty emotional breakdown moments (mostly during finals weeks), Big News events, discussions on movies, music, books and religion, thoughts on the war, and various original (or not) moments of clarity. Though actual journal-writing was less consistent, I found that writing for an audience of friends and relatives was encouragement to write consistently (admittedly more a form of freewheeling, ego-stroking communication than honing serious writing skills, but it was writing nonetheless). It has something to do with the voracious people-pleaser in me.

Whatever the case, I wrote regularly through the procrastination years of schoolwork, when writing a blog post was a compromise somewhere in between actually writing my Lit 215 paper and giving up to veg out on videotaped ‘Friends’ episodes. And through the summers working at camp, intermittent summer posts were prayer requests for students and ways to connect to home. After the summer was over, a rush of posting filled the gap of missing camp and friends made there. And then through the years of teaching Jr. High, when it was one of the few important ways to get a tiny bit of peer interaction in the course of a day split into 7 periods, where gum on the desks and grade point percentages were the most adult conversations I had all day. Writing for my audience of friends became a habit, and a form of redeeming my experience. Writing was a spiritual release. Frustrations burned off like alcohol as awkward experiences were chemically altered into satire (the horrible singles conference I attended by accident), song (infrequent posts of lyrics which impacted me in some way), or reflection. Moments when the heart overflowed with grief or fear or joy found footholds in my consciousness as I typed them into the little box on the computer screen.

So I read my friend’s request with a bit of guilt on my own account, since I do feel a certain sense of guilt about not writing (As Madeleine L’Engle would say, “The gift is to be served.”), but I also read with a more than a bit of righteous anger. My words are not mere entertainment, to provide you with a moment of comic relief. My creative writing is important, valuable…is…well...it doesn't really exist right now, anyway. And why not?

I started thinking about the reasons why I have not written much in the two years since I left my house, job, car, and friends behind in a state of near-shock at the abrupt change in my situation. Upon arriving back in my parents’ house, I had a dilemma. My habit was to write for friends whom I trusted and loved, and who loved and trusted me in response. A safe audience. When I left, under a cloud of hurt, guilt, and grief, suddenly my audience was no longer safe. The people who would be reading from a distance now, I felt, could not be trusted with my confidences. Additionally, I began to discover, what was now in my heart to write was not acceptable for an audience. Deep feelings of regret, anger, blame, fear…people might think I was A Nut Job. And though I definitely have my neurotic periods, I don’t necessarily want to spend the page count on them that say, Anne LaMott does. Maybe I’m just not that honest. Whatever the rationale, writing slowly and finally dropped off until it came to a full stop except for random posts now and then. When I did journal, it was, oddly enough, in lyrics and undisciplined poetry, as if a rhythmic structure was the only one that could support the vast outpouring of bitterness, confusion, and sorrow. I would like to now insert a little paragraph about a timely realization that it is really Not Always About Me, but unfortunatly, I haven't healed that much yet.

Perhaps there is a point where art moves from the public to private sphere, like grief. True grief, to someone outside the experience, appears a little indecent. It reveals what most would consider weakness or shame. People avert their eyes at the funeral. Conversations get stilted or awkward. Or maybe if bitterness and anger are directed at God, and not another human being, it’s ok to spill your guts on the page like C.S. Lewis did in A Grief Observed, because God won’t write a sarcastic, or worse, sweetly insincere and guilt-trippy comment in response to it and he won’t hold it against you. Here is the problem, I think. I want to be bitter without consequence. I want flaunt my angst without its guilt-laden reaction. But how cliche--how old fashioned--how Garden of Eden-y.

So how does this unforgiveness—this is really the only word for it—relate to my writing (or lack thereof)? Written words are solid. The process of writing and editing forces me to articulate the problems, the questions, the resentments…and to face them. I cannot write without addressing the very deepest beliefs through my fingers to the page or the screen. When I can physically see one of my irrationalities in written form, it becomes clearly irrational. Writing reveals the questions, then provokes resolution. I am not cured by writing, but I begin to realize that I can be helped to healing...though it's a long, slow, painful and delicate process.