Confession Tuesday - the Yin & the Yang

"Purple Love" by Lawrence Yang - http://www.blowatlife.blogspot.com/

Dear Reader,

It's Tuesday again and time to confess all I've been up to.  Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with Brenda Miller's class at Western Washington University, where the students are making their own blogs.  They were a great group who asked smart questions and their blogs varied from life in the Roller Derby to making beer.  Pretty interesting stuff.

But now, it's my turn again to confess confess confess.  So off we go.  To the confessional--

I confess I do censor myself on my blog and on Confession Tuesday.

This was a question asked by one of the students and I thought it was an incredibly intriguing question.  My first gut response was to say, "No, I share what's on my mind," but I realized there are things I don't post--say confessing how there's a male poet who annoys me just for being him or personal things about my family as I try to keep their lives private.

While my main promise to myself when doing this blog was --be honest--I also have a stronger belief that comes first-- do no harm.

So instead of ranting about a specific poet who drives me nutty (and not in that good happy way), I leave out names.  I guess I feel life is hard enough for all of us and who I am to smack down someone who could be an incredibly kind and wonderful person, but through my dark-cloud sunglasses, I only saw ego, coldness and more ego.

~

I confess while I do censor things on my blog that may hurt other people, I think it's important to point out the bad stuff along with the good.

Like rejections.  Like feeling down about the writing life, or stuck, or just unconnected.

I think a blog that just shows a well-painted home and happy smiley people leads others to believe their lives are inadequate.

And it's not true.  We all struggle with something.

I think blogs like poetry, needs to be a mix of both, the sugar and spice.  The wow-I'm-so-excited-about-this and I-may-never-write-again-I-have-been-fooling-myself-for fifteen-years-that-I'm-a-writer.  Two completely true thoughts that can happen in one person's life.

John Berryman would wake up feeling like a genius and go to bed feeling like a failure, a hack.

While regular folks have these feelings, I think many times they are stronger in artists.  Sometimes I wonder if it's because we are responsible solely for us and what we achieve, accomplish, or spend our time doing.

There is no middle manager, no receptionist to blame that we didn't get that call.  Our lives are our own creation, they can please and disappoint us daily.

~

I confess I used my birthday money to buy a surfboard--a SUP board (stand-up paddle board).  It's currently in my living room taking up a huge amount of room.

Amen.


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