Finesse or Façade?

When a friend told me that he thought my blog had "much more finesse" than his, I could have just taken it as a compliment.  His statement was, however, a much richer gift than a mere compliment.  That simple phrase, especially in the context of such a comparison of our blogs, could also serve as a challenge, or even an admonition. 

I hadn't read my friend's latest blog entries, and when I did, I was oh so thankful that his words had not been sanded down and white-washed with a mask of finesse.  He poured out his heart with deep, profound, raw honesty--with a bravery I only wish I had.  The fluctuations from sections of polished rhyme and meter to lines that read more impulsively--like the not yet edited results of brainstorming--became it's own form that illustrated uncensored feeling.

doubt, hurt, pain, regret, suffering...

were the tags to describe what he shared with anyone who would read his blog.  His words welcomed me into his pain and caused me to feel. 

Some people flee such emotion, but I've learned to treasure it.  It is connection.  It is what I believe being human is all about.  If we learn to disconnect with others over the hard things in life, then the connection will not be strong enough to deliver the full impact of joy or love.  We are a society so well-practiced at deadening our connections, at making them superficial, at managing them with finesse. 

Mirriam-Webster defines finesse as:

1. refinement or delicacy of workmanship, structure, or texture
2. skillful handling of a situation: adroit maneuvering
3. the withholding of one's highest card or trump in the hope that a lower card will take the trick because the only opposing higher card is in the hand of an opponent who has already played

Desiring to be an artist, definition #1 is definitely a compliment.  Compliments are nice and all, but they often sit at the superficial level of communication.  Even delicacy and refinement speak to me of restraint, withholding (which, of course, there is a place for, but all in balance. All in balance.)

Definition #2 compliments the business sensibilities of the artist, "Look at how clever you are!  You just might be able to pull this thing off."  It makes me think of a race car driver, maneuvering the road, yet not really touching it, locked in a shell of protective metal.

Definition #3, however, can definitely be taken more than one way.  In the game of life, we are told we must be smart, we must be clever, we should always be looking for the best deals, the greatest bargains.  Applied to business, and applied to games, definition #3 is a good thing.  It's the kind of behavior that gets us ahead, brings success.  In relationships, however--in connections with our fellow human beings, definition #3 smacks of deception and usury.  Definition #3 makes sense in the world's economy, but in God's economy where it is better to give than to receive, and the last shall be first, and we are blessed through the conduit of blessing others, finesse can be nothing but an excuse for being selfish.

It was in definition #3 that I met my challenge, my admonition. 

Having two blogs, one public and another private, is a good way to manage one's image.  Pour those things that are unsightly and humiliating into the private blog, and carefully edit what you publish on the public blog--it's as simple as that.  Finesse, baby.  Finesse.

And yet, for all the hiding we do, I believe there is a desire deep inside every person to be known and to be accepted.  Finesse has us often so focused on the "accepted" part that we may overlook the "known" component.  Our hearts know the difference, though, and finessing my way into being accepted for something that isn't truly me will never be fulfilling.

So, why do we hide, why do we shrink back from connections?  I think it's largely due to a fear of pain.  Not only do we avoid the "Debbie Downer", not wanting the bad mood of someone else to spoil our day, we also don't want to be that fount of negativity.  We live in a world where everyone knows The Secret is positive thinking.  We hear it referred to as law: 

• "The Law of Attraction"  
• "Name it and Claim It" 
• "Blab it and Grab It"

We're so afraid of a little pain that we build whole philosophies and religions around this gospel of prosperity and positive thinking, positive energies, and often ignore the richness of what is true and what is real.  I'm not saying that we should entertain negativity, but I am saying that I think it is actually a negative thing (can we even go so far as to say it carries "negative energy"?) to deny what is real and what is true in the moment that we live it.  It is negative because it doesn't foster connection.  If my reality is merely a construct of what I think, and yours of what you think, then where is the bridge between the two?


Maybe that negative impact of (false) positive thinking is why so many disciples of The Secret and other such philosophies still have to keep their weekly appointments with their psychiatrist and still feel so unfulfilled even when the Law of Attraction is blanketing them with shiny, pretty shrapnel. 

So, what does all of this have to do with the alleged finesse of my blog?

Even before my friend issued that compliment/accusation, I had already been thinking about how, in sorting out which things I blog about publicly and which I retain as private, I have been withholding some of my greatest life lessons--those grown in the soil of my deepest pain.  If keeping our pain to ourselves is a generous thing to do, why is there such relief in learning that we're not alone--that someone else understands our struggles?  Maybe it's because we were never intended to carry the pain alone.

"Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." 

Galatians 6:2

How can sharing pain be a beautiful thing?  I think back to loosing my sister.  There was a lady in my church who lost her brother very close to the same time.  All she had to do was come up to me and squeeze my hand and say, "I know," and a bridge was built.  Once that bridge was built, a simple meeting of the eyes would reinforce the bitter-sweet connection.  We weren't alone.  Life was real.  It wasn't simply some bundle of energies that I made up within my mind.  She gave me the grounding I needed, and I'd like to think it was reciprocal.  Even now as I think of this, my eyes well up with tears and a knot in my throat nearly chokes me.  I'm not going to run from it, though.  I'll embrace it.  I'd sooner feel the deepest pain than not feel at all.  Numbness is like being alive but not really alive.

I thank my friend for, perhaps unwittingly, opening my eyes to the façade of my finesse.  I'm going to try to incorporate more of my "private blog" material here.  No promises other than that.  I'll try.  I'll try because I do long to be known for who I really am, but I'll also try because that is the generous thing to do.  There may be those who will never know that they are not alone if I don't find the courage to accept what is true and what is real, whether it's pretty or not.

Playing Doctor

 
I don't go to the doctor.  

It's not that I'm in some weird religious cult with "science" in it's name.  I just haven't had much experience with doctors' advise turning out to be of any value to me.  I read occasional health-related articles and consult the pages of "Prescriptions for Nutritional Healing," and do okay.  Every time I've thought that maybe a visit to the doctor might be called for, I've ended up regretting it.  

When I accidentally sliced my thumb open and rushed to the ER, I waited and waited--along with all the other stupid dinner-time kitchen utensil accident victims--missing my blood-tinged meal, and finally getting a few stitches, only to have the stitches ultimately fall out before the wound was completely healed.  Now when I feel the scar on the tip of my thumb, I can't help but think that I could have saved a pretty penny by using a roll of duct tape to do it myself with better results.  And with the money saved, I could have bought a better can opener.

Looking back, I'd have to say that the best medical advice I have ever received has come from non-doctors (friends, family members, and complete strangers).  Because of this, when a medical question popped into my head today, my first thought was not to call the doctor, or even to consult a medical website... 

My first thought was to post my medical inquiry on facebook.  

What better use of a status update than to elicit medical diagnosis from 349 of my "closest friends"?  And since a lot of my friends are actors, I'm sure there would be plenty who would relish the opportunity to play the part of the doctor with great authority.

That led to another idea.  I thought it would be fun to ask my friends to participate in a social networking experiment.  If everyone who was willing to post a medical question as their status line would also take a screen-shot of the crazy replies they received and send the screen-shots to me, I could compile them in an album--a virtual coffee table book entitled "Playing Doctor: diagnoses in the age of facebook".

You think I'm kidding, don't you?

Nope.  Serious is my middle name.  If you're in, send me your screen-shots (preferably zoomed in so we can read the comments).

Writing from the Heart AND for the Market

So much of life is a balancing act.  Not only do people like symmetry visually, but they find it practical functionally as well.  Too much weight on one side of the wheelbarrow might even tip it over, and then you'll be side-tracked by shoveling up all the s*** ("stuff") you were hauling all over again.

Artists grapple with balance all the time, and I'm not just talking about within their composition, arrangement of design elements, structure of literary flow, and so on and so forth... I'm talking about within their lives and their work practices.

In the imagination of on-lookers, the life of an artist is a carefree existence--one not ruled so much by the laws of logic as by the fancy of the heart.  We're right-brained, after all (which is a nice excuse for laziness, sloppiness, and erratic behavior.) The idea of a "Starving Artist" has been romanticized.  Some even look at an artiste who focuses too much on the business side of his profession as a sell-out, less of a true artist.

We declare with deep ardor that art must first of all be true to the heart of the artist.  Who cares what the people want?--I've gotta be me!  That's why novelists are admired for dark, probing prose, and Hollywood is mocked for whitewashing the intensity of truth when the novel is adapted to the screen and the ending is tweaked to satisfy an audience hungry for happy endings tied up in neatly trimmed packages.

I've been on a high horse like that plenty of times--from the times that I've mocked the "contrived" blockbuster to the times I've defended the cryptic ending of my own "art" film.  

One really must understand teeter-totter physics in order to fully appreciate the danger of mounting the proverbial "high horse."  

Looking at the incline of the board in the above illustration, a child who has never played on a teeter-totter might think that the best place for the horse to stand in order to be king of the hill would be on the end of the board that is higher in the air (the end to the right in the picture.)  It doesn't take long on the playground, however, for a child to learn the lesson of balance.  The horse will find his highest possible position on the board by distributing his weight in a manner that is balanced in relation to the fulcrum (or by throwing a REALLY fat kid on the other end--but that's an entirely different issue).  

Be Well and Vomit, er, I mean Be Well and Blog

It's been a while. It would seem that NaNoWriMo was the death of my blogging (which was already withering away on life-support). I did make it through the month, emerging with a stack of paper (well, actually, I haven't hit "print" yet--the ink is too expensive) a virtual "stack of paper" I call the first draft of a novel. The Office of Letters and Light says that makes me a "Winner," but I feel less than winnerly as I rest under the weight of guilt for deserting the good intentions of my blog.

my chart just before crossing the finish line:I guess the assembling of 50,000+ words that are more or less unified in story-telling purpose is an accomplishment. My enthusiasm, however, is tempered by the call of the re-write. So, now the moodiness of my inner frustrated writer wields a double-edged sword: On the one hand, I feel bad when I don't blog, but on the other hand, I feel like I'm using time that would better be spent on the re-write of my novel when I indulge in blogging. (You may look at my archives and say, "wait, what blogging?" but let me assure you that I have been blogging--or at least my anonymous alter-ego has been blogging.)

Yesterday, my friend Greg re-kindled my blog-fires by posing the question, "To Blog, or Not to Blog?" and starting a dialog on the purpose and value of blogging--especially for those who also write with the goal of publishing books. Opinions vary on whether authors should also blog or not and why (http://writinghood.com/online-writing/should-fiction-writers-have-a-blog/). Some blog for exposure and promotion to an audience, some blog as an exercise in writing (practice), some blog to help others with information they deem valuable, and some blog for self-satisfaction.

I know a great playwright who never misses a day blogging (and the blogs he posts are not mere trivial fluff). I am so impressed with his work ethic--he feeds my wannabe-writerly self-loathing and makes me contemplate plunging off a bridge on a regular basis. (I know, I should just head over to the pub like a REAL writer, but that's another story.)

As I perused the reasons others have for blogging, another reason came to mind: (perhaps because I spend a large percentage of my time with a couple of pre-adolescent boys)

BLOGGING IS LIKE VOMITING--sometimes there is something inside of you that just has to get out (and it doesn't matter so much who sees it or what it looks like--it just needs to be expelled or you'll be forever sick.)

In that sense, blogging can be very therapeutic. I started my anonymous blog mainly for that purpose--to keep myself from going insane, even while I can't afford a therapist.

I hope my friend Greg will start a blog, because he always poses such great questions, has a fantastic sense of humor, and literally overflows with encouraging words. The world could only benefit from his contributions to the blogosphere. I also hope he will take the plunge because blogging--like vomiting--is good for one's health, and I wish him (and the rest of my beloved friends) the best of health in this new year.

Be well and blog!

Pictures from SNL Rookie Cop sketch,
circa 1994

GUNDER - a poem written by my dad

GUNDER

by Severt Score

March 20, 1984

On the Gaula River's south bank,

between Støren and Singas,

a cave so deep and dark and dank

makes you shudder as you pass.

With mouth between two wooded knolls

it winds beneath a rocky hill.

It once was home to many trolls.

Some say trolls live there still.

There three hundred years ago,

on a cold midwinter morn,

by a burning pine knot's flickering glow,

Gunder the troll was born.

Young Gunder was not pretty

and Gunder was not cute.

His face was rough and gritty

and he had a lengthy snoot.

But that young troll was healthy

and he soon became quite spry.

He learned moves that were stealthy.

He pulled pranks that were sly.

Each night he'd join his ugly friends

along the river's banks.

At farms and towns around the bends

they'd steal and play their pranks.

Just before the night was over,

before the sun lit up the sky,

they all scurried for cover

but no one told Gunder why.

The other trolls would sleep all day

in the cave so dark and deep,

but Gunder kept on with his play.

He had less need for sleep.

In the cave he only had the trolls

to pester with his pranks.

He kept it up without controls.

Of course he got no thanks.

At last they said, "We've had enough.

Gunder has to leave us

so that with all that pesky stuff

he can no longer grieve us."

One troll grabbed him by the leg

so quickly it made him shivver.

They stuffed and sealed him in a keg

which they tossed in the river.

The currents took poor Gunder

up into Trondheims Fjord.

There the sailors on a schooner

hauled the soggy keg on-board.

The captain said, "Get busy!

No time for this old junk!"

With the sailors in a tizzy,

Gunder sneaked into a trunk.

Of that trunk's destination

Gunder knew not one iota.

Via the New York Station

he was shipped to North Dakota.

He thought his new home would be fine.

He might well have been afraid.

There was a lot of sunshine.

There was very little shade.

He would have hid throughout the days

if he had only known

that when touched by sun's direct rays

many trolls will turn to stone.

Gunder, reclining happily in St. Cloud, MN

A handwritten note on the hardcopy of this poem my dad gave me reads:

". . . your great grandfather, Ole Score, came from a går called Skårvold in the Støren district, southeast of Trondheim. Your great grandmother, Sigrid Klefstad, came from Trondheim. It is part of the legend of the trolls that some of them would turn to stone if touched by the direct rays of the sun."

My dad is not only a poet, but also an artist, sculpting all sorts of creatures out of rocks, epoxy, and various other found objects. This poem is based on a true story. I know because I have had the pleasure to meet the real Gunder. When I met him in northern North Dakota, of course, he had already turned to stone, so he was unable to verbally verify the story. The mischievous twinkle in his petrified eyes, however, said it all. This poem is the explanation of how Gunder came to live with us in the Lutheran parsonage of Fairdale, ND.

Instead of coming out of the closet, I'd like to invite you into my closet... and while you're at it, take a gander at my underwear drawer!

Realizing that I haven't been a reliable blogger, I'd like to say that's going to change--that from here on out you can expect to see something new from me every day or every week or at least every month. Such a promise, however, would be like a dog vowing not to linger long enough to sniff the territory he just marked. Nature is nature and A.D.D. is... what were we talking about?

I'll never forget that moment in junior high English when I was first introduced to the concept of the "Stream of Consciousness" narrative mode. It was like a tiny glimpse of freedom in the stifling linear world of traditional education. I might have grasped how profound that moment was, had I known then what I've come to realize in recent years of "dealing with" and researching my own kids' learning challenges. As I came to grips with the fact that one of my children had all the symptoms of A.D.D. (which is harder to spot than it's more obvious cousin, A.D.H.D.), I also had to admit that I fit the description to a tee (and that coping wasn't getting any easier with age).

My brain doesn't process things quite as "efficiently" as the brains of others may--efficiently for the results that traditional academia is seeking, that is. I take detours to check out alternate possibilities (lots of detours), which means it may take me longer to get from point A to point B. When I get there, however, I usually have a web of connections that incorporates other tangent points; and, even though I may be slower, I think a web just might be stronger than a single thread. Some "Stream of Consciousness" literature seemed to reflect that web-spinning way of thinking that felt most natural to me.

As much as I can count my differing mode of operation as a gift that has allowed the birthing of some of my most creative ideas, I must admit that in other ways it is also a disability. What good is it to have heaps and heaps of ideas if one is too disorganized to ever see any of them through to fruition?

In preparing for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org/) which is only days away, I've been trying to find all the story ideas and files I've compiled over the years. I've dug in boxes and file cabinets and drawers and closets, and plugged in external hard drives and zip drives. I've read notes that were typed on an old word processor, scrawled on restaurant napkins, and incorporated into old journals. In spite of all this searching, the two ideas I thought were developed the furthest are still nowhere to be found. All is not lost, however... in this process of searching, I've stumbled upon gems that I had totally forgotten about:

-- treatments for feature films that have held up over the time--I'd still like to see the movies described therein

-- old poetry, both mine and my parents'

-- short stories and plays

-- articles and books clipped and saved for possible adaptation...

I'm not going to fool myself that this will be easy to sort through. It's quite the overwhelming task. Those who live close enough to have been in my house in recent months can attest to the fact that what was supposed to be "Spring cleaning" has drug on into Summer and now Autumn with little evidence of an end point. I hauled boxes out of closets in order to sort through everything before putting it back in the closets, and now my closets are the only areas of my house where I would feel comfortable entertaining guests. Oh, my sock and underwear drawers are super-tidy now, too, but I'm not sure what that has to do with entertaining guests. It does, however, bring up an interesting quirk of mine that I have admitted to few:

My sock and underwear drawers are a sort of barometer of my psychological well-being. If I'm depressed and have essentially "given up"--as I sometimes do--I will start shoving undergarments into the drawers unfolded. If, on the other hand, I'm hopeful and my self-esteem is intact, I treat myself to the neatest, most orderly (nearing O.C.D. levels, I will admit) storage of my unmentionables (which, I just mentioned... sorry 'bout that.)

I am taking hope, however, that since I was able to organize my eating and exercising to the point that I've lost 1/4 of my previous body weight and dropped a bunch of pant sizes since the beginning of the year, I CAN discipline other areas of my life as well. At some point in time, I may have to ask for a little help from my friends. The number one way you can help me is by holding me accountable. Feel free to bug me. To prod me. To remind me of what I said I was going to do. If you haven't heard from me for a while, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm off making good progress on a project... It might mean I'm tangled in one of my A.D.D. webs and need to be reminded where I was headed.

I’ll Never Forget: a somewhat fictional autobiography

It was suggested to me that I write a memoir. I wasn't sure where to start, so I looked for a sign. Here it is.

Born an infant in the prairie province of Saskatchewan, Canada, where the tumbleweed danced, the deer & the antelope cavorted, and the summer sun shown well into the night, I now enjoy quite walks on the treadmill, diet water, and the covert founding of polyandrous sects in rural Utah.

I’ll never forget the day my mother packed my bags and sent me off to join the circus. She said she was doing it for my own good, so that I would one day have an interesting story to tell. “How tragic,” she would often say, “to emerge from childhood with not a stitch of Lifetime movie-of-the-week material. To squander one’s youth on avoiding tightropes and explosives is tantamount to owning only matching pairs of socks. What a colossal waste!”

As a frail child getting caught up frequently by the winds that rushed across the prairie, I was sentenced by my doctors to the mandatory consumption of only whole milk even though everyone else in the family got to enjoy mom’s secret recipe low-budget “mixed milk” with it’s charming granules of powered milk snuck into the watered down bottled milk. Ah, the seeds of eating disorders.

I’ll never forget my trip to the emergency ward to get my tongue clipped.

This time I will freely point out that this is a true story--with the rest I will leave you to guess where fiction meets non.

It all started when I was in junior high and one of my friends had a younger brother who had a crush on me. I’ve heard it said that being crushed upon can be a flattering thing. There have been women throughout history who have captured the hearts of men and as a result had a ship, a street, or even a city named in their honor. Would that my friend’s brother had been a sea captain or an engineer of shiny slick machinery... but, alas, little brother was but a lad in 4-H. I never did know what the four H’s stood for, but I suspect that one of them may have been heifer, because that’s what I had the pleasure of having dubbed my namesake, and that darn cow didn’t even win a blue ribbon at the Vernon County Fair... but I digress.

What does that have to do with my trip to the ER to have my tongue clipped? Well, when you think about people going to the ER to get their tongues clipped (and you know you do), don’t you think of blue-ribbon-wanna-be cows sitting around with their fat tongues hanging out? Of course you do. I know cows don’t wear orthodontic braces, so I’m pretty sure my bovine namesake never had to choose between the expensive propositions of calling in an orthodontist during off-hours to snip the offending bracket v. cutting the tongue out of the braces. So, if Becky-the-Heifer never would have had a similar experience, why do the two events get all clumped up together in my mind?

Good question, but I’m bored with the topic so I will move on without answering it.