8.22.2007

It Started as a Letter

I worked through the first two weeks of my editing job, and now I'm on hiatus for three weeks until I dive back in till the end (supposedly three weeks.) It's bizarre to be back in the editing room realizing I have these skills that I seldom think about, realizing how disconnected I am in many ways from the work I did for years and years. And now, here I am, time off, able to write if I choose, and not so inspired in that arena. I think I'm just a wanderer and explorer in my soul, that all these other things I do are just things I do.


Things I do. The things I do. It’s odd to have this sensation of passing the time (and to encounter the ‘v’ key on my computer refusing to depress unless I assault it harshly with repeated stabs. Maybe completing my words is simply what the ‘v’ key does, not what resides in its soul.) Some people – fortunate souls, perhaps – connect with the life they lead. They wander into the day they call community. They exchange tidbits with friends about the progress and amusement of their kids’ lives. They strive to move upward in a career, in a passion, in a framework carefully crafted and nurtured.

I find them a mystery.

I live life as if I’ve been dropped here from a passing spacecraft, deposited to do a job of observation, taking notes, analyzing data, all the while wondering when my ship will return and take me back to a home I don’t remember but that somehow I believe must exist. It exists here for others, so mine must, too, but just not here.

So I pass my days doing things of sweet interest. I disappear joyously into assembling those horrendously addictive photo books one can create through iPhoto. I stare at my dog and try to crawl into his brain to imagine his experience of sunshine and a carelessly tossed towel that becomes his well-designed bed after tugs and molding. I shuttle my teen around wondering where he will be in thirty years and if any of my current thoughts will be his. I suspect not, though, because I believe he is of this earth, less peripheral than I, and he will find his way. His current angst only emerges in spurts due to a shot of hormones and too many late nights strung together. He is not waiting for his spaceship to return.

As I leap from blog to blog – most recently in the mode of drive-by, sorry – I marvel at the growing communities and the cheerleading comments. I wonder where the dissenters are, wonder if they fall into the category of the silent lurkers, or if they just don’t read there. It’s not possible for everyone who comments to have such common feelings. Have comments just become one giant cheering section? Is that the etiquette? It that what people want? Slap me, but I miss the discussion that goes beyond, “Good on you.”* (I’m sure I’ve just opened the door to scathing words in my own back yard. Let me step away to adorn armor. I’ll be right back.)

But I digress from the opening letter, from my drifting in and out of assorted identities, at wondering whether I’d rather be a storyteller or a photographer (which is really just a storyteller with pictures over words) or an on call computer tech nerd for those who respond to my help with, “How do you know all this?” or a dog rescuer or a person with just a backpack and no permanent address.

Then again, I am a parent, so I must assume some degree of concrete foundation, for my son does not desire the untethered life that I do. For him, I will remain solid and here, but I will still wonder, wonder why I don’t understand the world around me, wonder why I don’t feel so tickled by the things that others work towards, wonder why while I crave gadgets all the time in my admiration for technology I have no relationship with shopping and consumerism (that alone makes me an alien in this current societal structure.) And I will wonder when my spaceship will return.





*picked up on an overseas job amongst Aussies in Sydney many, many moons ago...

**allow me to tag that this was not crafted or thought out. (uh, did I have to tell you that?) This was my version of an online coughing up of morning thoughts and a partial explanation of my recent silence here that goes beyond, “I’m working.”



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9 comments:

Delton said...

How interesting. I have been feeling for a while about how I'm just going through the motions of fitting in, rather than really feeling right about what's going on in my life. I like your description of an alien waiting to go back home. It certainly feels like that.

Also, on the cheerleading, at least for me, I tend to only comment at places where I relate to the topic being said. If I come across a blog I don't agree with, I either stop reading permanently, or at least skip commenting on that particular post.

Girlplustwo said...

I so miss a healthy debate. I too wonder where dissenting voices are, but at times when i see it then it often turns into something else, something exhaustive and biting that undermines the original debate. as such, i think people tend to clam up until it blows over - and then it's a cycle we all see in real life, isn't it...conflict, silence, no resolution, repeat.

it's harder work, but it's the good stuff if we can do it constructively.

i've missed you.

ms chica said...

I understand going through the motions, but I haven't succeeded in fitting in, though I haven't actually tried.

Astute observation about cheering sections. Admittedly, I don't offer dissenting opinions unless an opinion is actually requested. Some are simply thinking out loud and not in search of unsolicited advice.

Anonymous said...

i love how you describe yourself as being dropped from a passing spacecraft. and i say that as i punch you in the arm, just so the love is mixed-up and not too adoring.

if i wrote about anything remotely heated, i would hope for dissent and a differing opinion, but that's not what my blog is about.

a lot of the blogs i lurk on are those that have a fierce cheering section, 'you're so beautiful', 'you are the BEST photographer', etc. and i believe those bloggers are looking for that. nothing wrong with needing your ego stroked, but i largely lurk there because i have nothing to add - sure your face might be really pretty, but you also might have done some good photo shopping or you might have 1000 other shots that aren't so good, welcome to the digital era.

i miss your words here and am grateful when your spacecraft touches down now and again.

come visit me. we have a lot to do in nyc i think. xo

QT said...

I feel the way you do, but for different reasons. I honestly think I could find a way to disappear into the wilderness and live the rest of my life surrounded by wild spaces and things. "You'll die out there" sounds okay, because it feels a lot more natural to me than dying in a bed with a bunch of tubes sticking out of me.

Cheering sections - I have actually discussed this with other bloggers off-line. On most of the blogs I read, I agree with the person. If I don't, I say so, not in a nasty way, but in a "this is just my two cents" way.

mer said...

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If you have time you should check out this blog-
thestonescolossaldream.blogspot.com

Between your blog and the Stones Colassal Dream, I hardly have time to actually work at my Coporate America Job (like I would really want to anyway)

Rachel said...

Oh I can identify with you right now.......love the analogy of an alien too. It seems as though you have written my innermost thoughts and worries. About the blog commenting too, great words and I suspect the silent lurkers are the ones that just don't comment unless there is an alter-blogsphere for grim people somewhere!

Anonymous said...

In the interests of not lurking I'd agree with the alien viewpoint, although technically until quite recently I was an alien.
Cheers

C. said...

Where are the dissenters? * grins wryly * Meet "The delete button". Most folk only WANT the cotton candy comments and delete the rest. Oh, and the art of conversation? No longer an art but an elective.