My journey to the (emoticon) dark side

Posted on March 29, 2012 | 37 Comments

Years ago, when I first ventured online, I shunned the use of emoticons. I didn’t mind when other people used them, but I knew they weren’t for me. I believed they were a shortcut for people who wanted to communicate without sweating the actual words.

But sweating the actual words is what I do all day. I love words. My reverence for the power (the music, the magic) of language knows no bounds. True or not, I feel defensive when people say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

And anyway, I reasoned (social network newbie that I was), how hard could it be for a writer to make herself understood? I’ll be fine. Just me and my very precise, very selective, very graceful (famous last) words.

http://goodwizz.blogspot.com/2011/09/history-of-emoticons-and-smileys.html

x

My journey to the dark side was slow and reluctant. It took a few years and more than a few misunderstandings – not just with messages I’d written but also with messages I received. I once got a stinging tweet from a friend to which I responded with an earnest, heartfelt, overly long email trying to understand where his anger came from. He wrote back, “Oops. Forgot the smiley. Read it again with a smiley at the end.”

I did. It changed everything.

Not long after that, I had a similar situation in reverse. This time I was the tweeter, and the feelings hurt were someone else’s. I too asked the offended party to read the tweet again with a smiley at the end. She did, and she said okay, but our online relationship has never felt the same.

That incident was the beginning of my slide. I realized it was more important for me to properly communicate tone than stay strident on the question of emoticon usage. In the end, people’s feelings are worth more than my delicate writer’s ego, and humor – especially subversive or satirical humor – is hard to nail in writing. I may wish it were otherwise, but I’ve had to face facts: I’m no David Sedaris. In twitter-length communication, without benefit of my actual, real-life smile (tone of voice, posture, unwavering willingness to resort to slapstick), I’m much more likely to be misunderstood.

I wouldn’t call myself an emoticon advocate, but these days, when in doubt, I :).

How about you?

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m taking a break next week to grab some necessary downtime. I’ll be writing, and reading, and writing, and hiking, and writing, and planting, and then writing some more. I’ll be posting something special over at A Human Thing this Monday, and I’ll meet you back here on April 12th.

In the meantime, I just want to say that you guys totally rock. Thank you for all you give me… it is more than you can possibly know.

xox

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Brushing up against the edges

Posted on March 22, 2012 | 39 Comments

As I write The Love Essays about my year of loving fearlessly, I find myself, time and time again, brushing up against the edges of what I’m willing to reveal. (And by brushing up against, I mean crashing into.)

I hadn’t originally worried about that. I thought I was writing a sort of guide, a “here are the lessons I learned” summary, in which I would expand on the ideas I’d expressed already in blog posts. But as soon as I started doing the actual writing, I knew it couldn’t be a guide for two reasons.

First, I’m no guru. Learning how to be fearless in love was and is an ongoing process. There are times when I truly do amaze myself with my willingness to be vulnerable and present and open and brave, but most of the time, I’m just stumbling along the path like everyone else , determined to stay the course, determined not to retreat. The truth is, I spend an awful lot of time trying to find my way back after I’ve wandered spectacularly off course.

Second, the real shit, the most important things I’ve learned, happened behind the scenes of the love project. The project first nudged, then flung, me into new territory, and that’s where the real learning happened; where the most necessary, elemental shifts in my heart and life took place. As soon as I started writing the essays, I knew that if I wanted to talk about fearless love honestly, I had to go there, ready or not.

*****

There is a big, ongoing discussion in the literary world about truth in nonfiction, and it fascinates me. I’m not really talking about the Mike Daisey “is it reporting or is it theater” question, though that is interesting to me too. I’m talking about the more personal concerns of memoir, the kind of stuff that Sari Botton gets at in her regular Rumpus column, “Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me.”

She talks to literary nonfiction writers about truth, boundaries, the dangers of writing about real people, the vulnerability and fear inherent to writing yourself faithfully onto the page. I love the honesty in these interviews, from both Sari (who often crouches her questions within the context of her own difficulties) and the authors she talks to.

In her interview with Stephen Elliot (Rumpus founder and author of The Adderall Diaries), Stephen talks about how very different two versions of the same story might sound. He says both versions can be true because “true” is such a liquid thing.

In our most personal stories, which so often intersect wildly with other people’s personal stories, I think that may be right. And unnerving.

In her Powells Books blog post, “The Thinnest Possible Screen,” Cheryl Strayed writes:

The beautiful thing about memoir is also the thing that makes it the most appalling: It’s actually you on the page. And not just you, but you on a literary teeter totter that asks you to carefully balance the weight of fearless self-revelation against the wisdom of graceful omission, of the factual and actual against the loosey goosey art of spinning a good yarn, of the difference between what those you write about would say about themselves against what you have to say about them, of what you can verify and what you are pretty sure you remember from a decade ago, of what really happened against the experience that’s inevitably altered and informed by your own very particular consciousness.

*****

These questions of honesty, truth, fearless revelation and art matter to me. They always have, but especially now, when what I feel is a need to honor the year that I’ve been through, while at the same time dig deeper into it through my writing. I want to be truthful about my own experience and respect the privacy of the people who were there with me. I’m not writing a memoir. I don’t know how many people will want to read the essays when I’m through, but it’s important to me that I get them right, that my decisions about what to put in and what to leave out are based on love and respect, not fear.

In many ways, this is new territory for me, this nakedness on the page. But maybe in the most essential ways, it’s what I’ve always done, what most artists do, I guess. Our journeys start with the doing (the living, the loving, the aching, the joy), and end when we attempt to make sense of it with our art.

Then, if we’re lucky, it starts all over again when what we create resonates with others and we are pulled back into the physical world, back to the doing (living, loving, aching, joyful) part again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In case you missed it, I interviewed the crazy-talented and very generous Cheryl Strayed for Used Furniture Reivew. We talked about these questions of truth, but also motherhood and love and wildness and Sugar and her favorite books and what she’s reading now. Go, read the interview, and then her memoir, WILD, which is brave and inspiring, and the first book in a long time that I couldn’t put down.

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Sister Helen Prejean’s a badass

Posted on March 15, 2012 | 25 Comments

Above my desk is this quote from Sister Helen Prejean: I watch what I do to see what I really believe.

It’s there to remind me that talk really is cheap, that getting where I want to be takes movement, being who I want to be takes action.

Yesterday, working on the (fearless) love essays, venturing into powerfully emotional, uncharted territory in myself, I kept forgetting about the details of the day. I was late to pick up The Boy (twice), late to make dinner, late to go to bed.  I forgot to return a phone call and a number of emails. I left most of my to-do list undone. I forgot today was a post day here on ZS.

On the other hand…

x
I believe I’m capable of creative badassery.

I believe love changes everything.

I believe the people who love you love your passion
even (especially) when it rules the day.

I believe words (like sticks and stones) can hurt me…
and heal and connect and transform me.

I believe we make time
for the things that truly matter to us,
which is why Sister Helen Prejean’s quote is so amazing,
so simple and scary and sharp
and true.

What do you believe; what will you DO today?

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Posted in creative badassery, writing, writers, and stuff we like

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Body math

Posted on March 8, 2012 | 72 Comments

I felt awful. Inadequate. Less than human. So I ate. A lot. Then I’d feel worse. So I’d eat more. Then I starved myself. Attempted to throw up when I did eat. I punched and punished my body. I HATED it.

The quote above is from Allyssa Marie Milan’s piece, “One body’s journey: Removing the poison, growing through pain,” which I read Monday on Roots of She and have been thinking about ever since. In her post (which you should read), Allyssa tells about the cruelty she’s endured because of her size – insults yelled from cars; trash hurled at her on the bus, at the lunch table, in the classroom; sneers and snickers from the clerks in clothing stores.

She tells about an incident when she was fifteen, four older teenagers in a jeep, slowing down to tell her she’s way too fat to be wearing a skirt. I read that and for a minute I was so angry I had to stop. In the pause, I imagined Allyssa – or maybe it was half memory, myself at fifteen – humming inside, alive and reckless and wide open… and oh so easily crushed.

~~~~~

I keep thinking about how narrow our definition of physical beauty is, how in our obsession with a crazy sort of body math, we consider the ratio of hips to waist to chest, the proportionate length of arms and legs, cup size independent of everything else. We miss the more complicated geometry of necks and shoulders and elbows and chins, the astonishing mechanics of wrists and ankles, the disarming logic of certain smiles.

I don’t know how easily we can change what we’re attracted to, but I know our brains are malleable. I know an old brain can learn new tricks, and so we can begin by teaching our brains to tap into our hearts when we gaze out at the world.

~~~~~~

I wasn’t fifteen. I was nineteen. That’s when I began starving myself.

In the morning, I would buy myself a bran muffin, bring it to my desk, and cut it into eight pie-shaped pieces. It was the only thing I allowed myself to eat all day, so I spread it out, a piece every few hours. The goal was to have pieces left over. The more pieces I threw away at the end of the day, the bigger my internal gold star. Sometimes, I threw all eight pieces away,  and on those days, despite the raging fatigue and headaches and chronic stomach pain, I felt happy.

Sometimes, self-preservation would kick in and I’d cook myself a meal. Rice or soup, lettuce inside a tortilla. Occasionally, I’d keep the meal down, but not usually. Usually, overcome with guilt, I’d force myself to vomit it back up, most of it undigested. I cried through the whole process – making the meal, eating it, vomiting it out. I cried as I hurried back onto the scale to see what damage I’d done.

This went on for almost two years, until finally I got sick and went to a doctor and he told me I had an ulcer. He explained to me that our stomachs produce acids, especially when we’re under stress. If we eat, the food in our stomachs gives the acid something to break down. If we don’t, the acid goes to work on our stomach walls. (Or at least that’s how I remember him explaining it to me.)

“Do you eat?” he asked me, suspiciously.

“Of course, I eat,” I said, and then I went home and cried because I knew I was out of control. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thought of food as anything other than the enemy. I already knew I was fat. Now I was sick, and part of the cure was to eat.

I was five foot six and 100 pounds.

As it turned out, that was the first step of my recovery, though it would take many years and many setbacks and many interventions for me to get to a healthy place. Even now I struggle with dangerous impulses. When I feel overwhelmed or scared, my first instinct is to stop eating. My second, and the one that always wins now, is to work through it on the mat or on the trail or with my friends or with my family. I ground myself in the physicality of my world.

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I regret the years I spent trapped in that place, hating my body, my appetites, my life, trying to – quite literally – be smaller, be less than. Reading Allyssa’s story, I felt such love and admiration for her. Such recognition and gratitude. I know it was a scary post to write, just as I know there will be people who read her and feel less alone. Less afraid.

I think there is power in sharing our stories, in letting each other in, in being vulnerable and broken open the way that I was when I read Allyssa’s words. I think this is how our notions about beauty and love and strength and vulnerability get changed. By sharing. By giving each other permission to be confused and imperfect. By telling each other again and again that it’s our imperfections that make us interesting… and, yes, beautiful.

What do you think?

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So create

Posted on March 1, 2012 | 35 Comments

“When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow & exclude people. So create.” 
~ Why The Lucky Stiff

A friend shared this quote with me. It was tweeted by a guy who called himself “Why The Lucky Stiff.” I know. It’s quite an alias, and the guy was, apparently, quite a computer programmer (prolific writer, cartoonist, musician, artist). He’s very enigmatic and mysterious, and I spent way too much time learning about him and his virtual disappearance in August, 2009.

But this post isn’t about him. It’s about that quote, which has been rolling around in my head ever since I first read it. It feels very powerful to me, even though I’m not sure what Why meant when he wrote it.

Here’s my stab at it though…

Creatives need to create – to feel whole, to feel purposeful, to feel alive. Every writer I’ve ever known feels terrible when they aren’t writing. And maybe “terrible” isn’t even a strong enough word because I’m not sure it gets at the guilt, self-loathing and existential angst that writers who aren’t writing face every day. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this is true of all artists. Painters need to paint, musicians need to play, dancers need to dance.

When we don’t, we must define ourselves by lesser things – our “tastes,” which are, by definition, narrow and exclusionary. For example, if I say that I loved, loved, loved the Twilight movies, I will find my tribe, no doubt, but I will also lose a bunch of people, because that’s how tastes work. We naturally align ourselves with like-minded beings and to some degree judge the ones that don’t share our preferences.

I sincerely believe the reaction would be different if I were to say that I made the Twilight movies. Even if you didn’t like them, you might be interested in how I got into making movies, what drew me to the Twilight project, what’s next on my obviously enormously exciting horizon.

If someone tells me that they read mystery novels, our discussion will be short. I don’t read mystery novels, and I can’t think of very much to say on the subject. On the other hand, if they say they write mystery novels, I’m suddenly full of interest. I want to know if they’ve been published, how many books they’ve written, how does one write a mystery – beginning to end, or the other way around. I’m interested in the process, the experience of being a mystery writer.

There is a certain excitement around the act of creation, almost no matter what is being created. “I made a film.” “I painted a portrait.” “I started a company.” I danced, acted, sewed, knitted, wrote, built, launched… I created. There is passion there, and it’s the passion as much as the achievement itself that is fascinating, big, inclusive.

Of course I’m not saying the reason to create is so that we can be more interesting at parties; that’s just a bonus. I’m saying (or I think Why was saying) that in the act of creation we expand ourselves. We give expression to our ideas and passions, and in bringing them into the world, we are able to connect with each other; in the words of Michael Chabon, “Every work of art is one half of a secret handshake, a challenge that seeks the password, a heliograph flashed from a tower window, an act of hopeless optimism in the service of bottomless longing.”

Yeah. It’s like that… so create.

I’d love to hear your take on the quote, if you like it or don’t, what you think it means.

(Important Note: I’ve never seen or read Twilight. I have no opinion.
Please don’t yell at me.)

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Posted in creative badassery, michael chabon Love, writing, writers, and stuff we like

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Poetry, pirates and zombie coffee bunnies

Posted on February 23, 2012 | 20 Comments

A few days ago, a friend wrote to ask me how I was doing and what I was working on. I responded with a big, crazy list that made me feel two things: a) what a fun time this is, and b) holy shit, I better get crackin’.

So… I’m crackin’.

But here’s some cool stuff for you while I’m keeping my nose to the grindstone…

~~~~~

I added a doodles page to Zebra Sounds! I’m so excited about this. Go, gaze, comment, let your imagination spin out, and if you’re really inspired (or just love me), doodle me a picture!

On a related note, my astonishingly talented friend Pam Carlson is drawing a doodle a day. How great is that? You can see her doodles by following her on Twitter, @pcarlson001. Or you can keep an eye on her here because I keep stealing all my favorites. Like this one…

… and this one (which is a doodle of Pam protecting her “me-time” like a pirate, sword in mouth)…

(Note: There is a doodle love gallery at A Human Thing too, so if you feel like doodling some love, I can give it a good home.)

~~~~~

This picture, from the amazing Marcie Scudder, delights me.

The next act, a poem by Samantha Reynolds (aka, Bentlily), makes my insides hum.

And this one, untitled, from (birthday girl) Julia Fehrenbacher, is GORGEOUS.

~~~~~

I could go on and on, but I won’t. I’m supposed to be buckling down. I leave you with this, which I doodled just for you last night.

xo

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Posted in creative badassery, j's lists, the view from here (Pictures!)

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My Valentine’s Date with Sugar

Posted on February 16, 2012 | 17 Comments

On Valentine’s Day, I went to The Rumpus’s coming out party for (Dear) Sugar. A couple of hours before the party, because I was brave enough to ask and she was generous enough to say yes, I got to sit down with her one-on-one and ask questions about being Sugar and coming out and what it all means to Cheryl Strayed (who, now we all know, is Sugar).

Anyone who’s been reading my blog for a while knows how I feel about her, how wise and kind and utterly badass I think she is. I’m honored she shared part of her big day with me. I wrote about it all on Used Furniture Review. My essay is “Sugar Love: Dispatches From A Coming Out Party.” Go, read it; I tried hard to write like a motherfucker.

I’ll be back here over the weekend with a little surprise for you.

xo

p.s. Cheryl’s memoir, WILD, is coming out March 20, 2012. It’s one of the most anticipated releases of the year. I’ve read it and it rearranged my heart. I’ll be interviewing her for that too. There will be a Sugar book coming out July 10, 2012. I’m VERY excited.

 

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