False Impressions
Friday, December 19th, 2008
Some false impressions could be drawn about my life if you were solely to read the posts on this site. When I kept creative journals and my thoughts weren’t published online, my personality and the life I led probably would have seemed better rounded – or, dare I say it, more human – if someone were to sit down and flip through them. Complete honesty is a bit easier to come by when your thoughts are pressed safely between the closed pages of a narrow-lined spiral notebook and not posted for all to see.
In more private writings, my thoughts were subject to venting or tangents. I’d sit in parking lots and describe people as honestly as possible – the way they appeared to me, careful not to censor any thoughts and keep my mind open and flowing. So, if non-polite but accurate words such as fat or sloppy or stupid were fitting to someone, I used them. Often I’d write about the way the brain swims the morning after a night spent inebriated. I could flashback on the collegiate or childhood experiences that shaped my life in ways not nearly as wholesome as you might read here.
Also, I could write about the more private moments of life (you’ll have to use your imagination there,) but again, the idea was to render it with description, not to lead a private life. Your mind has to be poured out on paper to make the words work and, often, what comes out, especially at the beginning, is embarrassing at worst or not usable at best.
At times, in these online writings, it could seem as though I was a near-perfect husband and father, living a near-perfect, simple life in a quaint but beautiful small town. While I’d like to pretend that were true, my life – like anyone’s – has its rifts – its ups and downs – and I’ve made mistakes. To counter-balance the image you might have developed, here are some negative aspects of me:
Nearly every morning I awake with a profanity. Usually the same one. Usually beginning with “F.” Once the word is spoken, I’m fine. I’m pleasant, as long as there is milk in the refrigerator and I can have my morning bowl of cereal. I look forward to cereal the way some people anticipate the first cup of coffee. Lately, I’ve also been concerned that the cereal is of the “adult” variety – no Sugar Smacks, Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch, or Coco Pebbles. What I eat has to meet imaginary dietary standards I’ve created on my own. So a bowl of Raisin Bran or Frost Mini-Wheats sets things right.
Though my writing is given to full description and detail, I can walk into a room that my wife has spent hours cleaning or rearranging and not notice a thing. This happens quite frequently. To my credit, I tend to notice things about her physical appearance right off the bat. When she has her hair highlighted or cut, I am quick to offer a response, though I am sure at times the reaction that I’d like to be endearing is delivered with all the subtlety as a contestant on a quiz show … “You … GOT your HAIR highlighted!”
As Mr. Vonnegut would say, “And so it goes.”
Yes it does. It goes on. Our house is filled with animals. This, admittedly, was not my doing. My wife has opened my eyes (and our children’s eyes) to caring about animals other than ourselves. In fact, our dog, Ben, who was adopted from a no kill animal shelter, was a perfect introduction for me to responsibility and love. And, while I pride myself on playing a role in rescuing Ben and our four other cats and dogs, I am no godsend. I have been known to threaten them with fates worse than death upon any grievances they commit particularly involving the carpet or the furniture.
I do not always enjoy writing. I have written on this site and elsewhere that I spend Saturday and Sunday afternoons writing. At those times, my children are fast asleep – or should be – and I have some quiet time to myself to search myself about how I feel about the world. Aside from the time I spend with my family, this is some of my favorite time of the week. But I often bypass it to sleep, especially in the winter, when the bed is warmed with an electric blanket and there is a chill in the house, and my hands are cold on the computer keyboard. Even when it’s not cold, I often have to swallow a pot or so of coffee to blast through the material I owe my editors.
If my deadlines are particularly harsh, the children have to be removed from the house so that I might have some privacy to finish off my stories. I can be difficult if the words do not come fast enough or well enough or if I don’t finish in the time allotted me by myself. Thankfully, only about half the time I sit down to write does this happen.
Worst of all, my ability to communicate verbally is such a failure, it would seem as though the hopeful eloquence of what I write seems to come from an entirely different person. I am not sure how to explain that one, except that maybe this is the reason I became a writer in the first place – to self-edit myself into clarity or what passes for sanity.
I could go on. I imagine some of these offenses are specific to the lives of all writers. Some are specific to me. I hope you can appreciate my honesty and that this piece tempers your understand of some others here. No one is perfect, no matter how much control they have over the way their lives shape up on paper.
