I got my favorite “letter in the mail” so far last night. From a poet named Matthew Zapruder. He talks about fear when writing and how it’s supposed to be there because when you write there’s the chance you might change who you are and there’s a chance you might change who your reader is – and that should be scary. But there’s so much possibility in a blank page. Fear – as I tell myself, but haven’t felt lately – is a good thing.
I think where I am right now is pretty faithless. Meaning I don’t have a lot in myself. But this is my lesson and I know that – no one else can fill this. I used to rely on other to do so. I needed a lot of backpats and good jobs and people to make me feel valid. I guess when I was doing all of this in secret, it wasn’t so hard for me to just write – because I knew no one would ever see it.
Now there’s judgments and opinions I feel are floating in cyber silence. It seems people think that anything we write is solid and absolute. She said this so it must be how she feels all the time. But it’s not. That’s why I come here – to get these small moments in place. I’m a pretty normal person with a molten core. I hate making mistakes in front of people.
I was thinking yesterday (because all my friends are having babies) that I wouldn’t have any idea how to breast feed a child. And the nurses come in with you and watch you and show you the right way to do things. In my own weird daydream, I started to get seriously uncomfortable with the idea of someone else standing over me telling me what I’m doing wrong while my breast is exposed. I’d rather run away in secret, screw up 500 times on my own and learn how to do it my way.
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