Digressions

The Art of Socializing

/ Lisa / 5 Comments

The night before the memorial for Sam Grafton, I sat at a table with four women sharing stories, tears, and laughter. Two, Kim and Cate, are incredibly strong women that I’ve admired for years. One, Gwen, I met for the first time and felt an immediate bond with, wondering how I’d gone almost thirty years without meeting her. In a community of 150 people it’s not like there’s a lot of places to hide.

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1993 on the old bridge into town

Later, I realized that quiet gathering was the first time I’d ever been invited to dinner by anyone in the town.

Don’t get me wrong; that’s not a statement of self-pity or judgement. I laughed. Because I realized how private our life is. Most likely the same holds true for the majority of people there. I mean, if we were social butterflies we wouldn’t live miles from a grocery store.

I am fully content in just the company of my husband (and son when he lived at home). We get on people overload quickly, and reach that level at the same time. While I can talk to anyone, about anything, anywhere, it’s only for a limited time. And then I’m overwhelmed and need the woods and the quiet, the husband and the dogs, the old house and books.

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View from town

Writing is a solitary endeavor which also impacts time for socializing. I’d rather be in my corner, deep in a story world, then out at some noisy location surrounded by strangers.

I grew up wanting to be a hermit, a writer, and an eccentric who lived in the middle of the woods with a bunch of dogs. So what did I become? A hermit with family. A person who socializes occasionally. A person who socializes online on a blog. And of course, a person with dogs.

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I do enjoy socializing. Just in small groups. And in limited doses. A friend staying for the weekend. A visit with another over tea. During those times we talk and talk and talk, until the husband escapes to his wood shop. With those friends, socializing is comfortable and I never reach people overload.

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The husband preparing for Mustache March – yes that’s a thing on the mountain.

The past few weeks, since Sam died, I’ve been around more people than in years. And there’s comfort in that shared grieving. There’s community. And there’s been those jewel-like moments like dinner with four women around a table.

I’ve learned that socializing for me, isn’t crowds or being out in public, or spending time with acquaintances. It’s sharing with the few who are important in my life, who add to my world, who teach, who care, who surround me with their strength, who make me laugh. And sometimes cry.

You know who you are, even if I see you only once a year. I may not call, I may not drop in for a visit. But my silence isn’t a lack of caring. It’s me excelling in my form of socializing.

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Woodland Dreams

/ Lisa / 4 Comments

Yesterday a friend pointed out some property for sale. I looked at the photos and was hit by an overwhelming desire to be rich. I wanted that place. It was meant for me. But of course, in reality, it’s a pipe dream. One hundred sixty-six acres. In the middle of the national forest. Reached only by a narrow forest service road.

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Not the same forest service road, but similar

It’s like a setting out of one of my books.

It took me back to my beginning.

Up until the time we moved to the woods, I wasn’t sure who I was. I was stuck in a job I hated. I wrote in secret, ashamed. I saw friends moving into adulthood, while I waited for something.

The first time we looked at the property I knew it was a place I was meant to be the rest of my life. I’ve come to realize over the years that it wasn’t so much that particular piece of land as it was place. Woods. Mountains.

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Sun dogs last week.

That first summer I was there by myself during the week. I’d sit out on the rough deck in the warmth, eating lunch, with the sounds of a creek and wind in trees. And nothing else. Even though I was only a mile and a half from a tiny town, I was alone.

Life became kerosene lanterns, hauling water, building a water wheel for electricity, cutting firewood for heat. I’ve told stories about that before here. But the thing is, I’d found who I was. What I loved. The land I needed to belong to in order to write.

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A favorite photo of the cabin

Now I live in a community of about twenty-five people. Small, but with houses around me. Still with woods and mountains, but with electricity from a switch, not a wheel.

So I could live on that acreage up there on the forest service road. I’ve lived like that before. I’d have bear encounters again. I’d hear cougars again. I could wander free, picking salmonberries and huckleberries. And my husband could cut firewood and build me a big pantry for all the canning. I’m already spoiled; I know that would continue.

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This new dream continues as my mind races. I think of the friend I love who just lost her son. She’s the kind of woman who would strap on a backpack and snowshoe in to that place in a heartbeat. We’d sit by the fire and tell stories. Or we’d go out into the deep dark night and watch shooting stars and let the silence fill our souls until healing began.

Seeing that place for sale brought back not just memories, but that strong need to be away from pavement.

I’ve had a lunch date with friends planned for a month now. We get together regularly, at a casino about an hour and a half away from me. We go for the buffet because we can sit and visit as long as we want. When we feel brave, we might end the day by putting money in a slot machine on our way out.

I told my husband this evening I was going to go and win a million dollars and buy that place and move us up there.

He doesn’t think a twenty-dollar bill in a penny machine will do the trick.

But hey. A girl can dream.

And in the meantime, I think I’ll go for a walk in the woods.

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Private Words, Publicly Spoken

/ Lisa / 7 Comments

When you sit in your quiet writing space and create a blog post, there’s a sense of solitude. Even though, somewhere in the recesses of your little writing brain, you know what you’re doing will be public.

It’s a common dichotomy for any person who chooses to step out publicly: balancing public and private. For writers in particular, if you can’t cut deeply into your emotions, you can’t create stories that will also touch another’s emotions. So you must be brutally honest and public, about things intimately private.

I’ve never given this much thought until recently when I posted about losing a loved one. The loss was so raw, so shocking (and still is). The only way I can process is through words and so I posted. Not thinking of readers at all. Simply deep in my grief. Not thinking about private tears exposed publicly.

Then the comments started coming in. People thanking me. Sharing the post. Some complimenting me. One of my dearest, oldest friends said ‘you were always meant to be a writer and this proves it’. I cried after that one.

And then started feeling anger. Thinking that I didn’t write that piece to be thanked. I didn’t write it thinking about author craft. I didn’t write it seeking compliments.

I didn’t write it thinking of myself as a writer creating something.

It became difficult to respond to comments. How do you say a cheery little ‘thanks!’ when the reason you wrote those words is so heart-breaking?

Another friend stepped in to tell me that people weren’t thanking me for what I created, but thanking me for saying what they couldn’t. Okay…but again, how do you respond? Especially when one of the people thanking you is his mother?

A huge sense of responsibility descended. How dare I consider myself the right person to say what other’s can’t? I’m not good enough.

All of this swirled around until it’s now a tornado of words and reactions and questions with no answers.

And in the eye of that storm is the deep silence of grief.

All I can do is write selfishly about my private thoughts. All I can do is forget about the public platform those private words sit on.

But there must be a better word, a better reaction than ‘thanks’. What I want to happen, to each and every person who compliments me or thanks me, is to hug them instead of speaking. To stand in silence and share, probably with tears, those emotions and memories my words might have inadvertently touched.

I want those private words to become community, not public. To create family and friendship and connection instead of congratulations.

So if you thank me, please know my stumbling response, or embarrassment, or discomfort, has nothing to do with you and everything to do with loss.

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