After lunch yesterday with Jon and Maria, Jon told me that he still didn’t know what I do every day, reading my blog. He also said that he didn’t feel like he knew much about me. He likes the blogs, likes the writing, but wants to feel more of me there. “Caught,” I thought.
The conversation came around to hiding, to fear. I talked about not wanting people to know too much of my life. “Why?’ he said. I thought that I might burst into tears. The feeling was like the moment before an avalanche. A huge cliff of hanging snow about to plunge down the mountain, obliterating everything before it. “I am afraid,” I answered.
“Why?” he asked again. I talked about the kind of fear and vigilance that I carry. Twenty-six years married to the same woman. The love of my life. And in the world, I walk around with this mantle of fear and caution. Not all the time, but often. It seeps into my writing. It colors how much I will say, how much of myself I will show.
I didn’t talk about age, or even about how I hide my age. I will talk about it later. I am not sure how much of the fear and hiding I can unravel in one post.
I think that is why I loved being with Rocky. Why I love my horses, Capprichio, Amadeo and Sanne, and why I spend time every week with Nelson. They do not care about any of that. They care that I am there, that I am present with them. And when I am with them, I don’t care about any of those things either. It all falls away. Dissolved in love and in the moment.
Paula, I am only one reader of your blog, out of many, so take my words for whatever they may say to you.
No one can tell you what to write in your own posts. Your writings are beautiful every day, and if you do not want to share anything that feels deeply personal to you in them, you should follow your heart. Just because we (the collective audience) are following your writings does not mean that you owe us ANYTHING of the most personal parts of yourself. If you feel the need to stretch yourself further than you might, then so be it. But you should never write anything that you feel opens the door too wide, just because it might be expected of you from someone else.
Just letting you know one reader’s thoughts on this. Your blog is amazing just as is.
Thank you Suzanne. I’m just going to see where it all takes me! I appreciate your thoughts very much.
A tough topic. I sometimes get what my ex-husband called bloggers remorse after I send out a post revealing so much. But people want honesty in writing – they want the truth, the naked writing. I am a very private person, but my privacy is important because I don’t want my ability to be observant damaged or obstructed. When I sent out my first dream-speak I went into darkness. It is hard – but when it comes to personal branding for an artist – people want to know about our lives. They want the truth. I totally understand this struggle – but do agree with Jon that there is something to the picture of your life that is not complete. What is the fear? What is it made of?
I think those questions are where I am shining a light. One corner at a time. . . Thank you for writing.
Saturday I had a fuss with my husband, over nothing really, but I was so upset, and I was running late to my riding lesson on Azafran, my 16 year old Peruvian Paso. Azafran has a suspensory ligament injury, so I haven’t been able to ride him much since Nov, and was just given the OK from the vet to ride him in lessons. I’d been looking so forward to riding him, and now I was almost crying when I got to the lesson. I was so upset and knew it would make Azafran upset too. Then, we walked into the arena everything fell away. I got on his back and felt wonderful. We were working on trust issues in the lesson, having the horses walk over stacked planks, and through tight openings. Everything safe, but you had to have trust. Azafran was wonderful. My husband watched the lesson and was also proud of Azafran and of me. After the lesson Jeff and I weren’t mad anymore and talked about better ways to communicate as to not hurt each others feeling in anger. I would love to write more about this day, but I have to go feed my therapist! ;-D Peace
What a beautiful story! Thank you for sharing it with me. I have been through ENDLESS suspensory injuries with Capprichio. ENDLESS. All four legs. And this is a horse that could do most of the Grand Prix movements, including a passage that is like dream-flying. He still wants to do it, but I cannot let him – another kind of grief and demanding restraint. I have had to listen so closely to him, and to myself.
Very beautiful writing, and you are sharing this process with the people you are asking to come along on your journey. It is a personal choice, how much to share. Fear, I think, kills creativity, smothers it. I do not share the intimate and personal details of my life. I have never written about life inside my house or posted a photo of my house. I think the challenge of this technology is to share one’s life, but not to surrender it.
I am setting boundaries all of the time with my readers. Some things I can discuss, some things I don’t. Nobody but me knows what I don’t share. I don’t feel the need to answer every question, respond to every reply, be abused or told what to do.
Sharing doesn’t mean revealing everything. It means being honest about what you do and don’t choose to reveal. The boundaries are always up to you, in your hands. I ask people to buy my books and photos, share my story, so they are entitled to something for that: honestly and openness, I think, up to a point. What you wrote yesterday and today is very brave and very honest, not you have not given yourself away, as I will not. I love and congratulate you. You will figure it out in the best way that works for you. And I, for one, will be along every day for the ride, whatever you choose to share.
Oh Jon! Thank you so much for your love and support. I can feel it in my bones. This opening is a cracking, a splitting, a shedding of an old hide. Pun intended.
Paula, this post of yours really moved me, and reminded me of my own fears about sharing deep parts of myself with the world. Your other readers have already made such wonderful contributions that I hesitate to add anything – what else could I say that they haven’t already said so well?
But I can share two examples from my own life that may give shape to some of the unknown territory (and the accompanying fears) at either end of the spectrum.
I’ve been blogging on and off since 2006, and was heavily involved in online forums – using my full name and identity – years before that.
At one extreme, I have indiscriminately shared very personal, very revealing details about my personal life without batting an eye, just because it felt right. At other times, I have, in retrospect, “over-revealed,” and I always felt physically sick (jittery, anxious, fearful) afterwards. After those episodes, I made myself a deal. If I ever felt those feelings as I was writing, before I hit publish or send, I would wait. And after waiting, I’ve usually made the decision not to publish, or have radically changed the writing I was going to share, and published it in a much-revised format. For me, the physical and emotional feelings are always reliable indicators that I am about to go too far, too fast, too soon.
On the other hand, there have been times – and quite a few of them recently, as I have begun to share for the first time that I have experienced abuse in my past – when, although I was afraid of hitting publish, I had a very deep knowing that the writing was true, and wanted to be shared with the world. As a creator and artist (I’m a writer and visual artist), I understand one of my core functions to be expression of my soul through words and images. To cut myself off from my art forms is like asking a dancer never to dance again, or a singer never to sing. When the writing flows out in a certain way, I have learned to trust it, and to allow it.
And after I have published such things, I have held my breath for a moment. Did I do the right thing? Really? Am I sure? And every time, people close to me, people whom I trust, have reached out to me without invitation and told me how deeply the work has affected them, and how appreciative they are that I have shared it. So there are gifts to the artistic process, and they are rich gifts.
I also understand the fear that comes from living on the fringes of society’s norms. Revealing oneself means possibly leaving oneself open to great censure and disapproval – maybe even being cast out from a community or tribe that disapproves of your life choices and life essence. Again, my experience is that the people who matter most will show up on your doorstep with open arms and loving hearts.
I’ve only been reading your blog for a few months, but I’ve had enough of a taste of your work to understand how sensitive you are with your animals. They trust you.
Learn to trust yourself, and you will know when, and how much, and when not to.
Namaste…
Thank you so much for sharing this MIchelle. It is definitely a dance – feeling into what is right in the moment. To me, the idea and feeling of a welcoming, friendly digital community is radical. But I am getting used to it. You have certainly opened that door wider for me!