Alone, Not Lonely

Since my last post, I've been quiet because I haven't really had anything to say. I still don't have much--if anything--to say, but I don't want to be silent either. Somehow, silence in a blog seems much more...stark than silence in a conversation.

I can easily and happily bear patches of silence in a conversation. In fact, I can spend hours with the people I love best in the world--my sisters and my beloved--and not say a word. The silence is companionable and easy, and it feels as if we're having a conversation that doesn't involve language, as if we're in the silence together somehow. It's been like that with my sisters for as long as I can remember, and the first sign that my beloved was the one for me was the night I realized we'd been in the car for nearly an hour without saying anything, and the silence was comfortable. I can remember thinking, "This is just like being alone, only better." Since being alone was my sanctuary, this was high praise.

And, really, how could it not be? I don't think there's any loneliness worse than the loneliness that comes when you're with the wrong person. Which is just one of the innumerable reasons I'm glad I found the right one (and he found me).

Same old, same old

I've been in the quiet place for a few days now, that place I go when I really don't want to talk to anyone, when I don't have anything to say that needs or wants to go outward. I talk to myself endlessly, but nothing I whisper to myself is for anyone else.

As regularly as I go to the quiet place, I come out of it, usually when I feel compelled, absolutely compelled, to say something to someone. This most recent silence is ended because I was thinking about pain

It's very hard for me to see people I care about in pain, especially emotional pain. Sometimes I can say something that will help--when I do, it feels as if the words are moving through me, not coming from me--but I don't always know what to say, and the things I think of seem arid and stupid.

When that happens, when someone's in pain and I don't know what to do, it makes me anxious. The kicker is that, until today, I didn't even realize that it made me anxious.

What triggered the realization was something only indirectly related to the insight. I'm currently reading Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir by Joan D. Chittister, O.S.B., and in the chapter called Darkness, Sr. Chittister talks about the "reluctance to change that has been the scourge of my life." Later, she talks about "sensitivity to the depth of pain in others."

Somehow, those two thoughts came together in my mind, and I suddenly understood that I fear my loved ones' pain because I can't be sure I can fix it, and if I can't fix it, I don't know what they'll do. And what they might do is something catastrophic (although the feeling is more like 'Very Bad' than 'catastrophic').

The scourge of my life is the feeling that I'm responsible. For what? For whatever's gone wrong, however cosmic. It's my job to fix everything. Terrorism? I should have fixed it. Mideast turmoil? I should have fixed it. AIDS? Crushing poverty and oppression? All the endless ways we're cruel to one another? Yep. I should have fixed those too.

Intellectually, I understand what nonsense this is. Emotionally, not so much. That's why I struggle with it over and over again; that's why the phrase 'scourge of my life' resonated so strongly with me.

Struggling with the same thing over and over again is maddening--"Hello! When am I going to figure this out???"--but it's also a blessing. Even if it seems like the same old issue over and over again--even if it is the same old issue over and over again--it's not the same old me wrestling with it. Every time I get in the ring with my old adversary, I bring with me all the experiences of wrestling with it before. Because so much of the battle isn't new, I can focus on the things that are new and learn from them. My understanding of myself deepens, and that understanding flows outward to encompass much more than this single battle, this single issue.

So while it was annoying to realize that the monster was here, too, wound through my desire that my loved ones be spared suffering, it was also something of a relief: "Oh, you again." A sigh. "Well, I know what to do with you."

In this case, the only thing I can truly do is be present and aware, ears and eyes and loving heart. I can't fix anything, but I can be a witness. And that will have to do.

Complimentary

How and why did "reliable" become something not to be desired, something to be avoided, something nearly pejorative? In a chaotic, confusing, always changing world that asks more and more of us every day (when it isn't scaring us to pieces), isn't there something wonderful about reliability?

Contemplating Julia Quinn's romance novels is what started me to wondering about the negative connotations of "reliable." Over the weekend, I finished the latest Bridgerton book with a happy and satisfied sigh, and then I imagined telling people about it. I imagined describing Julia Quinn's books to them, and in my mind's ear, I heard myself say, in a grateful tone, "She's reliable."

Almost immediately, my internal editor, who also acts as a general censor and guardian of good manners, shrieked, "You can't say that!" The general sense was that I'd be committing some awful, very public act of professional discourtesy, not much shy of calling someone a hack. Which seems excessive.

I suppose I could define what I mean when I say Julia Quinn is reliable. But that seems... I don't know, kind of silly. If you have to explain it, why say it at all? Just use the explanation. Still, I wish I could say "reliable" and have people understand that I offer it in gratitude and mean it as a compliment. It's not code for "dull" or "predictable" or "boring."

What reliable in this context means is that I start one of Julia Quinn's books knowing I'll read it with a great deal of pleasure and that when I finish it, I'll sigh happily and think, "That was good." I open her books knowing there won't be any word choices that make me wince, there won't be characters behaving stupidly because the plot demands it, and the plot will arc in a satisfying way.

Reliable means that, by now, I trust Julia Quinn, and that means I buy her books because of her name, not because of the story.

I just wish it sounded like more of a compliment and less like I was damning her with faint praise.

Obbligato

No, the post's not about music.

And, yes, that rather snippy opening is an accurate reflection of my mood.

I don't know what my problem is, why I'm plagued with this persistent, low-level grumpiness. It's not like me to be cranky for more than an afternooon, so I don't know what to do with myself when all I want to do is bark at people. And bark at them for stupid things, things like breathing, and having hair, and otherwise being themselves, innocuously minding their own business. (Not that it's good to bark at people in general, but those are ridiculous reasons to get snarly.)

I think I've got myself all in a bunch, thinking I'm "supposed" to be doing things. Like write. And prepare contest entries. (Well, entry: I've only received one so far.) And plot. The thing is, none of that stuff has to be done today, never mind yesterday. Or tomorrow, for that matter. I can let it all go.

So I'm declaring the rest of the night and (probably) tomorrow a goof-off day.

Goof-off days were something I used to do to deal with a job that made me tense. (Well, actually, I made myself tense, but I didn't know it then.) Every now and again, I would up and decide that today was a goof-off day, and because it was a goof-off day, I wasn't going to do a single thing I thought I was supposed to do. I was only going to do the things I wanted to do.

So tonight I'm only doing the things I want to do. Like read, and eat some ice cream. And I'll deal with my obligations later.

National...sort of

You know, I'm pretty well flabbergasted by anyone who managed to blog from National. In some ways, the whole time I was there, I felt like I didn't have two brain cells to rub together. I know that's not true--what basically happens is that my focus narrows so completely that what's happening in the here and now is all I can think of. I can't step back far enough or focus enough to describe what's been happening.

Mind you, I tried. I brought the Neo, fully intending to keep a journal, and to post it when I got home. The reality was that I rarely got back to my room before midnight and after I was done puttering around, putting one day away and setting up for the next, it was 1:30 AM plus, and I needed to be in bed, heading for sleep.

When I got married, everyone said my wedding would be a blur to me. I can remember being at my reception and waiting for the blur to start. It never did, but the day is so intense and there's so much going on, that you can't process everything into memory. The experience isn't a blur, your memory of it is.

National is just like that. I remember very little of what I did or what happened. What I do remember seems to revolve around parties. (That it's all blurry is especially amusing, given the fact that I don't drink alcohol.) There were the parties in rooms and suites where e-mail friends got to reconnect in the flesh, everyone beaming at everyone else because we're just so happy to see one another again. There was the Cherry party after the Literacy Signing, featuring a chocolate fountain and a lot of identification by one's Cherry name.

Then there were the publisher parties. On Friday night at National, the publishers throw parties and invite authors, agents, and members of the RWA board. Oh, and the workshop chair--me, this year. I got invited to three parties but only managed to go to two.

The first one was the Ballantine and Bantam/Dell party. They're all imprints of Random House, so it was all one party. I got introduced to Nina Taublib, which I found very cool, and I got to say hello to various authors I knew. The food was fabulous and the staff delightful--I told one waiter I love artichokes, so every time he brought out the artichoke hors d'oeuvres, he came to me first.

Then I went to the St. Martin's party at Ray's in the City. The food there was fabulous, too, but the best part was getting to know a new friend. She and I and her friend talked in a corner of the restaurant for something like six hours. They finally had to turf us out because they were closing, so we walked back to the hotel, went up to her suite, woke up her roomie and talked for another hour. I feel like I made two new friends, like a gift from heaven, and that makes me happy.

That's one of the reasons this felt like a magic conference to me.

The other reason is sitting on a bookcase in my office. For ages I've been wanting to buy a statue of Shiva as Nataraja (Lord of Dance), but I haven't gotten myself organized enough to do something about it. The image resonates very strongly with me, in ways I can't articulate. Just outside the hotel, there was a little shop holding a going out of business sale and there, in the front window, was a statue of Shiva. It felt magical and as if I were meant to see it, so of course I had to buy it.

And then I had to get it home. The if-you-can't-do-without-it-put-it-in-the-carry-on rule applied here; the only question was how to pack it in the carry-on so it didn't get hurt, it didn't hurt anyone else, and it could come out easily, because of course I was going to have to show it to the TSA employees going through airport security. (They were very courteous and understanding, as if brass statues of Shiva came their way every day.)

I originally planned to put Shiva on my desk, so I could see him while I worked, but the minute I tried I knew it was the wrong thing to do. When I looked at the bookcase, however, there seemed to be a hole on top of it, as if it had been waiting for Shiva all along. So now I see Shiva every time I enter my office and every time I leave; somehow that seems more right and true.

I did manage to attend four workshops, one because I moderated it, and one because it was my only big outside speaker. All four of them were fabulous, but the big outside speaker, Michael Hauge, gave me that crackling, snapping sensation you get when the pathways in your brain are rearranging.

I didn't do much exploring on the business end of things. No workshops on the market, no publisher Spotlights (where editors talk about what they're looking for and what they're publishing). Although I have a romance percolating in the back of my head, I won't be able to take it off the back burner for at least another year, once the fantasy is written. And what romance publishers are looking for is of limited usefulness to a woman writing a full-on fantasy whose romantic entanglements are not part of the plot or subplots.

I'm sure this is scattered and not particularly coherent--if it is, you're getting a sense of what National is like for me. It's intense and otherworldly, and when I'm there I'm in an altered state of consciousness. Which makes making sensible reports tricky. When they're not impossible.

I'm sure I'll remember more; hopefully it'll be more coherent....