Exposed

My husband and I awoke to the sound of our children frolicking about the house like a couple of cartoon characters.  I'm thinking Spridel and Chim Chim.  We blocked out the noise and turned our attention to other things before joining them.  The most difficult thing about being an older parent is the difference in our energy levels.  I would have been content to lounge all day.  Spridel and Chim Chim's antics made that bloody unlikely.

Anxious to wash away the last 24 hours, I step into the shower.  In between the stages of my daily showering ritual . . . wash face first, shampoo hair, add conditioner. . . I thought of yesterday's sharing of the poem to the freshman English class.  At the time, it didn't phase me.  I enjoyed my "surprise."  This morning I felt very naked.

The teacher hadn't said a word.  Did that mean she thought it stunk?  Did she understand that the "I am" in the poem was not really me?  Did she think I had delusions of grandeur? 

For years, the fear of rejection or criticism kept me from putting my writing out there for others to see.  Recently, the mechanism holding back the words malfunctioned.  Part of me really doesn't care if I stink or not.  The words themselves seem to demand a life of their own.  I let them spill through my fingers on to the page. 

I have moments when I think I must be nuts.  Occasionally, I feel a twinge of embarrassment at being so open and risking criticism.  Sometimes, I must stink.  The law of averages demands it.  Yet, still I write.  More accurately, still I feel compelled to write.

It's been great therapy for me.  Writing forces me to impose a structure, an organization, a theme on the chaos of my day, of my life, of all the pieces within.  It allows me the pleasure of an occasional transcendence.  It demands that I be better than I was yesterday.  It pulls me forward.   My words, whether good, bad or horribly mediocre pull me into a better version of myself.  I share them because I can.  The words seem to demand it.  I just try and stay out of their way.

I sit in the library now.  A clean man with shaven head is dressed in neat robes.  He appears to be the quintessential Buddhist engaged in a walking meditation among the noise of young children, the snippets of adult conversations, the pieces of forbidden phone calls that seem to have no respect for the sanctity of library rules.  The library pulses with life, not always the best of life but life nonetheless.  He walks smoothly.  His gaze is focused just a few steps in front of him.  He walks among the living as if he is apparition.  When he walks by, he leaves a trail of peace that feels good against the ragged edges of my life.

I want to be like this simple man.  I want to walk among the living and leave just a little piece of the best parts of myself behind.  Maybe one of the most important things I can share is my fallible humanity.  Maybe, just once in a while, I can touch someone else with my words. After all, we're all works in progress.  In any case, with or without literary merit of any kind, my writing helps me.  Feeling compelled to share it is something I can live with.  In the end, it won't really matter.  In my mind, I begin to follow my Buddhist friend as he walks the world in peaceful reflection.  To try or not to try may be the same thing.