So, the proverbial cat is out of the bag and running around the room yowling.
My mother bought copies of pseudophakia and told my family. Of course, this is what I expected, but still. We had a family luncheon yesterday, and I was the talk of the room. Horrifying. I was squirming with discomfort.
I partake in a hobby, a pastime, a vocation, that embarrasses me. It felt as if I showed up for the luncheon naked. I really don’t want to get into in-depth conversations about my feelings about death. Well, online is fine. Face-to-face it feels like a conversation about my sex life. Danger, Will Robinson. Inappropriate! INAPPROPRIATE!
You know what else gives me the hinks the same way? Religion. I’ll talk about it on the internet, but as soon as someone brings religion up in person? I start sidling toward the door.
Why are you embarrassed? You’re a fantastic poet, you should be proud. If I could write half as well as you do, I’d tell everybody.
I feel the same way.
I think what’s embarrassing is that people have embarrassing ideas about poetry, and what to say to you. How do you respond to “I’ve been reading Rod McKuen,” or “what do you write about?” Plus, you’re expected to be some combination of pithy, odd, and deep for the rest of the afternoon.
Rebecca, anonymous has described it perfectly. My mother said, “Oh, now I’m going to look at everything and wonder what you see in it. I’ll look at a car and think, ‘What would Julie think?'” To which I replied, “I’d think it was a car.” And that was just high-larious.
Anonymous, are you a more eloquent me? Scary.
Lord, no.
But I am one of those who thought Revelations was fifty times more interesting than As If Some Jaded Reader.
I think it’s a good thing. Just out yourself. Soon it’ll just be something everyone knows about you and they’ll all forget it.
And as to that “weird” stuff? (Loved the exchange about the car.) In my family, that was always going in. Going public about writing was great, now they have something to pin it all on.
YEARS ago, I forget how many, my mother said to me that she’d like to spend an hour inside my brain, just so she can see what on earth thwe world looks like to me, because she can;t possibly imagine. It was when I wasn’t writing. Then she goes, “But only an hour. I don’t think I could stand any more than that.”
See?