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In a dialog in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
castlebreaker's journal, we got into a discussion of participant vs. observer.
She says she never wants to be thought of as an ordinary woman. I'd go further and venture that she'd rather never be thought of as "ordinary" in any way. I think that's the human default, that all of us want to be remembered as being more intelligent, more perceptive, more analytical, more erudite, more beautiful, more athletic, more dedicated--in some way "more better" than others. That we matter, somehow, that the world would have missed some element, no matter how small, of our influence on society and our time, had we never lived.
I know I wanted to be a movie or tv actress because all the people who'd ignored or dismissed me in jr. and sr. high school would have the opportunity to envy me. Then I wanted to be a stage actress because I fell in love with theater arts and film was sooo gauche. Having fallen in love with theater arts, I discovered how much more fun it was to do VO work than onstage work, and to run props or wardrobe, stand ready to rescue actors or dancers trapped onstage with a wardrobe failure, or trapped by dialog and blocking when a prop had wandered from its appointed place, or book-holder when someone went up on their lines. So much more fun, with opportunities to be a hero, albeit one secret from the audience, or to make the production run smoothly, to be unseen but known and felt by all who made the magic happen. That, to me, was more powerful than being the bright-colored scarf waving over there while the slight-of-hand happened over here.
My circumstances changed, my life changed, and I bid theatre farewell with only some lingering, occasional regret. Working at make-do jobs, moving often, having and raising babies, learning to damp down my activist persona and act the part of an officer's wife took an enormous amount of effort, and through it all, I hated most of it. In order for H to succeed at the path he'd chosen, I had to subsume my personality and natural inclinations into a role I felt I didn't own. My aim was to pass unnoticed, meld into the sea of "dependents" and appear "supportive" of my husband's career. I did it for love, and was rewarded when he realized that no, he actually did NOT want to make a career of the military. But I remain proud that it was entirely his decision; I did not influence him, either way.
I had the need to be recognised, at least acknowledged, as an intelligent, offbeat sort of young mother, and I managed that. I found a backbone I hadn't known I possessed, and a talent for dealing with children as individuals that somehow endeared me to them, and them of course to me. Years later I still get a basso "Mom!" across the grocery store and a six-foot former cub scout runs over to give me a hug. And often introduce a gaggle of kids I recognise as him-at-that-age. Sometimes a wife, looking dubious at his effusive greeting.
The jobs I took were retail, where I struggled to retain a sense of anonymity, despite the usual attempts to promote me to management. Or clerical. I lucked into a job as admin for an idiosyncratic woman who needed me to handle the telephone and learn clerical skills on the job. It wasn't that much different from being a mom. I landed a better-paid job as admin/secretary, for another non-traditional woman, and we developed a working relationship that was near-telepathic. It was another instance of excelling behind the scenes, making the production look faultless, and my boss was generous in recognition and praise. She spoiled me for the supervisors who followed, who wanted me to follow their own script for me, and didn't want the relationship, or provide either recognition or acknowledgement. I've always worked very hard, and mostly for inadequate pay, but recognition of effort and a sense of comraderie goes a long way to make up for lower pay. But for the later bosses I was apparently working at all the "wrong" tasks, because their "requirements" never seemed to get met.
So I left to write the Great American Novel. Which I did, and then discovered it was so beautifully crafted, so excellent, so wonderful and special nobody could appreciate it but me. I turned to poetry, and had a few things published, and became intrigued by the crafting of poetry. Until, like someone had flicked a switch, I stopped "seeing in poetry". The thing that had me reaching for a pen at an overheard conversation, or the light on tree leaves, or the sound of a teakettle, was no longer there. Just...gone, overnight, and no way to call it back, despite workshops, classes, and retreats. I could learn more technique, but if the talent isn't there to start with, technique is useless.
And now I've come to a point that I may have been headed toward all along. I live daily with my own mortality, and what little fear I had of it has gone. I still fear dying, especially in pain, but not death itself. Whether this consciousness jumps into another body, or dissipates on the winds of space, or simply ceases to be, I'm okay with that. And while it's nice that people know who I am, and smile and wave, either on the street or on the screen, I am content with who I am. I haven't achieved anything of note. I haven't made those kids in school wish they'd been nicer to me. I haven't made my old boyfriends jealous of my fabulous life, I haven't caused envy in the hearts of my fellow officers' wives, or the other class mommies I worked with in Great Books, or cub scouts.
But it's been interesting, and fulfilling. I've experienced exquisite joy, and pain, love, and sorrow, regret, and vindication, hope, and disappointment. "I've seen things," as Roy Batty says. And I've taken the time to see more than surface deep, sometimes drowning in the structure of a leaf, or disassociating from my body into a piece of music, or an hour in the shade of a forest, eyes closed, losing myself in birdsong and leaf-rustle. I've watched newborns' hands flaring like petals in startle reflex, and furling like sensitive ferns in repose. I've beheld the face of love on an afternoon pillow, suffused with light of molten gold and the smile of angels. I've felt the stab of sun on my face in the thin air at the summit of an alp, and the breeze off a glacier in June. I've heard the hushed stillness of snowfall, and the cacaphony of thunderstorms. I've tasted the complexity of wines, and the incredible simple sweetness of grapes.
I think what I've learned is that I'm happiest attempting to use my intellect, my senses, my experience and my memory to experience small bites of life as fully as possible, without the adrenaline rush some crave, but at a very basic sensory level. Or observing behavior of other creatures--human or otherwise--without judgement or interference on my part. And that it's okay if I disappear one day, because death is another experience, and I want that, too.
castlebreaker's journal, we got into a discussion of participant vs. observer. She says she never wants to be thought of as an ordinary woman. I'd go further and venture that she'd rather never be thought of as "ordinary" in any way. I think that's the human default, that all of us want to be remembered as being more intelligent, more perceptive, more analytical, more erudite, more beautiful, more athletic, more dedicated--in some way "more better" than others. That we matter, somehow, that the world would have missed some element, no matter how small, of our influence on society and our time, had we never lived.
I know I wanted to be a movie or tv actress because all the people who'd ignored or dismissed me in jr. and sr. high school would have the opportunity to envy me. Then I wanted to be a stage actress because I fell in love with theater arts and film was sooo gauche. Having fallen in love with theater arts, I discovered how much more fun it was to do VO work than onstage work, and to run props or wardrobe, stand ready to rescue actors or dancers trapped onstage with a wardrobe failure, or trapped by dialog and blocking when a prop had wandered from its appointed place, or book-holder when someone went up on their lines. So much more fun, with opportunities to be a hero, albeit one secret from the audience, or to make the production run smoothly, to be unseen but known and felt by all who made the magic happen. That, to me, was more powerful than being the bright-colored scarf waving over there while the slight-of-hand happened over here.
My circumstances changed, my life changed, and I bid theatre farewell with only some lingering, occasional regret. Working at make-do jobs, moving often, having and raising babies, learning to damp down my activist persona and act the part of an officer's wife took an enormous amount of effort, and through it all, I hated most of it. In order for H to succeed at the path he'd chosen, I had to subsume my personality and natural inclinations into a role I felt I didn't own. My aim was to pass unnoticed, meld into the sea of "dependents" and appear "supportive" of my husband's career. I did it for love, and was rewarded when he realized that no, he actually did NOT want to make a career of the military. But I remain proud that it was entirely his decision; I did not influence him, either way.
I had the need to be recognised, at least acknowledged, as an intelligent, offbeat sort of young mother, and I managed that. I found a backbone I hadn't known I possessed, and a talent for dealing with children as individuals that somehow endeared me to them, and them of course to me. Years later I still get a basso "Mom!" across the grocery store and a six-foot former cub scout runs over to give me a hug. And often introduce a gaggle of kids I recognise as him-at-that-age. Sometimes a wife, looking dubious at his effusive greeting.
The jobs I took were retail, where I struggled to retain a sense of anonymity, despite the usual attempts to promote me to management. Or clerical. I lucked into a job as admin for an idiosyncratic woman who needed me to handle the telephone and learn clerical skills on the job. It wasn't that much different from being a mom. I landed a better-paid job as admin/secretary, for another non-traditional woman, and we developed a working relationship that was near-telepathic. It was another instance of excelling behind the scenes, making the production look faultless, and my boss was generous in recognition and praise. She spoiled me for the supervisors who followed, who wanted me to follow their own script for me, and didn't want the relationship, or provide either recognition or acknowledgement. I've always worked very hard, and mostly for inadequate pay, but recognition of effort and a sense of comraderie goes a long way to make up for lower pay. But for the later bosses I was apparently working at all the "wrong" tasks, because their "requirements" never seemed to get met.
So I left to write the Great American Novel. Which I did, and then discovered it was so beautifully crafted, so excellent, so wonderful and special nobody could appreciate it but me. I turned to poetry, and had a few things published, and became intrigued by the crafting of poetry. Until, like someone had flicked a switch, I stopped "seeing in poetry". The thing that had me reaching for a pen at an overheard conversation, or the light on tree leaves, or the sound of a teakettle, was no longer there. Just...gone, overnight, and no way to call it back, despite workshops, classes, and retreats. I could learn more technique, but if the talent isn't there to start with, technique is useless.
And now I've come to a point that I may have been headed toward all along. I live daily with my own mortality, and what little fear I had of it has gone. I still fear dying, especially in pain, but not death itself. Whether this consciousness jumps into another body, or dissipates on the winds of space, or simply ceases to be, I'm okay with that. And while it's nice that people know who I am, and smile and wave, either on the street or on the screen, I am content with who I am. I haven't achieved anything of note. I haven't made those kids in school wish they'd been nicer to me. I haven't made my old boyfriends jealous of my fabulous life, I haven't caused envy in the hearts of my fellow officers' wives, or the other class mommies I worked with in Great Books, or cub scouts.
But it's been interesting, and fulfilling. I've experienced exquisite joy, and pain, love, and sorrow, regret, and vindication, hope, and disappointment. "I've seen things," as Roy Batty says. And I've taken the time to see more than surface deep, sometimes drowning in the structure of a leaf, or disassociating from my body into a piece of music, or an hour in the shade of a forest, eyes closed, losing myself in birdsong and leaf-rustle. I've watched newborns' hands flaring like petals in startle reflex, and furling like sensitive ferns in repose. I've beheld the face of love on an afternoon pillow, suffused with light of molten gold and the smile of angels. I've felt the stab of sun on my face in the thin air at the summit of an alp, and the breeze off a glacier in June. I've heard the hushed stillness of snowfall, and the cacaphony of thunderstorms. I've tasted the complexity of wines, and the incredible simple sweetness of grapes.
I think what I've learned is that I'm happiest attempting to use my intellect, my senses, my experience and my memory to experience small bites of life as fully as possible, without the adrenaline rush some crave, but at a very basic sensory level. Or observing behavior of other creatures--human or otherwise--without judgement or interference on my part. And that it's okay if I disappear one day, because death is another experience, and I want that, too.
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From:
no subject
I hope the talk of death is the theoretical (well, concrete, but not in our faces for most of us) thing that we all face?
From:
no subject
I'm not suicidal, though I have been at times. The line from the Sweet Charity number, "There's gotta be something better than this!" sounds very true to me. I'm not in any hurry to leave. I'm just not dedicated to staying here beyond my allotted time.
From:
no subject
"I've seen things"
And that's all I've ever needed. To see things, to see them for myself. Let me see, feel, think for myself. To be me, based on my experiences. To have others acknowledge my seeing and letting me be who I am based on what I've seen. I can't do meek anymore, I really can't.
From:
no subject
This paragraph - this is what I was talking about in answer to #1 of the meme for you. I struggled with how to get my meaning across. (Now, if I'd just caught up with reading before I did the meme.) I wish I'd saved the wordier versions of my response; the uncanny synchronicity would be more apparent.
I... don't feel like "I've seen things." That's something that's been dogging me for a while now. It's possible that I'm just not recognizing some things as "things," right now. Also, I have these walls, see... very inconvenient when trying to engage with the world.
Beautiful piece. Thanks for sharing it.
From:
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