A year later, I'm back to the blogging. I'm not sure why, except that as I re-read my earlier entries, I realized that it was interesting to me to see where I was "then." I could as well keep a diary. But then I'd have to type that also, since I can never read my own handwriting, and I wouldn't have to do what I've been saying these posts are about--to really consider purpose, audience, and the kinds of approaches one thinks about only in creating public writing. So even though no one may see this blog since the emphasis is on "may," no one will see a private diary except to the extent that I cull from it and decide what's public-worthy enough to share.
And so to purpose--I noted in an earlier entry that I would try to explore this idea. Why the blog except to provide what I have already, which is a tautological response: it's public, and therefore I want to write something I know will be public to practice those responses. But why exactly? I've alluded to the fact that I will assign students this task, and that with it brings the added responsibility of being aware of who might see the writing and what that might mean in terms of choices made. But again, why?
This year my colleagues and I have explored the issue of public writing in a conference presentation and in a paper which we are readying to submit for possible publication. I've said what I've seen in class: an increased responsibility for the writing accomplished and a more obvious sense of that somewhat tired word, "ownership." I've seen students knowing they would have a larger audience--albeit an unknown one--almost swallow their work whole and have it become them in a way that allows them to understand and interpret it in much more sophisticated manner than "merely" presenting it to a teacher. Again, so why?
Because we live amongst an audience. What we do, say, what happens to us, becomes, ultimately, public consumption. I've heard my favorite swear word come rolling out of one of my son's mouths; I've heard a friend use a phrase I shared with her years ago; a friend I've lost touch with mentioned that she still uses a poem I shared with her and still copies the original handout I provided, together with my written comments on the bottom, though I've long forgotten what I wrote or that I provided her with this handout. In a box of mementos I've gathered that include notes and cards I've received, I found notes from people thanking me for one gesture or another. I don't remember those people, yet their thanks seemed so sincere, my gestures so appreciated. Do they remember me now? Does my friend remember where the phrase she uses came from? My friend remembers the poem shared, but the students don't know who wrote the note on the bottom, yet they, too, will have that, even if it's merely the handwritten representation of the name of the source of the poem.
What we see and hear and touch and smell and interpret and comprehend and synthesize--it's there now, a part of us.
My friend Robbin lost her 34 year old son the day after Christmas to an unexpected and massive heart attack. I remember the first day I ever saw her when she arrived at a baseball practice her younger son and my sons were attending. Blond hair, an attitude that says "don't mess with me," classy, comfortable, right of center politically, off-center in terms of humor and attitude. We became friends. She's always been totally loyal to her family. They mean everything to her. Her friends are a close second. She's since moved twice, once a five-hour drive away, now across the country. Not easy to sit down with and drink lattes together--a common event for us when she lived here after we'd take a long walk/run together. There are those things with which I don't agree with her, especially politically, but there is a core of caring that she has shown that I'll never forget and that makes me care and feel, in part, what she feels. That invisible thread that unwinds across hundreds of miles, though plains and mountains.
Last night I knew she'd wonder how she could sleep. Once asleep, she'd wake and for a moment, wonder if it were all a dream, or forget for a moment that he was no longer alive and then the knowledge would come back, against which, of course, she'd want to fight. No wonder there is denial in the stages of grief. We move between realities all the time. We move within multiple ideas of who we are and how we feel. What exists as reality is what we think of or remember, even fleetingly, and so we resist or we accept certain realities. I've been taking on bits of Robbin's reality. I can't take them all on. Even she can't totally, thankfully. Grief appears and then removes itself, stays awhile and then hides. It shows part of itself in unexpected guises--the younger son who remembers an outing with his brother, the friend who says "I'm sorry," the husband whom the son looked like so much. Even the grocery store where the son's favorite pasta is on the shelf, or the holiday he enjoyed so much, or a song that may remind her of him, or nothing apparent--a change of wind, a sword of sunlight through the dining room window, a sigh that escapes and turns into weeping.
I know Robbin didn't think about "purpose" when we would meet to walk and she'd be ready with a laugh, sharing an exaggerated tale, primed to get my mind off of something sad. She reacted because she knew through a lifetime of careful observations that this was needed, that this was right, that it would, in turn, be shared later, perhaps in a way she'd never recognize, but in a way that shared knowledge always sustains.
