Feelings. Plus Toaster Oven Fires.

 Once, when I was in college, I started a fire in my grandparents' kitchen. Two fires, actually. One in the toaster oven, and one in the microwave. I'm not quite sure why I still remember this day so clearly; the fires were small and easily contained; my grandparents never even knew; nothing was ruined save for a piece of toast and a leftover cup of coffee. Still, when I think about my grandparents, and, especially, the house in which they lived for nearly sixty years, among one thousand memories, complete and disparate, is this one: my nineteen-year-old nervous self, trying to be helpful by making breakfast, waving a dishtowel at a smoking toaster oven, hugely embarrassed and desperate to keep my clumsiness, my mistake, hidden.

Keep myself hidden. Keep my mistakes, awkwardness, embarrassment, sadness, pride, silliness, ignorance, jealousy, judgement...hidden. Is this a good thing? Writing this blog seems to embody a kind of all-out opening to me; a stripping of veils and curtains and comfortable clothes. Each time I sit down to write, I am eager; I feel like I'm finally tapping into the core of who I am, of what I like to do, and this is wonderful, of course. It's also a little selfish, and it's a lot scary. My blog-post writing regimen goes something like this: 1) Get an idea in the middle of (grading papers, going for a run, cooking dinner, cleaning the bathtub, walking the dog, eating oatmeal, teaching class, running errands...any activity that requires me to be focusing on something else). 2) Sit down at the computer and write (slowly, quickly, in bursts of clarity and distraction). 3) Re-read every single word--several times--to at least rid myself of the gnawing notion of a word missed or spelled wrong. 4) Post. 5) Feel good. Feel good because...I'll say it: I'm a writer, and I've just written. What comes next, after that thirty-minute window of warm glow, is this voice: Who says you're so special? Who says that what you've just said hasn't been said a thousand times before, in a thousand better ways? People who read this are going to think you are: long-winded, redundant, unoriginal, pompous, irritating; they're going to think that you spend way too much time contemplating how you feel.

This last one is the one that sticks at me the most, and I've come to believe that the insults (imagined or real) that cut us most deeply are the sharpest knives because somewhere way back (or not so way back) in our minds, we know them to be true. We think them, ourselves. I do spend way too much time contemplating my feelings. I am, as my father would say, a 'naval-gazer'. I worry and wonder, endlessly, at my own shyness, my own seeming lack of confidence, at my desire to hide away all mistakes (oven fires and bad haircuts included). I spend inordinate amounts of times trying to figure out the feelings of myself and others; I read self-help books; I practice arm-chair psychology. A part of this may be because I'm a woman (a generalization I feel I'm allowed to make since, well, I'm one of the guilty party), but the other part, I've come to realize, is that I was born of a family of naval-gazers. Why then, if it's in my blood, do I often feel so apologetic when some of that self-analysis gets out in the open?

I have a wonderful family; we love to talk, debate, analyze, figure out. We are also--almost every single one of us--incredibly introverted. We love to talk, sure, but mostly with each other, and even then we catch ourselves apologizing for taking up so much of each others' time, for 'bogarting' the conversation, for holding forth or making proclamations, even if we might know exactly what we're talking about. We're talkers; we're also 'I don't know-ers'. I was born to it. It's in every cell of my being.

Which is why, of course, I feel such a heady mix of joy and remorse when I sit down to write here, in this space. This space is my holding forth, my grand proclamation, my ultimate bogart. Why should anyone want to know what I am feeling or thinking? I actually don't really know why, but the truth is: I don't really care (right now, at least.) For sure, there are things about ourselves we ought to grapple with silently; my jealousy doesn't do anyone any good (especially myself), so I'm not going to talk about it. My judgments are misplaced, and they never, ever, come from a place of love, so I'm not going to talk about them. In my life, I want to strive to be humble (even while writing a blog all. about. me.), so I'm not going to talk about how great I think I am. I've come to learn (after too long not seeing) that you can't change anyone but your own self, and shouldn't ever try, so I'm not going to complain about anyone else. There are also things, though, that I'm coming to think are important to admit, to stop hiding from. We're all awkward. We're all clumsy. We all think we're uncool. We all worry that what we're saying might be wrong. (Right?) One of the reasons I love my family so much--and why I love the close circle of friends I've cultivated in my life--is because in the midst of our analytical, long-winded, often emotionally charged, often alcohol softened conversations, no one tries to pretend like they've got it all figured out. We may take turns holding forth, but we laugh at ourselves while we're doing it, and we give thanks afterwards.

I'm not really sure what to say now. I've got a cat on my lap, vying for my affection, a dog scratching at the front door, and the nagging feeling that I started off this post by writing about lighting a kitchen on fire, which really relates in no way to anything I've just said. Undoubtedly, after I finish this post, my blog-pride hangover will be immense, but I'll go for that 'not caring' thing and try to bring it home:

Once, when I was in college, I started a fire in my grandparents' kitchen. Two small fires. Easily managed, when you got right down to it, but at nineteen I left their house feeling awkward and sort of dangerous and irresponsible...over a toaster oven fire. Over a flame two inches high. Over a ruined piece of toast. When I remember that nineteen-year-old girl, I want to look at her and say: laugh. I want her to make a noise in the kitchen instead of silently fanning the flames; I want her to say: "Oh dear. I seem to have started a fire in your kitchen!" She says this. She says this, and in comes her grandmother, who loves her. Together they put out the fire, throw away the charred toast, dump out the scalding coffee. Later her grandmother will say, "I do that all the time. I know exactly how you feel."


Thanks for reading.

Beth