1. Disembogue

Disembogue

\ ˌdis-im-ˈbōg

verb: to flow or come forth from or as if from a channel

I recently saw the Genius word of the day in my inbox and decided to start this blog as a daily writing practice. Somewhere to get out all the freaky, scary, anxiety-filled thoughts onto a digital scratchpad. You just have to get it all out, let it all down like your hair. You have to flow. You have to do what Maya Angelou said because "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

Because it's really about your trauma, and writing through it, because that's really the only thing that will help me. Or any writer.

And lose the ego. It doesn't matter if someone else is doing this. That's great. That's no reason not to.
You're joining a conversation, a colony of traumatized writers who just want to disembogue.

Sometimes you get choked up but it's in those moments you have to keep writing. This is better than talking. Don't go back, don't read it, just type. Just do what so many white women have told you to do over the years and you just couldn't hear it from them because even though you're a white woman you were utterly irritated with their self-righteousness, or their unsolicited advice, or the fact that you thought they were full of shit because maybe they were privileged middle class women who didn't grow up with the shit you grew up with. 

But now you realize, maybe some of them actually did, and that's why they were so excited to be sharing, and wow, applaud them for that but take only what you need from them.

Because it's really about not getting too deeply into your own head and comparing yourself to writers who can form coherent sentences and stay focused on one story at a time. 

That's not your process.

And now you're 37 and married to a man with ADD who can't focus on a damned thing you're saying, but you've come to realize that's not his fault and you've forgiven him and that's why you write. And in fact, he's helping you to be become a better writer. Keep in short, get to the point. But that's so hard for you.

You can get the story. You can catch the slippery fish, but you have to focus and check things off one at a time.

You can't focus on the podcast idea right now. You can't get into the rabbit hole of comparing yourself to people whose work you admire. It doesn't matter, that's their place and they got there through a very specific set of events, connections, hard work, etc. 

Creativity is cheap. Everyone probably has it in spades, they just do different things with it.

Share your ideas and let other people write them, perform them, run with them. 

Stop clinging to the idea that sharing means you will get left behind in the dust and people will carry on without you.

Maybe they will, but it all comes back right? Just like everything in the universe.

Or maybe I should be wiser and more guarded.

I tried to cling to these shell earrings Paige gave me, because I attach sentimental value to things a lot. I lost them the other night when we biked down to Seward Park and I jumped in for a swim. It was dark and I had placed the earrings in a little slot on my running pants. They tumbled out and totally blended in with the rocks, being tiny white seashells surrounded by some wire. They could've been trash on the beach to any onlooker, seagull, whoever. Lost in the universe and I felt so sad about it. The next morning at dawn, I jumped out of bed and biked down there to look for them. As I scanned the beach slowly, I mythologized the earrings and started feeling like I was losing my best friend who'd given them to me. We're spending less time together because our lives our filling up and she has a great new relationship, a new cat, and lots of other new projects. Plus she swims a lot, another reason I attached so much sentiment to those damned shells. That's her process. She swims and writes. I don't want to lose her. I want to write with her! But I can't cling. But then I thought about how Kelli came into my life, how much we connected. We connected about childhood trauma and things I could never connect with Paige over. We practiced and recorded songs. We practiced stand-up comedy routines on eachother. We talked nonstop for hours. She listened to me, and she stopped me when I was rambling too much to get me back on track. In an unrelated incident, I bought a new pair of earrings after work--big pink fluffy macrame earrings. So beautiful, so full, like Kelli herself--a big brown woman who like Paige, plays with loud colors. I've been connecting so deeply with Kelli I thought this was the universe's way of telling me to let Paige go and accept Kelli as my new best friend. And that was so sad to me and I wasn't ready to let that happen, so I kept looking for the earrings. Five minutes after I started looking, an older couple who were playing with their dog asked me, "What are you looking for?" and I described the earrings. I told them they were just sentimental and I really should let them go, but there's a story in them. I give my objects stories. The older black gentlemen told me, "We all do that, don't we?" He smiled knowingly, sympathetically. We talked about Seattle, local news, weather, then a few minutes later the woman perked up, "Are these it?!" She was holding my shell earrings. She'd found them.

And I remembered in that moment that people can have many best friends because not everyone can connect over every little thing. People can have many friends. They don't all have to be "best", and none of them have to be "best." They can all be friends and acquaintances.

I was simply clinging so much to Paige because I'd been through so much with her, learned and grew so much with her. I love her energy and creativity and wanted to bask in her glow forever. I wanted what she has with Allie because I moved around so much as a child I never really got a "best friend." My best friends in middle school and high school (Jenni and Lindsi) grew apart from me after I started dating Joe Miller and spending way too much time with him and not enough time with my beloved metalhead friends. I started to judge them for all the drugs and partying they did, but I was really being hypocritical. What the hell was I doing with my life? Going to community college and working at Imo's, then as a home health aide, then a housekeeper for a rich family. Pshah! I was going through different experiences and learning from them, just like my friends were.

But I could've maintained those friendships. I just wasn't ready and/or didn't have time. But I'm an adult now and I can maintain all the friendships. I can still be Paige's best friend and Kelli's best friend. There's no stupid middle school girl code that we adult women label our friends with ("You're my best friend but she's my BFF"). Anyway there shouldn't be. That's so fucking stupid. No one person can fill all your needs. There are innate things about class and money that I will never understand that Allie does. I didn't grow up in Avon, Connecticut with Paige. There are innate things about stoicism and art that I struggle with that Sarah doesn't. I didn't grow up in Seattle with phD math people and teachers as parents, and I didn't have a secure attachment with my caregivers like Paige and Sarah did. I was so jealous when I introduced them and they started hanging out because I felt left behind. But I wasn't left behind and they knew it. I was doing my own thing, and that was fine.

You can't do it all at the same time, or maybe even ever. You can't write a screenplay for a metaphysical thriller/comedy over night. It's something you add to and connect the dots later. You can't write that comedy piece that involves Meditations from Marcus Aurelius inserted into awkward moments today at just the right time, causing riotous laughter, reflection, and/or learning. You can't write a dystopian novel in one sitting. It's an ongoing project.

You can't focus on the research into how the city of Seattle makes decisions about where to beautify the streets with flowers and trees. You really want to research that so you can write a blog post including research about this and research about how environment creates calm and helps heal trauma, and we can beautify this neighborhood so we can all sleep better because there was an angry drunken man crying and shouting well into the wee morning hours, and that's nothing new in this neighborhood and the homeless encampments grow by the day.

You can't fucking ignore them. It's everyone's problem.

Si te hago dano a ti, me hago dano a mi mismo.

Godamnit, people. I'm not preaching. I'm not crazy. I'm telling the truth.

I'm just disembogueing. It's just a tool and a process.