Flying

I am not one for New Year's Resolutions.  They just seem to be a set up for failure, which leads to self-beratement.  I gave those things up a long time ago.  As for that end of the year reflectiveness that many people get, I do that in July just before my birthday.  Yunno, when MY calendar year ticks over.  I have always been bad at herd mentality.

I decided to take a break from Women Writing for a Change this semester.  Lots of reasons for that.  I anticipate a busy spring at work.  Hoping we can coax my mom into the swank senior center nearby which means cleaning out her house and moving her and all the emotional fallout around that.  I have been working in a long format that isn't a good fit for the classes, and have been pressuring myself to write shorter pieces just for class.  When that fails, I have been dipping into the reject pile and recycling previous material.

But really all of those things are just excuses for what I am feeling, have been feeling for a long time.  I started at WWfaC in the fall of 2007.  I have done 17 consecutive semesters over the last five and half years.  I have loved every minute.  I love these women like family.  They ARE family.  My writing family.  It is here I found my voice.  It is here that I was finally supported enough to speak my truths - all of them.  It is here that I met Mary the writer.  I like her a lot.  I cannot speak highly enough about this circle, about the energy they spin of the vision they hold.

Earlier this year, I first began to have feelings of unsettledness.  I tried to pass it off as related to those other parts of my life, but that tasted a lie.  Those feelings of unsettledness progressed to distate.  For instance, there is a certain language used in class.  Lingo, just like there is in most jobs or hobbies.  That lingo began to annoy the shit out of me.  Every time a soul card was read that contained the word rich as a way to describe a shared reading, I felt like someone had removed my skull and scraped an industrial file across my grey matter - v.e.r.y.s.l.o.w.l.y.  Every time I heard someone talk about pieces they had heard and say they were rich or amazing or powerful I wanted to climb up on someone, beat them in the face while shouting "Gawddammit.  You're a writer.  Can't you find some other words?"

I found my  attention wavered during readarounds that lasted more than an hour and took to doodling in my notebook to compensate.  I have always been a doodler, but the last two semesters have seen some kind of marginally bound explosion of doodles.  I chastised myself for being such a poor component of the circle.  I stopped doing read back lines and blamed my introverted nature.  Which is kinda true, but not wholly to blame.  I pretty much stepped back from the circle as far as I could without stepping out.  And I faulted myself as the weak link.  This circle that other women cherish deeply, that I had cherished deeply, just felt like pinchy saddle shoes and I wanted out.

The thing that kept me in was small group, which is the work horse.  It is the place where MY writing was addressed, where other people's writing was laid bare and tinkered with.  It is a place of close association and it seemed I had finally landed in small groups that did not have the one person no one else could stand in them.  There is no screening, so everyone is welcome.  As a result I had done semesters with a seriously psychotic women, with someone who took passive aggressive behavior to a new all time high, with a mostly deaf 94 year old woman, with someone who wrote nothing but talked about her problems.  I had finally busted out of that pattern and things got amazing pretty quickly.  They remain amazing still and any second thoughts I have about this decision are based on the love for my small group members over the last couple years.

This year, I finally saw how bad it had gotten.  I never really bonded with the new member of my small group who was an amazing writer and it is my loss not to have done so.  I just kinda showed up and went through the motions.  I feel like I shortchanged the circle and, more importantly, I was shortchanging myself by insisting on continuing in the face of all those indications to step out.  The circle of WWfaC no longer contained me, it fenced me in with its lingo, with its rules, with its need for pretty (my perception here - but there is a leaning toward the pretty truth in the circle instead of the raw vulnerable truth).  There was nothing to do but opt out and see how things went without the crutch of the circle.  Would I write more?  Would I write at all?  Would I just walk away from writing?  All of those behaviors are in my MO.

So, what comes next?  I don't know.  I want to run back to the circle and fall back into the familiar.  But I know that it would just lead to more of the same.  I will miss them when they start back up in January and my chair is occupied by someone else.  But it will be OK.  I don't think this is forever, although I don't know that for truth.  And if it is, I am OK with that too.  Whatever is coming next clearly needs me not to be there, not to be snugged up in the nest but out testing my wings.

I know the nest will always be there.  This semester has to be about flying.