Whenever I am particularly stressed out, I listen to the monologues of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion (PHC). I find his voice to be more effect than Xanax for taking the edge off anxiety or any worry in my head. Most folks tend to think he should avoid singing which he does on each program, but I am a big fan of his voice even though his singing isn't perfect. I identify with this pretty well, too. I love (or loved) to sing, but most folks would prefer I didn't. Bizarrely, my birth mother was a singer as was my mother. I took singing lessons growing up and even sang in choir–the times I wasn't kicked out for laughing or goofing off. There's something satisfying about singing; be it vibration or deep breathing, either way, it's satisfying even if you're not very good at it. I recently read a fantastic book called, "The Mozart Effect" which basically discusses why humming, mantras, and extended vowel sounds have a healing effect upon the body. And looking back at my life, the periods of greatest happiness surrounded times of my singing, or being part of music, so I tend to think this is a pretty sound theory; plus, they have scientific data to back it up.
Listening to GKeillor talk about Lake Woebegone and his family made me think of my own. My family who is always saying, "Don't talk about this," or "Don't talk about us to other people", etc. Now, it's not like we're the Mafia, or that we are even up to anything smacking of being vaguely illegal in the least! It's a left over paranoia passed down on my mom's side for at least three generations that I know about. I guess we don't publicly like to admit to our idiocy and short comings. You'll never see any of us on the t.v. unless we were duped into it, at which point we'd pull our shirts over our heads and run blindly for the exits. So I'm always tentative about what I talk about so that I'm not discussing anything or anyone I shouldn't. To top it all off, my family always says to me, "You should be a writer!"
What, pray tell, am I to write about if the first rule in writing is 'write about what you know'? I always felt I couldn't be a published writer until after my grandmother's passing since she would get very bent out of shape by anything that wasn't exactly squeaky clean and relatively wholesome even though she knew I was neither. I've always suspected she wanted me to be like Beatrix Potter, but Beatrix Potter was already being Beatrix Potter, and last time I checked, she died an old spinster. Present day similarities aside, at least I don't dress up my animals in clothes! It was easier to be BP during the Victorian times in which she lived. No one was ever supposed to know about where babies came from in those days, and talking animals were considered cute and in the realm of the possible, not a sign you need to be put on medication.
I remember reading about the writer who wrote 'The Great Santini" and how his family wouldn't talk to him for a while for 'exposing' them. I guess it explains why Mark Twain didn't allow a portion of his works, and certainly many autobiographical parts, to be published until 100 years after his death so no one would sue him for slander or get their panties all in a bunch. AND most of his family had died before he did, sadly. It's an age old writer's conundrum I guess.
I also don't want some of the people in my life to read what I write as I tend to be opinionated and somewhat acerbic with my tongue at times. Being a 40-something, over-weight spinster, I mean single woman, I can be a bit..pissy, and I'll admit that I get a tad petty now and then when I'm tired and stressed. Okay, so I'm tired and stressed all the time! But I hate pettiness, especially my own!
For example, I've got a perfectly nice co-worker who was pregnant and kept referring to herself as 'the pregnant lady' in the way that people talk about themselves in the third person. This used to drive me crazy and makes no senses at all. It's not as if I want to be pregnant or that I am jealous; I've just got a pole up my ass. Some days it's jammed up there farther than others, and now I know why it is that we don't like to talk about ourselves, or each other, in my family–the women of my family tend towards 'pole'-ness.
I've been listening to lots of short stories lately in the myriad of audio books/podcasts I listen to regularly and so realize that there are other things to write about other than one's family. It is however, my natural inclination. I'll just have to work outside my comfort zone and there's just not a lot of places where a girl with a pole up her ass is going to feel all that comfortable.
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