Misc. thoughts before leaving the country

This break has been an interesting one.  After taking a beautiful 27-hour train ride from Eugene to Los Angeles with Carol, spending a couple sunny and tumultuous weeks in San Diego and the last few days in New Jersey, I feel like I have been on a number of adventures already and I haven’t even left the states. 

Right now I am on the 4^th floor of Cousin Chris’ brownstone (or maybe brickstone because it’s made of bricks) in Jersey City, New Jersey.  It is so different than anything I am used to.  Each floor is a small rectangle with the kitchen on the first, living room on the second, bedrooms on the third and fourth and a basement below.  In the kitchen you feel close the hubbub of the street but climb the stairs a floor or two and you can escape above it.  In San Diego people just put a fence up around their house and line it with big trees but this works just as well.  It has been nice stopping off on the east coast to visit relatives before I head off to Denmark tonight.  Chris and Colleen are beautiful, loving parents and their son Finnian is an adorable fiery four year old.  He reminds me of my sister at that age, intelligent, creative, and slightly sinister.  It must have something to do with getting the mature attention of two parents as an only child.

Being around Finn makes me realize that being a good parent takes constant vigilance.  You have to set boundaries and make sure you respond to behavior in the same way so that the child feels secure.  Consistency is very important but just imagine how hard it is for a parent to work all day and come home to a tantrum and be expected to respond calmly and consistently.  Not only that, but getting parents on the same page can be hard too.  When one parent says no the other might say yes and I can only imagine what this does to a child. It doesn’t make me give up hope on raising children but it does make me fully appreciate the labor of love that it is.  It also makes me appreciate more fully what a wonderful father my Dad was.  He always made me feel loved and cared for even when he was upset with me.  That is a skill that I hope to hone.  It is only now, looking back that I appreciate how wonderful and “worth it” he made me feel.

 I think it is important for me to remember why I created this blog. I was dealing with the grief of my Dad’s death and I wanted an outlet for it. I had this blog on private because it wasn’t meant for the world. It was meant to keep a few close people clued into my life and it was meant for me. I think this is a good thing for me even if it is hard because writing is hard and I know that. Committing to at least one post a week will create a sense of obligation that will hopefully help me grow as a writer and allow me to continue to develop my own voice. I feel like a monkey sometimes when I sit down to write. It feels so self-indulgent and phony even though I try to be honest and even transcribe stuff directly from my journal so I can’t back out of saying what I really mean. I feel this way about art a lot, like there is no way to justify spending time on it. But it brings me joy (sometimes) and clarity (sometimes) and if not, I can surely count on it bringing me a sense of accomplishment.

I’ve been reading Augusten Bourroughs’ Magical Thinking and I want to be like him. Well, not completely because his interesting stories come mostly from him being bipolar, gay, and addicted to drugs. But I admire his writing style. He describes his stories in a way that fully consumes the reader. He has an amazing mind for metaphors and he is shockingly honest when it comes to his own thoughts.  I am taking notes. Sometimes his stories appall or even sicken me, like his recount of brutally killing the small white mouse in his bathtub. But I read these stories with awe for his skill as a writer and an eye for the voice I want to find in my own writing.