A moment at the kitchen table

The Boy came home tonight with a Reflection Log as homework. Once a week, they need to write five sentences about something in their lives. I talked about the blog. Told him that my blog is where I reflect on the world around me (usually in more than five sentences.) For example, yesterday I blogged about our lunch together, this made him smile. The Man explained about his journal -- he's more old school about it. Pen and paper. Nobody reads it. Nobody at all.

The Man has just explained that he doesn't think when he writes in his journal. Or rather he doesn't think about writing. It's not supposed to be perfect, he said. But a blog is a more public forum. I am guilty of tweaking and tweaking posts, fussing and futzing. I may not preen in real life but I am guilty of suffering from a bad case of "mot juste". Sometimes I don't find it. Sometimes it's in French. Then I look for a translation. It usually doesn't work either. Then, I swear at myself and begin again. Overthinking is not where great writing lives anyway.

I've had this quote from Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercy stuck in my head for a few weeks.

"I've been where you're hanging I think I can see how your pinned.
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned."

Cohen is brilliant -- to write like that. This line describes my writing process. I get pinned. The words they torment. (Although in reality the song relates more to a friend who is having a really rough time.) But I write, and well, in reality the words come from the quiet. I can't write with the television. I can't write with too much happening around me. I write in the quiet. I have to able to tap into the silence. It's almost like the words live there, and I have to tap in to find them. Like the way you can get disoriented in woods. I need to still my mind. Turn it off and let if go. Shhhhhhhhhhh.... where did they go? Where have you been. Sometimes it's brilliant and all the colour of the rainbow. Other times, they are harsh and disjointed (like this.) It's like the ideas can't find their shapes in the words.

The Boy finished his entry 30 minutes ago. He wrote about his new room and why he likes it. Maybe he's onto something...

Comments

[Selma]

I don't think this post is harsh and disjointed at all. I would like to say 'au contraire' except that I speak French very badly and will probably mess it up. Instead I would like to say that there is an element of the words we string together being pinned like butterflies under glass, but sometimes that process of being pinned ends up making perfect sense. Just as you have today. Oh, and what a beautiful shot by the water!

[sue]

Lovely...

[XUP]

Are they grooming a future generation of bloggers at that school?? I have much the same process as you sometimes when blogging. Sometimes it's very easy and it all just gets to the page in a matter of minutes; sometimes I have to finesse and craft it. (And I agree about Cohen -- brilliant)

[Chris]

I remember when I used to do my journaling using plain old Word Document. Nobody ever knew about it and it just sat there inside a folder called Oblivion. Of course when we blog,there's an awareness that we are at this time inviting others in on our thoughts. Although, I know for sure that there were things I wrote locally that I wouldn't dare write online. Or at least, just like you... I would first do some tweaking and fussing and futzing around. And add a nice photo. But hey, it's what makes it fun.

[Kevin Spencer]

An amazing photo. Nicely done.