Tuesday, July 9, 2019

I've found myself slipping into melancholy over the past couple of days. Nothing's wrong (other than climate change, humiliating governance, children in cruel custody): only, I think, I'm aware of myself as small. Small is not a bad feeling; in so many ways it's how I experience wonder in the world . . . the natural world, of course--trees, mountains, ocean, sky--but also the world of books. I think it's why I'm so driven to copy out Dante and Milton, to reread Woolf and Murdoch and Bronte: I crave the sense of being enveloped, overwhelmed, subsumed into something greater than myself.

But small has pettier associations--as in overlooked by peers; as in not winning a prize; as in having few readers--that recall the chafing power of a fickle sixth-grade popular girl: "Today you're my friend!" "Today you're not my friend!" This is the kind of small that your mother stoutly tells you doesn't matter, but that you, standing alone at recess, experience as the cold shoulder of the universe.

It's not possible, really, to shed that self-flagellating loneliness. Probably Bob Dylan still feels awkward, overlooked, forgotten. Probably he worries that his pants make him look fat. Or that deep down inside people love Keith Richard more than they love him. Or that he doesn't know how to talk to his grandchildren the way their grandmother does.

Sometimes I wonder if my life, writing and otherwise, would be better or worse if I were more go-get-em, less shy and flustered. Is my constant sense of humbleness the best or worst coat in the closet?

6 comments:

Carlene Gadapee said...

Wow, Dawn, you've nailed that feeling exactly. It is awkward. Always. I wonder if it's something hard-wired in some of us, or if it's been conditioned into us, like a slow accretion of somewhat undefined anxiety blended with a desire for approval? I call it feeling emotionally left-footed. Thanks for speaking to it--sometimes (okay, always?!) it feels like one is the ONLY one who feels that way...

Dawn Potter said...

I felt like this was a really self-indulgent post, and had been considering a rewrite, or at least an addendum. But now that you've left your comment, I'm less irritated at myself for voicing my doubts. I think a desire for approval does, to a degree, encourage us to live civilly among others, but it also presses us to keep cramming stuff into a hole that can't ever be filled.

David (n of 49) said...

Nothing self indulgent about the post. It takes guts to be that kind of honest. You do it time and time again: here, in your poems, at Frost Place. And as Carlene just said, it makes the rest of us feel less odd or weird or isolate. "Nailed that feeling exactly": so please don't change a word.

Daniel said...

Dear eager heart,
I love this post and second Carlene's and David's comments. That "you do it time and time again" is why everyday I look forward to reading your blog.

David (n of 49) said...

"eager heart" : so perfect.

Dawn Potter said...

Thank you, everyone!