It’s ambiguity, Stupid.
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009There is struggle going on between me and my writing. I am doing my usual processing: allowing the facts to hit me, soak in and be understood in their own sweet time. I always know that when the path to wherever is clear, I will start typing and be off. No hesitation, no judgment no worries.
But she, my writing, has another agenda. She wants the flexibility to get on with it. She doesn’t want to wait for the clouds to part and for there to be focus, clarity and a driving structure. She wants to get dirty, wrestle with the words and see what sense they will make of themselves.
I love structure and order. I consider myself a lover of systems and process. But I have also proved that I can live with ambiguity and pace myself through change. This is the real root of the conflict between me and her. I feel as if I am in transition, one foot here and another peaking out the door to I don’t now where. I busy myself during this time with the details of living. I reason that with Chuck travelling for long stretches and the kids still turning more toward me than away, that my scatteredness is justified - no, it’s an asset. It makes me available, it requires me to be Present, in the Here and Now.
For those who like structure, order and value routine, being Here and Now is not a comfortable place. For the Here and Now is messy. It involves dealing with the emotions du jour, picking up the threads of instruction from school and weaving them into dinner preparation or plotting the next tour du Kitchener-Waterloo to gather life’s necessities. Order and routine involve planning, an understanding of motives and a grand plan to deliver a highly valued scheme - like consistent bedtime so one achieves the benefits of serotonin and can be alert at school. I like the bigger picture, but my life cannot be planned and I live in the tension between the uncertainty in my daily life and the illusion I create that I am able to order and plan. For I am not.
So my writing and I, we have tension we are trying to reconcile. It’s much like the tensions between Mommy’s Groove and the corporate head which still dwells within me. We continue to wrestle. This is our dance.