2.5.02 – the vision statement that wasn’t

and so slithy tove returns.

what i found during this week of silence is that i am filled with a narrative that has to get out. i’m not claiming that what i have to say has value for anyone else; nor am i claiming that it doesn’t have value. all i know is that some part of me is so full of things to say. when i was a kid, i used to imagine myself as the heroine of a book and i would spend hours lost in daydream, narrating the story of me. there were times in which i embellished, added elements of the fantastic or at least gave myself better hair, but for the most part i just narrated my life as it was, as if i were trying to draw a picture of my life as i see it, almost so that i could be viewed from the outside as i see myself on the inside. it was probably good defense mechanism for the brainiac kid who always felt misunderstood and left out in school. i stopped doing this when i got older, mainly because getting caught talking to yourself in junior high school is instant social death. and then last year i was suddenly inspired to start slithy tove. i’d been reading metameat, and other blogs, and i found that reading other people’s daily journals was causing me to slip back into my habit of narrating the events of my life in my head (i tried not to be the crazy lady on the MUNI mumbling aloud to herself). and so slithy tove was born.

last week i kind of burned myself out with those last two big posts. the ferocity, variety, and sheer volume of responses that i received kind of overwhelmed me, and it was sort of like getting caught talking to myself again, only this time everyone had strong feelings about what i had to say. ironically, it was only two weeks ago that an english prof emailed me and asked me to talk about what my vision for slithy tove is for an article he was writing. i told him i had no vision statement because the vision for slithy tove changes daily. slithy tove was my creative space to say whatever was on my mind, to be funny, or self-absorbed or whiny, to contradict myself if i felt contradictory, to wax poetic or share a vision of whatever weird thing i’ve encountered that day. above all else, it was a space that was mine.

i used to think it’d want to be a writer when i grow up, but i steered away from it eventually because i have this intense fear of The Blank Page. i suffer intense performance anxieties when it comes to being creative. never mind inventing stories on demand, i used to hide during mic check in the theatre for fear that someone would put the mic in my hand and ask me just to talk while they fiddled with sound levels. my voice would stick in my throat and my mind would become this panicked blank white wall. with artistic endeavors there was always this pressure: what if i can’t create? what if i have nothing to say? it terrorized me. in college i studied directing, and the same fear plagued me. i loved directing, i loved the collaborative nature of the work, loved the discovery and learning process, but i was terrified that i had no artistic inspiration. i still feel that looming fear, and it’s probably why i’m pursuing a career as a stage manager right now rather than as a director. but for some reason, slithy tove was different. i felt responsible to no one but myself. i knew i had readers, but i didn’t feel responsible to give them anything in particular. in that the internet is a pull- rather than a push-model of information dissemination, my thoughts were out there for anyone to read, but i wasn’t forcing them on anyone. i didn’t feel pressured to write things to please anyone, so that i could finally start to write things that pleased me. there was no fear of The Blank Page because i didn’t feel i was being judged for the quality of my creative inspiration. i was writing slithy tove for me. i have often used slithy tove as a sort of personal therapy session, for talking out things about my life that don’t really make sense until i take the time to write them out. and sure, it was fun to get email from people, particularly since it was usually flattering or funny.

i realize now that i’ve been laboring under the misapprehension that i don’t have to be responsible for what i say here. slithy tove is mine to use however i please, but that doesn’t mean that i can say things w/out regard for who might be reading it any more than i could walk into a room and start spewing opinions without regard for who might be around to hear them.

in writing slithy tove, i’m learning how to be true to myself, to examine my nature and my actions with ruthless scrutiny. i’m not advocating the sort of pathological honesty in which people’s feelings are disregarded for the sake of Truth, but i have been using my blog as a tool for being honest with myself. one of the things that constantly amazes me about the friends in my life is how wonderfully different all of them are from one another and from me. and in that none of us are the same, i am realizing that i will never be able to please everyone, no matter how far i stretch myself. i don’t like hurting people and i don’t do it intentionally, but i will never be a good friend to anyone if i don’t understand myself. getting to know me isn’t an easy process, but i think it’s a significant journey. the other day i wrote “i’m in my twenties. figuring out what constitutes The Good Life is supposed to be a hobby.” i came out sounding glib, but i actually mean that. i think i somehow expected that after i finished college, my fairy godmother would wave her wand and poof! i’d turn into a Grownup. it turns out that it’s much harder than i thought. so to those of you who still read slithy tove, you are welcome to come along on the ride. besides, who else will i tell about the bizarre bowling injury i sustained in canada last week, or how i nearly lost my eyelashes in a cornbread-baking incident at work?

incidentally, slithy tove will be a year old on saturday. i went back and looked at the first entry. it said, “the impetus: the human need to express, connect, explain.”