I used to journal. Long before I heard the word "blog," maybe before it was coined. I used to write, pen to paper, and, as a budding writer, took at face value the advice of countless teachers to let the journal be a protected place where I could say anything, fearlessly, thoughtlessly, truthlessly, guiltlessly. It was my place.
Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you
--Mae West, in "The Portable Curmudgeon", Winokur, ed.
Amen to that. However miserable I may have been with my first wife there is every reason to believe she stayed the hell out of my journals. Sometimes I think if my second wife had been as honorable I would still be in Santa Barbara.
It happened while I was away on business, the only time I've ever been away on business, the first time a job had required me to travel and footed the bill. I was in Arlington, VA, for a week long conference of the Fielding Institute, where I was working at the time in some administrative function. It was a good team and a great time and I sometimes look back wistfully at the way I screwed up that particular gig. I've certainly had my share of chances and opportunities. Makes me wonder sometimes where I get off hoping for more. But that sentence will probably get stricken as the new editorial policy of this blog takes hold and I make new the distinction between private and public, which is, of course, the theme and aim of this post.
I was in Arlington, doing well, doing good. Being good. Very much not taking advantage of the time away to play the player as some men would and as some think we should. What kind of man doesn't hit every honey pot he can? Good question. Should I feel less-than just because that's not my style? And is that a proper question for a public blog?
I was in Arlington, doing well, being good. But my wife back home wasn't doing so well and definitely wasn't being good. She tells a story about a storm and thunder that spooked the cats and a frightened cat knocking over a pile of papers which included a journal. She says the journal fell open on the floor and from there she just couldn't help herself. She read through it. There must have been plenty of unkindness about her, because when I was angry, when we would fight, I would write, vent there, not gossip with a friend or go down to the bar and give the guys an earful. I'd put it in the journal where it belonged, get the release, and get on with making things better sooner rather than later.
I was working on a manuscript dealing with molestation issues, and part of that included an episode where I was not so much molested as seduced while not yet 17. And doesn't that bring back this issue of private versus public. I've solicited that manuscript, and been asked to send it to publishers, but chickened out each time. First, it's really not ready for a publisher. But second, and most important, I am not yet fully committed to putting it out there without some kind of camouflage to protect the innocent, or at least protect myself from libel suits. Truth is a defense, sure, but you can spend a lot winning such a case. Point being, this notion of public versus private isn't a new issue for me. I've been wrestling with it for a good decade, without quite realizing it.
I was in Arlington, doing well, being good, and my wife was reading my journal. Oddly, she was not so much upset by whatever venting she read. But she was devastated to read about my sexual fantasies. One of the parts of the molestation work was a seduction, and I felt the need to write it as evocatively as possible. And when I met a particularly fetching woman I used that opportunity to practice writing as evocatively as possible. She was hot, but smoldering rather than blistering. And that is the part of my journal which, as Mae would put it, kept me. I blew a fuse on learning my wife had invaded my privacy that way, and with so little understanding of what she was doing or what she was looking at. I don't think our marriage really ever recovered from it.
Later, when that marriage was completely broken and I was pretty much broken with it, I adopted a policy of complete transparency. I have my share of skeletons in the closet, and rather than ever let myself strive for a life or position which could be demolished by a well-timed disclosure of the previously undisclosed I preferred to craft whatever life I could while letting it all hang out.
And that is changing. As mentioned in a previous post, keeping different company changes us. I have spent the past six Friday mornings with the good people at Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. While folks there might be understanding and even tolerant of my foibles, nonetheless, there is nothing to be gained by highlighting those foibles. And so I find myself wondering again about this line between public life and private life and the strange paradox that to shine in the public light one must put certain things out of the way of casual inspection.
No answers today, not even a well articulated question. And this whole thing arguably would have been just as good as a private journal entry. But I've lost that space. If it can't be said in court, in church, before the people whose respect and approval I seek, then maybe it isn't worth saying anywhere?
But I am not used to being pent so. I am not sure I can allow myself to be bottled up that way. I am not sure I can support a world view that calls for it. It is not true to my beliefs. I might have to rethink exactly what I'm doing and where I'm trying to get to, might have to accept that certain doors are closed to me because of it. That still seems better, healthier, safer than a life lived in constant fear of of having built on sand, constant fear that the beautiful structure you've built is about to come crashing down because you tried to hide something.
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