November 26, 2003
Trapped and Threadbare
When I was about nine or ten I used to carry around a trapper keeper as a sort of journal. At that point I was not writing journals so much as short stories, so there would be a couple of pages of this or of that, all in this horrific trapper keeper with a pink car on the cover. It was very California and I always felt silly carrying it around when there was snow on the ground, like I thought the palm trees on the binder were going to match my surroundings.
At the same time the trapper keeper made me feel grown up. I carried papers with me when everyone else had coloring books. I did not climb around outside people's windows because I never was that outrageous, but I took myself and my writing as seriously as Harriet the spy.
People knew that I wanted to be a writer and I would write in my spare time, but no one ever read what I wrote then. It was not until I was in a summer school Creative writing class (not this past summer, it was about a year after the trapper keeper purchase) that anyone that was not a teacher read my writing.
Even when I did not write in journals, my short stories were chiefly cathartic in nature. I wrote about my closest friendship and how it was complicated by one person feeling affectionate towards the other and the lack of reciprocation. It was mostly a dialogue, where the girl was trying to explain how she really did care about the guy, just not in the way he wanted. I showed it to a friend in my summer stock theater class and she started to cry.
Now I have learned that showing other people my writing can bite me in the ass. There is the whole issue with me not receiving praise well and not accepting criticism as well as I should if I really want to improve, but even more than that is the fact that lately I have been told what I can and cannot write. It pisses me off; one of my most basic reflexes is being criticized. Writing and reflecting is not exactly like breathing, but it is not far off from taking a shit, I guess.
Sometimes a girl just has to go.
For some insane reason I am giving in and following the instructions that someone else has given me. As would it would be anticipated, it makes me miserable as I feel the last threads of disintegrating reigns slip from my grasp. I am hoping I just need to become threadbare, see the light through the fabric sheltering me, then break through it to finally come out to another place.
But for now I feel like I am shivering.
I bought a new coat, scarf, and hat today. I quite enjoy them, I feel more sophisticated (rolls eyes) and generally grown up. When I have to go into a night where I feel 'childish', it is nice to be outfitted in a contrasting costume.
Less happily, it reminded me of the short story "The Overcoat", where the guy suddenly earns attention when he gets a fantastic overcoat. He has to starve and pinch pennies to get it, then when he has only had it for a few days he gets rolled and ends up dying.
Love,
Mandy