Thursday, October 25

An identifying theme

Picasso, Woman with a Mirror,
date not found on Google but I'd guess the 1950's



When three or more mouse clicks say the same thing in the same morning, that means way opens. Post about it.

Following one link to another I found this beautifully written memoir by "Alex," who can completely speak for himself:

My name is Alex. I guess an introduction is in order but I don't really know who I am. Actually Alex isn't really my legal name so even in my first words this starts to get a bit complicated.

I am a student, and if you ask any of my classmates who I am, you will probably hear that I am a 19-20 year old boy, well-read for my age, openly gay and that I am someone almost everybody likes but nobody knows. If you ask my mother, the picture may be somewhat different. I believe that she will tell you that I am a 27-year-old married mother of three.


Read the rest
. Like all good writing it will tell you about the writer and you and humans and sorrow and joy and life and make you feel that you know more about all of that because you spent five minutes in front of a computer screen, just reading.

On the fiction front I loved the Wired essay by Lore Sjöberg, Resting in Pieces. Not sci-fi, not mere alternative history, it's more a musing on roads not taken from the standpoint of someone we would not care about, had it not been written just this way. I loved the moments I spent reading it.

And then I read a comment on another blog. I won't link though the blog deserves it aw hell it's Drifty, I'll link after all since the subsequent comments are grand and respond without troll-feeding. The commenter quoted below imho does not need encouragement. The commenter called us bloggers

"wounded birds, and the psychotically and physically maimed who need to pound it out at the keys, for some relief.

Does ANYONE who blogs not have some great personal psycho/sexual/gender adversity to overcome that I don't have to hear about?

Is there NO one out there, that's just normal?


Why sure there is, commenter, and you can find them by doing a google blog search for "kittens," "my cute baby nephew," or "cookie recipe."

One can write well about those things, but really: hold up any novel or memoir or political tract worth reading and there on the title page is a word "by" followed by the name of a wounded bird. And there in the pages is, we hope and pray, a bit of great personal psycho/sexual/gender adversity.

See, you can be an artist, hell you can be the blogosphere's Pablo Picasso. Or you can be a commenter who is looking for "normal" where staring at you through your screen is something so much better. Your choice.

I've posted this song before but it just seems so, well, apropos:

11 comments:

  1. Opening the eyes is hard work...

    (But it sure pays off)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome post, Blue Gal.

    Count me in as one wounded bird who's dealing with adversity: it's called the current state of our country!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Before one can have 'normal'( a subjective construct open to interpretation, at best), one must have 'acceptance'...and acceptance can be the second easiest thing in the world to grant, after forgiveness.

    Merely a matter of opening one's heart and letting go, which is why it is so rarely found in a world of vengeful suspicion and irrational fear.

    Better to be oneself then to live as the sum of some other's benchmarks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Brilliant post and love all the Picasso. Went to a great Picasso museum in Barcelona recently.

    Opening the eyes is hard work, but so necessary. And continuing to open them all the more difficult. However, for me, doing otherwise is not an option. It is just harder some days than others.

    Thanks BG.

    ReplyDelete
  5. People like me that are artistic, tortured sorts are probably inside right now creating something constructive out of our pain.

    Whereas most people in my age group and lower are now currently walking around a shopping mall.

    Therein lies the difference.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:01 AM

    BG-

    I am a proponent of the notion that The Beatles have explained everything. Here's what I mean:

    Blackbird singing
    In the dead of night.
    Take these broken wings
    and learn to fly.
    You were only waiting
    For this moment to arrive.

    Blackbird singing
    In the dead of night.
    Take these sunken eyes
    And learn to see.
    All your life
    You were only waiting
    For this moment to be free.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Awesome post blue gal. Here's a song about another wounded but beautiful soul.

    Starry Starry Night

    ReplyDelete
  8. Being normal is the state of living in fear of being found out a freak.
    Embrace your wounded freakishness,and worlds of torment vanish like straw cast upon a fire.

    ReplyDelete
  9. i'm with spartacus on this.

    that song has always talked to me.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Along the lines of "normal" that stardragon mentions, I have encountered a significant amount of
    personal psycho/sexual/gender adversity beneath the veneer of
    "kittens," "my cute baby nephew" and "cookie recipe."

    ReplyDelete
  11. Alex's story is very touching. Thanks for the post.

    ReplyDelete

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