Garden of Words · 1:27am Apr 26th, 2019
I have a secret.
As much as I enjoy writing stories, or spinning poems to use pretty words to talk about things I can't speak of, I really enjoy creative non-fiction. That was one of the topics I loved writing about in my creative writing class, but always had a hard time with. Creative non-fiction always felt like I was oversharing. That I didn't have the safety of metaphor to obfuscate my words and feelings like I did in poetry. That I didn't have the excuse of 'oh, it was just a silly idea that popped into my head' that I had with fiction. Creative non-fiction sort of required me to just... put myself out there. And that's sort of a scary prospect most days.
Not because I don't have things to say. I have a rather beautiful garden of words about the world and what I see in it, but it always felt like I was trying to show my pretty discoveries to an uninterested parent. To a world that would pat me on the head, tell me that 'that's nice dear', and then hope that I toddle off to my next misadventure. So I let brambles grow up between me, the world, and my garden of words.
Have you ever seen wild blackberries growing out between rocks? There's a beautiful walk that is about a couple hundred feet from my house that runs along the Columbia river. I always like taking walks along that trail. It's starting to get into spring here (late, I know, but higher latitudes), so everything is starting to bloom finally. We have this local plant called a marionberry that people like growing to make pies, but really, the plant that grows the most out here is the Pacific Blackberry. They grow wild, creating this choking mess in some areas of the peninsula where I live, making me think of the mythical 'Hedge' from Changeling the Lost. I could easily imagine that if you crawled through the arching branches in the rare spots where it sort of opens to let you in, you might end up somewhere magical and mysterious, and possibly dangerous.
I love watching the shoots of blackberries grow up between the rocks that make up the seawall. Every year, the county comes and cuts them back, but every year, the plants find new places to send out shoots. I like to think that blackberry bushes guard the edges to my garden of words in my head. I try to tempt people in with sweet-tart morsels, in hopes that they'll want to venture in and see what else I have to offer.
There are times that I think I take too much time to slow down and notice things. One of my favourite things to do while walking the river, is listen to neoclassical piano music, and just... watch. I got to see a bald eagle today. He soared over my head, being chased by a pair of terns who weren't too happy with having a big predatory bird near their nest. But it was a gorgeous sight. I always like watching the eagles, the hawks, the gulls, and the cormorants that live near the Columbia. They are always looking for a fish to eat along the brackish, salt-scented waters along the Desdemona sands portion of the mouth of the river. If I'm lucky, I get to see otters or seals swimming out in the constantly shifting waters. Today there was a brisk wind, and the waves were slightly white capped. I figured it was probably a rough ride for the fishing boat that made its way back toward Astoria.
My walk sort of ends at a small park. I've always found this part to be a sad place. And it's that sadness that I try to keep hemmed in and carefully guarded in my garden of words. Because I have a hard time expressing why I find it so tragic to have a park that is in sight distance of a lumber yard. Several of the trees at the edge of the park have been cut down, lot even really hiding the yard from view. There's this beautiful piece of nature, then... a reminder that mankind is kinda clumsy with what it has. Not that I want the yard to close. Those are good jobs that the people out here need. The juxtaposition is just... it hurts on a level that is hard to describe.
A lot of things are like that for me. I never know how to tell people "I find this thing to be pretty!" when the simple act of trying to describe it makes me choke up and nearly makes me cry. And in some cases, just talking about something I've found to be pretty has made me cry. And I'm left here sobbing in front of an orchid in my garden of words, unable to explain why it hurts. There's usually a reason behind it, of course. It's... getting that reason out.
Which is one of the reasons why I envy several of my friends that are able to express themselves. Even when they're talking about things like their struggles, they're able to speak at length about how things make them happy. Make them sad. Make them cry. Or make them laugh! And that's so very beautiful. It's also why I really don't mind my role in my group of friends as a secret keeper. Because it lets me have these lovely moments with friends, and I can hang onto the hard ones for them for as long as they need me to. It's my way of being able to say 'I care about you so much' without saying those words.
Because I have a hard time saying those words. They get lost in the blackberry brambles.
In some ways, I suppose it's selfish that I'm keeping my garden of words to myself. And... I really try not to. But, there's that voice in the back of my head that says 'don't bother people with such things.' Because sometimes I feel the things I think and feel are probably silly. Silly or naive. That I need to grow up and accept that life isn't the way I think it should be, and that maybe there's less magic in the world than I'd like. And... that makes me morose to contemplate.
Because, to me, it means that a lot of the beautiful, wonderful things in the world aren't seen or noticed. That people aren't seeing the loveliness in watching people quietly support each other when things are hard. That kindness isn't considered a good thing anymore. And possibly, maybe, I'm the silly, childish one that cries because she cares too much. And maybe I do. Maybe the hurt I feel when I am feeling for someone else is... something I don't need to do. But I can't not. It's... I don't know how to not put myself in someone else's shoes.
That's probably why I loved the idea of things like Newtypes from shows like Gundam. The idea of the human race, evolving to match the harshness of life in space, evolving abilities that allow us to communicate across the vast distances between worlds. Not with words. Not with technology, but with feelings. The saddest thing is that, in my heart, I know that if such a thing were to happen, those humans would probably be destroyed, as the rest of humanity couldn't stand to allow something so pretty to survive. Because being with someone who understands you more deeply than you understand yourself is... frightening to a lot of people. Despite how much it might be able to make the world a better place. Despite how being able to truly feel what others are experiencing would likely make us a much more careful and gentle species.
But...these ideas feel like the naive hopes of a child who still wants to see the good in people. And, in spite of all the disappointments, tries to find some kindness in and for everyone. Even if that requires often hiding in a garden of words behind blackberry brambles, hoping that, sometimes, people don't mind if she emerges and asks if they'd like to be shown around.
I want to hug this post.
*hugs tight*
I'm not thinking of something that really seems adequate to respond with, but thank you for writing; you painted some nice pictures with the descriptions in the first part, I think.
Ah, and since it seems to be the thing here:
[hugs, if you like]
:)
Is it ironic that I don't know how to express how this blog post makes me feel? It's like this distant otherness, a morose disconnect of myself from standard emotions. Melancholy is probably the word I want, but doesn't feel substantial enough. Having time to contemplate can do this to you. Over time, you begin to see so much in so fine a detail that it all sort of swallows itself up within its own enormity and you feel uncomfortably empty, like you missed out on something important. It's a strange kind of hurt, and I don't know why it happens other than to say that we let it happen. Humans are just weird like that, I guess. Or some of us are just built with different pieces.
I want to hug the smol pone and tell her everything will be alright. The words you've written have painted a vivid picture.
I get an intriguing visualisation of this, something that I wish I were an animator for. To see that facial expression as it becomes enveloped and spun around by those words and feelings, leaving a skin-tight wrapping of a different person that anyone who didn't see the beginning couldn't tell was a mask.
As always, your blogs bring up a lot to think about, and to unpack and process. I’m not one to necessarily think that magic as it is depicted in stories does exist and is ignored like how it is in the Last Unicorn, but I am depressed by instances when I realise that I miss a lot of things that are around me (beautiful or not), and I do know there is a whole lot more that I don’t even know I’m not seeing (although I’m just referring to those things that a Human’s perceptive organs would be capable of perceiving at all, not micro/macroscopic things or the holistic metaphysical)
That is definitely a magic, I feel. That intangible magic.
And this makes me think about Littlepip’s conflict with ‘corrupted Kindness’. I certainly don’t know when I’m actually supporting and when I’m coddling.
Something I have heard a lot is along the lines of ‘if you’re overwhelmed, you need to know your limits and just accept that you can’t be expected to exceed them, even though you will be expected to’. But at the same time there is always the 'Do Better' and 'why shouldn't I try to improve at least in the way that I perceive as an improvement?'.
That makes me think of this video about x-men if they existed in real life
It reasons that such superior Humans would actually dominate civilisations despite their minuscule population, and it does seem reasonable, but I see too that it makes assumptions about the mental nature of a superior Homo Sapiens. The video works on the convention that mutants are people with ‘normal’ Human mentalities and Human nature but with these highly exploitable abilities for the purpose of exerting force upon others, but if a Homo Superior turned out to be more along the lines as you conceptualise them- more understanding and intuitive, I can see more that they would be less likely the oppressors than be the oppressed. Real Homo Superiors’ powers wouldn’t (probably wouldn’t?) emerge based on their dramatic impact on the cityscape.
I flip flop often between cynical pragmatic perceptions of Human nature as hopeless predictable cycles, and an optimistic wishful one of what we could make of ourselves. Unfortunately I wouldn't defend my optimistic position against those denouncing.
And I do welcome the tour, because I have such trouble appreciating the good things even when I manage to perceive them by my own ability.
Thank you again, Heartshine.
This is not something you have any right to envy other people for.
I'd show this post to other people as an example of how to speak at length about how things make them happy.
I have really a lot to say on this topic, which I'm going to have to write eventually anyway... but not sure if you want a lecture in your comments.
People are, on average, average. That also applies to being good and bad, kind and unkind. The meanings of "good" and "bad" to humans are measured on the human scale. So humans are, on average, neither good nor bad, but average. If, instead, you follow Plato, and use a scale where "good" means "entirely selfless at all times" and "bad" means "anything less than that", then, yes, humans are bad by that standard.
(Except that that level of selflessness would turn out not to be good at all, but positively evil, leading to the destruction of everything we value about humanity.)
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Did you ever end up writing on the topic you said you didn't want to lecture me about? I... should probably check your blogs but I didn't see anything that felt like you'd quite covered it, and... I've been fascinated by that somewhat cryptic comment.
5112405 I haven't posted anything on it, but several essays in The Worst of Bad Horse address it, esp. the afterwords to "Fraud!" and "Alicorn Cider", and "You Versus the Universe".
The first explains the religious versus the scientific understandings of how words mean, and argues that the word "magic" has no meaning of its own--that it is a word like "God", used not to denote something, but to set boundaries to human understanding, because of the expectation that a mechanistic explanation of, say, love, or happiness, would somehow rob it of its value.
The afterword to "Alicorn Cider" explains that this expectation stems from Platonist philosophy, which teaches that the physical world is degraded and value must be derived from a transcendental world, not from the material world.
"You Versus the Universe" shows that people are mechanisms, but are much, much more complicated mechanisms than they think--so much so that a single human is more complicated and difficult to understand than the entire universe of non-living things, and that the number of events that occur inside one human during one human lifespan is far greater than the number of astronomical events that have taken place or will take place in the universe. This is why the religious belief that mechanistic explanations would dissolve our values is itself claiming to understand something that is beyond human understanding--that the incomprehensible complexity of the human mind and body provides all the mystery we'll ever need.
There is some more on the subject in the afterword to "Game of Immortals", trying to explain why religious people think that concepts like "God", "life", and "magic" are necessary, and why discussions between rationalists (philosophers, religious believers, and mathematicians) and empiricists (e.g., scientists) are so unproductive.
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Is your book on Lulu? Cause I'd love to order it!
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Thanks! It isn't--actually I don't know why; I'll have to ask RBDash47. It will be on Ponyfeather Press' website, but isn't right now because I'm revising it, to connect the essays to each other better, and make them easier to understand.
When I walk along the Pacific coast thousands of kilometers from Oregon. Every time I think about you. And I probably understand too well what you mean.