Multitudes I Am

When everyone is looking and no one is

At Growing Home, we listen to our pain, its echoes, the silence of after It happened—whatever It may be.

If you have a Before and an After, an It you are trying to understand—I invite you to take a seat with us.

WELCOME

to a sanctuary for those who suffer

If you don’t recall

How to Practice Free Writing—

let me tell you:

1. Set a timer for five minutes.

2. Write something.

3. Do not stop writing, until the time is up.

These are the only rules.

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Preparing to teach high school juniors and seniors,¹ I remind myself: keep it simple.

Which always leads to the complex.

Asking myself: where am I here?

The question I’m asking, for that first (full) week of school—

The question upon which we could spend all year

and never, fully, answer—

The question my students must consider

before they open their textbooks, create their accounts,

as they write their names,

to learn free writing:

I don’t know about you, but I could spend a stupid amount of time here. I am always changing. You too? It’s a little like that quantum phenomenon: a particle behaves differently when observed. As soon as I put the first words on the page to trap who I am, I am changed. A different person. A new me.

And then, of course, there’s the consideration of who I used to be. So many selves. So many lives, lived. These selves are even more slippery when considering experiences, especially the traumatic. I often feel as if I am no longer whole, that part of me, an actual piece, pieces, are gone. To the other side.

And, that consideration: who will I be?

I am multitudes.

Who am I?

So many angles to consider, all of them dynamic.

There’s the element of Time but, also, of nomenclature. What is the story of my name? What is the story of my name? What does it say about me? Does it define me? Does it define me well? Would I change it, if I could, and to what? Have I changed it? To what effect?

Not to mention the angles of

• appearance

• thoughts and feelings

• social labels

• fears and dreams

• beliefs

I wouldn’t pose it to high school students, but with past/present/future and these other angles in mind, a more helpful question might be:

Could I name the places I have been? will be? Could I gather these places which hold these personal pieces together to form a composite: Me—?

But, I remember, for you and me and my students: keep it simple. (Stupid!²)

What I want us to consider:

If we write with honesty about ourselves, who might we discover?

If we get down to it, and write through all those distracting angles I’ve enumerated, what would we come up with? Free writing is about freedom. When we write freely, which is to say truthfully, about ourselves, we write everything down: who we were, might be, will be, the good and the bad, ugly as well as beautiful. The person we are when no one is watching. But not just in the sense of integrity.

Because—we are this person, when everyone is looking and when no one is.

Dichotomous person
our constant companion
walking and talking
with us always,
and in these motions
passes
from one form
to another--
who are they?

I’ll ask again:

The things I hide behind, sometimes.

Try it.

I challenge you: free write about who you are until you are free.

You don’t have to share the results; that’s for you, the you you always are. But, you might share what this experience was like? what you think and feel now, before you start?

I’m wondering: what are you afraid of?

Talk to you soon.

Take care.

CJS

PS—if you don’t read footnotes, you’re missing out—but I’ll tell you anyway: I got the job. (Read on for details.)

1. At a private school this fall, I’ll teach two classes: ‘British Literature, from AD 54 to Today,’ as well as ‘Basics of Digital Publication,’ wherein I’ll guide my students through one of my favorite pastimes: blogging on Substack.

Which means you’ll probably be reading more of me rather than less.

How crazy cool, this life. Find me over the moon!

2. Ever heard of KISS? A favorite (acronym) of mine. Very useful. Endearing. One I could use, all the time.