I was mistaken.
It would have been that kind of a day, if I had only stuck to my initial plan to clean out my closet. I tend not to do that very often because I seldom fill it with anything new, so what is the point?
I am, what I consider to be, a very low-maintenance woman.
I don't follow fashion with any reliable interest; I don't color my hair and I wear it long, thereby eliminating routine bondage to hair salons; and as an artist, I work with my hands, which are predictably nicked and bruised from working with metals, have an uneven but curiously provocative assortment of broken nails and whose nail beds are often displaying the faded remnants of whatever inks or paints I exposed them to that day; so I don't get manicures. In fact, I've never even had one.
But I made a strategic misstep yesterday as I was eyeing the over-sized, faded blue shirt I often wear to work in, trying to decide if I was woman enough to let go of the years of comfort I felt being artsy in the thing and get rid of it: I checked my laptop for Open Salon updates.
When will I learn to stay on track?
It was there that I learned from Joan H., another writer on OS, that my post from yesterday had been selected as an Editor's Pick! I was beyond ecstatic! It had been a long-awaited moment (try fifty-four years!) for this kind of validation and was so incredibly freeing that my soul said to me, "It's okay. You can cry now." And so I did. Obviously, tears of great joy.
I had been told by many of the contributors that my rise in popularity and rankings on OS within such a short span was fairly impressive; that it can take writers eight months to a year before they get much notice at all from other writers and that most of them never find themselves chosen by the Open Salon editorial staff for the homepage as an Editor's Pick. To have become noticed and favored with EP within a mere three weeks was no mean feat, or so I heard.
That is all well and good, but my satisfaction comes at being recognized and valued for my writing efforts; plain and simple. To have worked hard and earned the respect of other writers who have held the bar high is like being reborn....in an intellectual's body.
However, my free-fall into bliss was significantly tempered by my next move, which was to read all the comments following the post. All but two were happily supportive and encouraging and that should have been enough to provide me with an escape from the sodden knot of concern as it slowly lodged itself in the middle of my throat after I read the couple comments that were not as forgiving nor as favorable. I think it was because I really didn't see it coming. Not in the slightest way, so it hit me hard; like being sucker-punched by your favorite cousin. But then again, they were attacking the content of my post; not the writing. I was good.
Still, it was upsetting because that is not how I see myself; as someone who rocks the apple cart just to watch the worms fall out. I'm more the one who coaxes the worms out and then finds them all a new home in the potted geraniums. It is important to me that everyone is happy. At least on my watch.
But as much as I felt a bit stunned and, certainly, wounded to a degree; as the day wore on, those feelings had melded into an entirely new sensation so that, as early evening staked its claim on the hours, I felt grateful. I also felt enlightened.
I had even stepped out and debated my detractors. One was easily settled as a misunderstanding. The other, well, she just kept on coming like a feral cat at a cheese convention.
Actually, I went to this woman's page to discover that not only does she never post anything herself, but that I was the only one she was commenting on. At least until another blogger wrote about beauty pageants! Then she sharpened her claws and took off down another trail of harassment. There will always be those for whom nothing matters except being right.
Perhaps the most salient lessons for me were that: 1.) You can't please everyone, and 2.) It is much more difficult than I previously believed to convey honesty and humility when people think you have a better gig than they do.
The contentious blog had been the one written weeks ago about my experience growing up as a child/young adult of indistinct physical presence surrounded by the genetically graced beauty of my grandmother, mother and only sister. (Repost and re-edited) It was called Relative Beauty and was an attempt at understanding the role beauty played in their lives and to reconcile the childhood I knew with the emerging recognition I have gotten as I merged into my fifties. I call that gesture of superficial recognition "shallow esteem" because it is nothing I earned and has little bearing on the person I have been fitfully crafting for over five decades.
Quite honestly, I remain confounded by all of it.
Yet I have become obsessed. All that matters to me at this point is growing as a writer. As and artist? Sort of. But not really. I enjoy that gig but only in that it is another challenge. I loathe redundancy and boredom.
The ramifications could be severe in terms of how my rabid pursuit of this end impacts my personal life. But, hell, aside from being a mother to my children, (all of whom, as of August 1st, will be out of the house) my personal life leaves something to be desired. It could probably do with a good purging.
I've become quite good at that this year.
If anyone reading this would like to follow the thread of comments under the blog that ornamented one of my best and also, most interesting days, just look me up on Open Salon.
I'll be there honing my skills in anticipation of lift off.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six...........
