Old Enough

How am I only now hearing this song for the first time? I plucked it off a friend’s Facebook page. A friend who is currently in “jail,” she told me, for what seems to be a ridiculous reason. I won’t even go into it because it’s too stupid and she didn’t deserve it. Part of the song includes a refrain from another song, Wake Up Little Susie.

A tune going through my head right now: “Wake up, little story, wake up.” You’d think, after all this time, I’d have a better handle on “my story.” What if there’s no such thing, though. My story might just be a social construct someone else created to make me feel inadequate. (Ha, just kidding. Or am I?) Surely I don’t just have one story. (Stop calling me Shirley, an old friend just said, in my head.) You see, our stories are always connected to other people. My friend in Facebook jail. My old friend who made lame but still funny “Shirley” jokes. What would Karen say? (Kidding, again.) I do have a friend named Karen and we’ve never once discussed that Karen, the one who has ruined things for all the Karens. (Just google news articles about Karen, you'll see.)

I’m trusting this elusive story will eventually reveal itself. Maybe if I sit here typing for long enough, coaxing it out of its hiding place, it’ll... what, steal the show? Dance out onto the stage? Throw a tantrum? Who knows. I just wanted to post something in this blog today, that’s all. No, it’s more than that. More than a blog entry.

An older post (maybe a few of them) in the archive has recently come to my attention. I’d like to explore why these ideas are coming back to me now, in a pandemic, in a time of riotous and catastrophic events. I’ve written about James Hillman before: here (2006), here (2007), and here (2008).

I spoke to him once. To Hillman. In December 2009, I was part of an audience listening to him speak. When we were given the opportunity to ask him questions at the end, mine was concerning the meaning behind something he had written in one of his books. If you click on the link to the 2007 blog post, above, you will see the troubling words I wanted to hear him explain. When I asked my question, however, he seemed defensive and said something to the effect: I meant what I said and said what I meant. In other words, it was my fault I hadn’t grasped the meaning of what he was trying to say. Later, I found out that book in particular was one he found hard to talk about.

I recently came across this article, written in 2006. Here is where I need to get more clear on what to say. It relates to something I wrote in my other blog, Three Chairs. Need to start a new post, one that isn’t so full of links.