The Landscape of Writing
I’ve thought
before that sometimes blogging can present a perfect world. We gush about the things we love, the people
we care about, the things we are learning, new Spiritual insights etc. It isn’t
necessarily the intention of the writer to present things as perfect but it can
be interpreted as ‘all good’ and even stir up jealousy. It’s hard to be vulnerable in writing (or in
life for that matter) and I’ve heard an author say that there is a fine line
between honesty and privacy.
I don’t know
about you but when I read blogs, I read between the lines. I know that what I’m reading is simply a
glimpse, a snapshot into someone’s world.
It’s not the whole picture and on some level you have to take what they
are saying as what they are willing/able to share. Some things are meant for the ears of trusted
friends-which isn’t to say that we are allowed to be dishonest in our sharing
but that there are boundaries for things we put out in public. For readers I suppose there is a fine
line between judgment and insight.
The other
thing I think about it is that when words are written, sometimes they sound
beautiful simply because they are written.
Writing tends to zoom in and even create perspective. For example I could tell you that today my
mother-in-law took all my ladies to a concert.
I could tell you that while my kids were gone, supper was made and a
friend stopped by with freshly baked cinnamon buns. Sitting down and enjoying a cup of coffee with
a cinnamon bun while the sunlight penetrated though the window was incredible! I
could tell you that my husband was in his office for the morning and back for
supplies shortly after he left and that it makes my heart warm when he is
around. These things sound amazing-and
really they are amazing. Putting it into
words sometimes makes even me, the one who experienced these things, see them in
a different light.
I could leave you, the reader, with this
picture of pleasant gifts and trust that you know this is not my ‘everyday’ but
my today. However, I could go on and tell you that sometimes
when I write about good gifts like these, in my heart I struggle with wanting to
be defensive about the break I am having from my children. I want to qualify to the world that mostly I
am home with my children all day because I home school. I want
you to know that the concert started a noon so you don’t think my kids were
gone at dawn. Part of me may want to
clarify that just because Dan was home this morning, doesn’t mean I get to see
him or have his attention like I want it. I might want to hide the fact that
although the concert was a noon concert, my girls didn’t get home till 4:30.
So if I
present the first perspective of all the sweet gifts I received today, would the
reader know all the other things? Does the
reader need to know? These thoughts
show me a whole new level of gratitude that I am missing in my life. They zoom in on something that I could choose
to write about or leave for my own contemplation.
So here, I
go, zooming in further just to show you that the lens can focus closer even if it
makes me squirm. If I have these good
things, why do I feel defensive? Because
deep down I want people to recognize the things about my life that I think are
hard? Is it that I appreciate the good
things I was given today but that part of me is not fully thankful-there is a ‘but’
in the thankfulness-almost a mistrust of the gifts God has given instead of a
humbled, in awe of His tenderness, fully abandoned of self, gratitude? Sometimes writing exposes more for the writer
than for the reader!
I want you
to know that I AM grateful for the gifts God gives me. I am not saying that I am not. What I am saying is that the contentedness
does not always go deep down even when there is gratitude. I
could stop at all the beautiful (or what I recognize as beautiful because all
of the hard stuff is truly beautiful too-that’s a whole other blog post!) and
leave it there and still be being honest and trust the reader to know that life
isn’t all roses. The other choice is
keep writing and expose a bit of my soul.
Does that make me more honest? I
don’t think so-it broadens the lens and opens up a bit more of the landscape
but that is a choice not a requirement.
So I think what it comes down to is the perspective of
both the reader and writer. Writers have
to keep in mind how they present things and readers have to keep in mind that
the lens of words cannot expose everything all at once. Words paint pictures, some of them are black
and white, and some of them are full color. Some of them are zoomed in; some of
them are zoomed out. Sometimes, you
might have to guess what is in the surrounding landscape and sometimes the
author displays it.