May 22, 2009

Day 6 Community Support- Never a Dull Moment

I want to start by admitting a truth. I never left 12 days journal #38 at The Royal last night. I trust that you will agree I had a very good reason. I will be giving the journal to my friend Kibby, who I danced with ‘til the place closed down. The crowd was thin but this just meant more space on the dance floor. The Band was fantastic, every number was improvised and yet they never slipped into a rut. Kibby (note: not her real name, as she is ULTRA secretive...darn Sagittarius’) has known about this project from the beginning and has never written in a journal. I think it is about time.

My mother in law’s taxes took far longer than I expected. Our new “improved bandwidth” internet is super slow and kept disconnecting. By the time Chris and I were actually getting ready to go we were already running quite late. We were chatting as we hurried, I relayed a strange conversation I had had with his mother that morning. She had been reading Post Secret, the book version of a blog that was one of the inspirations for my experiment and blog. She broached the subject of the book and told me that she had a “secret”. While I wanted to know what it was, I didn’t want to know, more. I had a feeling it was not something I wanted to hold under a clause of “if you promise not to tell”. She made a few vague statements;

“It is not MY secret. Telling it will effect someone else a lot more than it does me.“

”The secret is not really bad, it is the fact that it was kept a secret that is bad.“

She obviously wanted to be free of it. I got a little more info from her: it was Chris, my husband, who would be effected most, and she worried that this would be a bad time. I have pretty strong feelings about ”the truth“, I shared them with her. There are very few situation when the truth is not the best bet. Other than the questions ”Do I look fat in this?“ or ”How old do you think I am?“, which are traps, the truth is generally the way to go. I told her there would likely not be a ”good time“ for a while yet and that it was probably best to let it out. That if for no one else she should do it for herself, to let go of the responsibility of holding this truth for someone else. I thought about it a bit more during the day and oddly, though I am usually a super sleuth, I never came up with a plausible explanation for what the secret might be. As I discussed it casually with Chris while plucking my brows, he didn’t even skip a beat in saying ”I wonder if I have a brother or sister?“. Of course! He called his mother into our room and asked her straight out. She denied it at first but then says only ”Yes“.

Chris has a sister who is 4 years older than him. After 37 years, he is no longer an only child. Chris’ mom knew very little about her, she was born of a different mother but shares a father with Chris. We drove to the show in stunned silence. I forgot the journal. I had other things on my mind.

I am off with Chris, who I have now affectionately dubbed ”Lil Bro“, to see the art of two of Nelson’s finest visual artists. Both womyn, both beautiful, both funny, both modest about their talent.

The first is Bree Prosser, at Hemp and Company, click HERE to find out where and when.
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Then off to see Kelly Shpeley at Our Glass, click HERE to find how to get there.
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I will take 12 days journal #39 to the openings. Inside it I ask ”How important is it to tell the truth?“. To be honest...I am not sure who I am going to give the journal to. I might tell and I might not!

2 comments:

  1. They say "the truth will set you free"
    So I try to tell the truth
    They say "n vino veritus"
    But I don't trust gin and vermouth, There may not even be " the Truth"
    It's all up to our senses,
    It may be best to do what Joni Mitchell said,
    and talk in present tenses.

    So much for poetry. The way I don't tell the truth is usually by omission. I don't outright lie, I just don't say what I'm thinking, mostly for self preservation or the perception thereof. And it's so hard to access. The rare occasions where the real truth has been told have been utterly freeing. Telling the truth seems to be one great thing to strive for. Werner Earhart said something like: When everything else has been said the only truth is "I love you".

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  2. I think it is very important with a few rare exceptions. Like Anthony, most often I don't tell the truth by omission, try to do the whole "if you don't have anything good to say..." adage.

    Secrets bother me. I don't mind temporary, fun ones, like if a friend confessed to me that she was pregnant but didn't want me to say anything till after she told her family, or something like that. But secrets like the one I shared about my dad. Those are so hard to keep, especially when it wasn't my secret to tell, but sometimes when it affects you and those closest to you (like my kids), it becomes a horrible burden that sits heavily on your shoulders. I can't tell you how freeing it was just to put it out there!

    The truth often reminds me just how complex life's experiences can be, how gray, how NOT cut-and-dry. It's painful sometimes, but like I said before, I think I would rather be hurt by the truth than hurt by a lie.

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