Harvesting a Life, Indeed
Weekly Reporter's Notebook: "Guiding" fear, critical feedback and discipline (the good kind).
I longed for a pen-name far before social media. And, admittedly, the allure of journalism way back in the late 90s and early aughts was that as a very shy girl, I’d have an excuse to talk to people and a way to feed my deep curiosity and enamorment with words.
The expectation was I’d just be an indistinguishable byline in between news print (RIP), and, if I was very lucky, someone would recognize my name and think: “her stories are really good” or “this touched me.”
That was the dream. The joy was — and has always been — in the reporting and writing itself.
It was selfish in a delicious (and, fortunately, respectable way). And if I was living my best life getting to talk to people, learn new things, visit new places and write about it… and people were moved by those words and stories, well that would the pinnacle of professional success.
Dot, dot, dot …
Let there be no confusion that I am suggesting social media, personal “branding” [shudder] or starting a newsletter with your name in the URL because you are still enamored with words and stories and are building a place to put them is… in any way, equivalent to or in the same ballpark of the physical and psychological pain and torment that Frida Kahlo wrestled with so powerfully in her art.
I share “The Broken Column” because I am worried for more than a decade that I picked the wrong medium from which to cultivate that particular joy in storytelling. Not because I would ever think I have the talent to create anything remotely as haunting and tender as what Kahlo has shared.
The gift and the curse of being damned and destined to a craft that lights you up and eats you alive while you are here.
I struggle with the idea of talent anyway as what this is — what I feel inside and then what I may project (but with confidence) onto some, including Kahlo, is the calling. The gift and the curse of being damned and destined to expression while you are here.
I look at “The Broken Column” and wouldn’t it be easier if I could speak without words, present images without a byline. Looking at what Kahlo evokes about herself and her own story in this particular image is something I return to again and again and again.
But the absurdity of it is that Kahlo’s own likeness, her art, her story have taken on a life beyond any she could have imagined (or feared) and there’s beauty in that … and also so much pain and disappointment, which may be projection but….
I mention this because there’s ample reason to never write much of anything. Let alone anything that matters to you … with your name at the top, searchable and intended to be promoted to garner trust.
It’s often a nightmare.
And I have deleted more than I’ve shared so many times over the years, which is entirely separate from the self-worth conundrum that relies upon editors and fellow journalists deciding whether to green light stories to begin with. Best to become an editor yourself and avoid it all together…
Yet here we are again.
Last week, I published something i’d been working on for a long time and had pitched for just as long without success. I was proud of it and excited about it. It felt like the right thing to do on top of that to finally let it be born.
It’s hard to know what rattled me more, the silence from those whose thoughts and opinions I respect or the negative and constructive comments via DMs and directly under the story itself on a shared social media platform.
I am not surprised by how disappointed and self-conscious I am about the silence, but I am astonished by how comfortable and even appreciative I feel about the criticism.
I don’t know what’s changed — certainly not a desire to be the public face of the stories I write and share.
But there’s something about writing what truly matters to me, what goes back to that guts-level personal curiosity and investment that makes me long to have real, human exchanges.
The criticism didn’t scare me or make me want to press delete (or, hell, delete this entire newsletter). It did make me wonder and second-guess whether I’d messed up in a way that explained the aforementioned silence.
Mostly, it made me want to keep going.
What I forgot is this: The pleasure is in the doing.
Showing up every day, talking to people, reveling and wrestling in their words and mine, their stories and mine, is worth it.
What I forgot is this: The pleasure is in the doing.
The criticism, not incidentally, was fair and respectful. And I know that in the incremental and radical act of writing and reporting in this way, every day, the stories will change. The contradictions will multiple. The questions will stack up.
And I’ll be elated and miserable, and fulfilled.