Childlike

Stuff – Noun or Verb?

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I have 14 drafts saved on this thing.  They are ideas, the beginning of poems or stories and essays that need attention some day.  I also have pieces of paper filled with words in boxes and journals that had been scattered around in various places.  Much of it has been untouched for years.  Some of it though is now, at least, connected with the posts and drafts here at the Groove.  Over the last month or so I have been gathering up all that stuff.  And have begun to at least  to get it all in the same proximity.  Now, stuff is not a particularly sophisticated word on the surface but it is most descriptive for me in this case.  It seems a good word for this material because that is what it feels like.   Just stuff.

Apparently its origin is late Middle English (1300-50).  It was a verb which denoted the action of equipping or furnishing.  Over the centuries we have continued to use the word as a verb as in “I need to stuff this pillow.”  But we have also expanded its use to include even the (typically undefined) material used in the actual action of “stuffing.”  It has become a noun as in “What is that stuff?”  It can even be used in the same sentence as both noun and verb.  “Pick that stuff up off your floor and just stuff it into your closet until after the party.”  It can be used to describe a state of being.  “Man, I’m stuffed,” might be heard in conversation after a meal.  Or technically you could say “That was good stuff.  I really stuffed my face tonight.   And I am stuffed, about to bust.”  I even recall it used medically.  Instead of a stopped up nose one’s condition can be described as a “stuffed up” or “stuffy” nose.  Quite a handy little word.

So it seems that stuff is at once, both and, and also, nondescript material used in the action of filling space that can lead to discomfort.  So I guess that is why I used it to describe my scribbling to date.  Over the years things would bubble up from my soul which would be jotted down and put somewhere like some toy that came in a Happy Meal.  I did not want to thrown it away necessarily but did not have any use for it.  So it got put in the stuff pile with the other things that had made their way out of deep places in me and on to paper.  The action of writing filled space for me in time when I was uncomfortable or stuffed up somehow.  But those actions were like a burp.  Made a little sound, provided a little relief, but did little good in terms of my overall state of being.  I was stuffed and had been stuffing material that I could not define into my soul.  I was stuffed up and was having trouble breathing in or out, within the stale atmosphere I had created around myself.  There is another use of the word that has a slightly different but similar connotation.  It is used commonly to refer to a psychological act where one “stuffs” emotional material, that is never processed.  That could also metaphorically apply to me.  It’s kinda “Dr. Philish” a bit but it communicates.

What started this little rant was me sitting down to write and feeling tired of the stuff I’ve been doing.  It is emotionally draining and after a while began to sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher in my head, wah wah wah wah . . . . .  I tried to work on some of the other but I got bored.  I had a little conversation with my Soul and tried to listen very hard.  What I thought I heard was that I could not move on until I had finished sorting through all that “stuff.”  I can’t get to a new place without finishing up the place that I am now.  If I try that again I reckon I will end up right back here.

Like a messy room that has accumulated years of stuff, it’s just not comfortable.  And after a while is a not a fun place to be at all.  So, I guess my task now is to sit down again and go through the rest of the stuff, keeping some and throwing out what is of no use.  I have already discovered some treasures I had forgotten.  It is no longer undifferentiated stuff anymore.  It now has a purpose and a place.  Some of the other I will hang on to for later, but the best stuff is what I can throw out and make room for the new.

OK, well I gotta go clean my room.  Seems like I’m not going to get to play until I do.  Be Groovy. 🙂

Becoming a little Child

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I posted this on another blog lately in response to the author’s musings about the writing process and doing life in general.  There was a line in her article about sometimes we have to reach out to new experiences and people and “ask if we can play too.”

“asking if we can play too” . . .  Maybe that is all that “become as a little child” means. 🙂  Very sweet.  I needed some sweetness today.  Thank you.  I am very new to all this blogging.  My grown children had to show me how to get started.  It’s kinda fun to be ignorant again.  Stupid has gotten old 🙂 .  Me just sticking my toe into these alien waters is so far from the “competence” I had grown accustomed to.  I have begun to shyly comment and follow (if those are the correct terms).  Each time I do I feel like an elementary school boy with his new cigar box filled with the smells of pencils and erasers and Elmer’s paste tucked under his arm.  I laughed in a good way at myself when I read that line.  So I guess this is the boy who still resides in and sometimes peeps out through these 51-year-old eyes asking if “I can play too”.

I have thought about this idea for some days now.  Wondering if that shy vulnerable place was a doorway that I have typically avoided.  And because I avoided it I have left something behind that now I must find a way to reclaim.  I vividly recall the sights and sounds and smells even some of the faces I encountered along the way.  I remember the sense of isolation and feeling exposed.  New school.  New boy.  New people.  Unknown.  It is interesting that I remember that feeling but don’t remember much of what happened to overcome it.  What did the boy do?  We moved quite a bit during my early school years so it was a familiar experience.  I think I began to piece together certain patterned responses to situations that merely got refined and updated through the decades and changing contexts.  Making touchdowns, being funny, thoughtfulness helped, being “smart” was a plus, and they were all a  part of finding a way to be in the loop.  But really it was more about avoiding being left out than actively pursuing being in.  I became quite competent in most situations and exceptional in a few.  But . . . and this is a huge but, I was still alone and for the most part unknown outside the roles I played in other people’s lives.  My identity and living became attached to other people’s needs, wants, and goals, and my ability to anticipate and respond adequately to them.  On many levels this is appropriate and good except that I stopped consulting that shy, inquisitive, creative little boy in me.  I left him behind somewhere and have orphaned myself.

There has always been a thought in my mind and heart usually just out of conscious reach but there just beneath the surface.  It was something to the effect of “One day after I have done enough, helped enough, sacrificed enough, achieved enough . . . then I could rest and do what I wanted, have what I wanted.”  The funny thing is that I never really knew what it was I wanted.  Even now it is still opaque, vaguely outlined in emotion more than a burning clear vision.  You see, I never asked the boy.  Never thought to, assuming that all he had to offer was weakness.  But now I think he knows, or at least he knows where to look.  So it seems I have become a clever man without much practice or knowledge of how to play, or let go, or just be.  I have left behind the childlike part of me and have injured myself.  But . . . and this is another big but, I find myself back where I left off.  Shy and vulnerable and unsure, working up the nerve to ask “if I can play too?”.  Perhaps walking through those doors long avoided will finally lead me to the place I have wanted to be for so long.  Be Groovy!