I was obsessed with themes in my earlier life, well I guess I am still. The principal feature of some was the brevity of their influence. Weeks, or months. But others provide enduring backgrounds to life. I can slip into different mindsets because they are mine, having experienced them.
I’ve noticed some people lock away their experiences. A friend who made it big in finance prefers not to be reminded of an old lifestyle in the 1970s. Another was a budding artist, but she likes to conceal the past in her current career as a corporate climber. One, staunchly Conservative, prefers not to associate with me at all; afraid that I’ll out him for his left-wing past? So it goes.
The trouble may be that it’s not all sweetness and light in our pasts. We have dark nooks and crannies, and embracing the past can be a challenge. Years ago, when I was deep into my life as an upcoming practicing anthropologist, an old friend showed up on my doorstep. He and his girlfriend were directly out of my Folkie past – complete to the gigantic straw “Mad Hatter” top hat he was wearing. For several hours while they visited, I had a sort of existential double vision. My wife discovered who Wes was (me in my on the road days); my two-year-old son found enchantment with the huge top hat, and I began a long process of reintegrating my old persona.
Here’s some advice. Embrace it, make yourself complete by rolling the old you’s into one. And if you haven’t had the time yet to mess up, you have a lot to look toward. As Wes the Folkie would put it:
Stealin’, stealin’, pretty momma don’t you tell on me
I’m stealin’ back to my same old used to be.”
I can understand locking away past experiences. I keep trying to do that with all the darkness which fell upon my series of failed books. The pain of that tries to steal my ability to write every day. I have a top hat, I wish they were fashionable again, I love wearing it!
Mason, we are in good company – Steinbeck, Hemingway, Kerouac. I sometimes think that Faulkner had the hardest time, he put so much of the dark stuff on open display, but maybe hid the darkest away. I guess if we wanted “easy” we could do press releases. We wanted to write so we get “issues”.
I personally like broad-brimmed Panama hats. So extravagant, so exhibitionist, so Latin, and in your face whitebread America. Kind of the polar opposite of my public persona in the workplace. Definitely wear that top hat!
This is true. I just wish there was a fairness across the board and a little policing in the publishing business. Then we’d all get a fair look in and nobody would have to be stolen from and screwed over like I was. Instead only the wealthy can publish well and people like me bin their books.
Panama hats are wonderful. They say ‘I’m confident and loving life!’
Every moment lived brings us to the one we are at now. I say embrace it all!
Yup! but some things are easier to embrace than others.