SHOWING UP FOR MYSELF

Friends and neighbors, I am exhausted. The last few weeks have been all gas, no brake, and your humble correspondent is running on fumes and momentum and precious little else. I had in mind a very detailed blog about how to pack the maximum amount of character expression in the smallest possible space, using the M*A*S*H episode "Letters" as an example, but I'm too tired. It will have to wait, and probably a couple of weeks, because the pace of my life is only going to accelerate in the short term.

This is a good thing. Granted, it's not an easy thing, but it is a good one. I'm getting back into the mainstream publishing world, I moved over 5,000 copies of Wolf Weather, Devils You Know, Sinner's Cross, The Very Dead of Winter, etc. in a couple of weeks, hit #1 on Amazon several times, and I'm soon leaving the country for a well-deserved vacation. My work as an advocate for victims of crime is never easy at any time, but that too has flipped the nitrous oxide switch, and frankly, I'm growing as a result. We always grow when we're tested. And I have always been fascinated by the idea of being tested. Of being pushed. Of actually showing up to this curious mix of horror and wonder that is life. A recent review of The Very Dead of Winter made a penetrating remark which I will share with you now:

Miles Watson is fascinated – haunted perhaps – by the mindset of soldiers. Again and again in his books he returns to the inner world of men at the bitter edges of human experience, where they face the pointlessness of their own struggle, their own deaths, the need to kill rather than to be killed, the imperative of following orders, even foolish ones, out of duty to a senior officer, a general, an army, a state.

I am a writer, and like most writers, tend toward laziness, distraction, procrastination, introversion, and catastrophizing. Writers already have the best possible reason to sit all day, so rationalizing eating Cheetos, drinking beer and watching re-runs of Charmed when we ought to be accomplishing things is not difficult. If we are not careful, our entire lives become a sort of fishbowl experience, in which we live safely and comfortably behind glass, never really going anywhere or accomplishing anything. Covid gave me a concrete-lined rationale for making this line of thought a lifestyle, but in the last few months I have been systematically breaking out of it. It feels good, and it hurts. It's frightening, and it's also exhilarating. Showing up for yourself is always a mixed bag. On the one hand, you know it's what you need to be doing. You know it's the answer to literally all of your problems. On the other hand, the couch is so much more appealing. The television, the box of Triscuits or the bag of weed, the "mobile device" with its endless capacity for scrolling and swiping...tempting. All the time, tempting you to show up for someone else: the corporations who profit from you getting fatter, drunker, sadder, softer, unhealthier than you were before.

I don't believe that there is a resolution to this tension, other than surrender. One can achieve a state of peace by chucking away all dreams, hopes, and ambitions for one's personal, professional, and romantic life, or one can go to war, daily, for one's own interests and risk failure, humiliation, fright, and pain, with absolutely no guarantee of victory, or even short-term pleasure. Like everyone else, I often wave a white flag, and like most people who want to show up for their own lives, I usually take it down and get back to the business of living. Honest to God, it's a sonofabitch. But when I'm on my deathbed, assuming of course I have the privilege of laying upon one, I'd rather be battered, used up and worn out, than bloated and unscarred.

Goodreads is a haven for people who live within their imaginations, and in many ways there is no sweeter or more rewarding pleasure than doing just exactly that. Which of us who belongs to this site hasn't willingly disappeared into fictional realms, often for days, weeks, months at a time? Who doesn't consider certain characters who are nothing more than ink on paper to be more real than those we meet on the street? Who doesn't use books as a refuge from, and a shield against, the world? But amidst the pleasure we take from this uniquely human power, we must not forget to live. We must not forget to show up for ourselves by putting our bodies into motion, and coming into contact with everything that made us take refuge in the first place.

Over the next week or two, I hope to be able to share some word-pictures of my life on the road, my break from the admittedly curious routines of my everyday existence. I am going to show up for myself and, I hope, for you, too.