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I am smitten (fine, while I’ll admit that I was looking for a reason to use the word “smitten” this morning, I actually am a little in love with this book) with Matthew Quick’s book, Every Exquisite Thing.  There have been three times (so far) that I’ve underlined something, wanting to discuss it with another person.  Which is why I’m dumping it on you.

Welcome to my own private book club.

And, no, you don’t have to have read the book to participate.  This first thought ties into reading blogs, and since you are currently reading a blog post, I’m going to assume you may have some thoughts on this.

Shall we begin?

The main character — Nanette — is having coffee with the author of her favourite book.  She wants to know what happens with the main character in his book (yes, it’s a book inside a book), and the author admits that he doesn’t know what happens to this person he created because the story is over even if the character technically (at least, the reader assumes) lives on. This part of the conversation begins on page 17:

“See that nice woman who served us our coffee?”

I looked back over my shoulder at the tall cashier with the brown ponytail and the permanent smile on her face, and I nodded.

“Her name is Ruth,” Booker said. “Ever see her before?”

Kids my age never came into this coffee shop, so I said, “No.”

“Maybe you won’t ever see her again.”

“So?”

“You only got to see five minutes of Ruth’s story. And that’s just the way it is. But Ruth, well, she goes on now whether you’re looking or not. She does all sorts of things that some people see and some don’t. But your version of Ruth’s story will be the five minutes you spent buying coffee from her. That’s just the way it is.”

In other words, we jump into a story, we remain with the character/person for a little bit, and then we jump out, each continuing but not knowing anything more about the other person.

We accept that reality in life; why aren’t we satisfied with the idea that stories end when it comes to books?  Why do we keep imagining the characters continuing, either producing fan fiction, or in some cases, books like The Cursed Child?

So, yes, I have those questions but it made me think about returning to old posts on my blog and looking at the comment section.  So many people there; some of them prolific bloggers several years ago, now somewhere else, their story continuing without my knowledge.  Some of them were people I corresponded with weekly.  Saw face-to-face when we were in the same space.

And now our stories have drifted apart because they stopped telling theirs on their blog.  Maybe they still read over here but have stopped commenting.  Maybe we’re still connected on other forms of social media so I get glimpses into their story, but more often than not, they’ve disappeared from my world even though they continue to exist in their own world.

There are stories I miss a lot because I liked the main character: the blogger.  I’m sure you miss them, too, since we all read the same people.  And it is strange to think that one day I will become like those characters and drift away because I stop writing my story.  (I have no plans on this front; I’m just stating this because it’s a likely scenario at some point in the distant future.)

Do you miss old bloggers?  Do you miss knowing the continuation of their story?

Sheryl Sandburg is an eloquent woman.  I haven’t read her new book, Option B, but I’ve been drawn to all the articles about it (and added the book to my TBR pile) because I think she is excellent at articulating thoughts about loss.  While her book is about death — specifically her partner’s death — many of the thoughts are applicable to any kind of grief, including infertility.

Especially the idea of kicking the elephant out of the room.

Which means telling people about your infertility.

People magazine writes,

Sandberg writes that the loneliness she felt after the loss of her husband was compounded by some interactions with friends and coworkers, who, not knowing exactly how to support her, either said nothing or said things that made her feel more isolated.

While death is obvious, infertility isn’t really as hidden as we’d like to think.  Assumptions are made when you’re in a certain stage of life, and while these assumptions suck and I wish they didn’t happen (not least of which since having a child should be a decision, not an assumption), they are following you around like an elephant.  Sandberg’s advice is to acknowledge the elephant:

And when they asked “How are you?,” she writes, “I started responding more frankly. ‘I’m not fine, and it’s nice to be able to be honest with you about that.’ ”

“I finally figured out that since the elephant was following me around, I could take the first step in acknowledging its existence.

I tried to imagine how that would change all conversations; if the problem was acknowledged and firm boundaries were set for the conversation.  Would it guide comfort?  Would it guide support?  Sure, there would still be terrible advice given out, but that could be honestly and kindly dealt with as well because the tone was set at the beginning of the interaction.  Telling, in this Sandbergian way, feels like control.  It feels like a way to guide yourself to the support you need while heading off some of the more hurtful interactions.

Maybe.

The other thing I loved was her advice (by way of her rabbi) of leaning into the suck; of not being surprised when you’re in a moment of grief.

“If you’re facing loss or adversity, the first thing [you have to do is] lean in to the suck. This is gonna suck,” she tells PEOPLE of her rabbi’s counsel.

“It gave me the understanding that, this is going to be terrible, and I stopped fighting the terrible moments because I knew they would happen. And when I stopped fighting them — ‘Oh my God, I’m heartbroken, and I’m upset that I’m heartbroken’ — they actually passed more quickly.”

I sort of love that idea of knowing that — without a doubt — this is going to suck.  And then allowing yourself to feel that and move through it vs. fight against it and try to convince yourself that you should be okay.  Just lean into it.

Has anyone else read the book?  Have it on their TBR pile?

Okay, here’s a question: If we (and by “we,” I mean people in general and not you and I) hadn’t invented the smartphone, would we have social media addiction?  Meaning, if social media and email and searches and blogs — if all of that was only accessible via the computer — would we still have people shelling out $150/hour for digital addiction therapy?

Because I don’t remember caring all that much about who was trying to reach me before my smartphone.  My assumption was that their email would wait until I sat down at the computer.  I had the same feeling about Facebook or Twitter.  I would intake whatever I could intake and leave the rest to drift past me unseen.  My RSS reader ensured that I wouldn’t miss blog posts, but again, I read them on my own time.

Most articles reference the addictive nature of social media or apps; how they are designed to be addictive. While that adds to the problem, isn’t part of it a function of portability?  Sort of like hookahs vs. cigarettes?  Sure, cigarettes are designed to be addictive due to added chemicals, but isn’t the real power of the cigarette its portability?  You can slip them into your pocket, take them anywhere.  It’s the intake system more than the product itself, right?

At least that is what I thought about as I read the BBC’s article about social media addiction while on my smartphone.

It’s a weird addiction because an alcoholic either is drinking or not drinking; a gambler either betting or not betting.  But if your job involves social media, you cannot avoid interactive with the object of your addiction.  You can only restrict your access to it by limiting your intake system; going the social media hookah route vs. the social media cigarette route.

In other words, sitting down at the computer to access it, and then stepping away and going offline because you’ve deleted those social media apps on your phone.

Just something to think about as you move through your day.

I have started this post three times now because each thing I wrote strayed from “the script” as Nathan Bransford would say.  It strayed from my personal script, which is guided by internal discomfort when I think about how my words might offend another person.  (Especially when my need to say those words is less than the weight of the words.)  It strayed from the more general, societal script of “everything is a-okay.”

Everything is a-okay.

See, I just stuck to the script.

Nathan’s post is about how we have loose scripts we use when speaking with one another.  I say X and you say Y.  I say that I’m tired, and you offer sympathy.  You say that you’re going on vacation, and I express excitement as I ask you for details.

We expect to hear back certain words, especially if we say certain words.  For instance, if I ask you how you are, even if you just had a loss, you’ll probably give me some version of fine.

But if I ask you, “How are you doing with everything today since I know that answer probably changes from day-to-day?”, it opens up the script to go in a different direction.  I’m not asking out of politeness.  I’m asking because I want a real answer, and changing the script does that.  It signals a different response should occur.

Of course, that’s still a script.  But it’s not the script.

I loved his post because he points out how people fight back when you don’t say what they want you to say.  When you don’t express happiness when they think you should be expressing happiness.  Or when you’re not feeling sad despite the fact that they think you should be home, in mourning.

Seek out these good people who will let you complain when you’re “supposed” to be happy and let you be happy when you’re “supposed” to be sad.

But most importantly, ignore the rigid people out there who try to make you feel badly because you’re flipping their script. They’re not seeing you as a human being, they’re seeing you as a faulty computer program.

It’s a good reminder that we all need to change the script — in our writing and in our everyday life.  Whatever your characters say first, erase it and have them say something better.  Whatever you think to say first, pause for a moment and ask yourself, “how can I change a few words and change the whole script?”

His post is about publishing, but it’s applicable to every facet of life.  It gave me a new aim: To stop trying to come up with the perfect words and instead just come up with different words; anything that strays from the script and takes the well-worn conversations in an entirely new direction.

We have emergency rooms for physical injuries, but where are the emergency rooms for battered souls?

*******

I clicked on the headline because it promised me refuge from mentally looping through the news about North Korea for a 3000th time.  A Jordan Bookseller’s 24-Hour ‘Emergency Room for the Mind’.

The article gave me so much more than that — even from afar; even without visiting the actual space — because it is about a bookstore that is battling the hate the bookseller witnesses around him with positive manuscripts that spread sound ideas.

The bookseller never closes his store.  He sleeps in his shop, and if you need a volume — if you need emergency literature, the right story to reset your mind — you enter and he’ll guide you to the right text.  It’s a safe space for words.  A safe space for ideas.  The bookstore “is a haven, one of the few places on earth where nothing matters more than a love of books.”

I spend a lot of time feeling anxious, beginning in the morning when I scan the headlines, moving into the day when I’m bombarded by news due to my job, and ending at night when I lie in bed and think about all of the things that happened that day.  How tenuous the world feels.  I cannot stop reading the news unless I change my job, and I know tuning out the news doesn’t make the reported events stop.

Maybe the way to battle that anxiety is not by retreating from words but instead find different words.  They don’t undo what you know is outside your door, but at least you’re giving yourself a break on what you invite inside your mind.

I bought a bunch of books recently and checked out others from the library.  Too many to possibly read at the moment, but I’d rather have books overflowing than no new ones to begin.