Reveal. Withhold.

I'm old-school. I grew up drawing distinct lines to divide professional me and personal me.

As a young reporter, I didn't complain about covering a city council meeting that would stretch late in the night and leave little time for a romantic dinner. I didn't talk about my health, my debt, and things that kept me awake. I was a professional and didn't reveal much.

But technology changed me. Facebook, Flicker, Blogs — these forms of communication have blurred the lines between personal and professional and I am not navigating well.

Each day I question How much to reveal? How much to withhold?  In these expanding forms of connection, and these widening circles of 'friends', sometimes it seems we're all trying too hard to be heard. Look at me! Look at me! Is all this sharing just self-promotion in disguise?

Last year, exasperated and overshared, I quit Facebook. I didn't miss it, really, but I did migrate back.

And yesterday, for my husband, on our anniversary, I baked a pie and wrote a poem. I wanted to share  the poem here but all night I tossed and turned and wondered why. Why do I want to share something so personal? Wouldn't doing so diminish the fragile, intimate space where our real lives thrive?

Sometimes on Facebook, when I see photos of babies or airing of struggles, I cringe. It's too much, I think. Keep it safe in that secret place where only you have access to the details of your heart. Other times, I  am greedy for those nuggets of personal information that will give me a glimpse of who you are, what makes your life.

How much to reveal? How much to withhold? The questions press at me more each day.

Comments

[jeanie]

wow. beautifully written.

[Linnea Harper]

That was a mouthful, Drew.
You are revealed. Not sure we deserve
even these nuggets, voyeurs
that we are.

Here's my Scissors Poem, revealed
in the roughness of a draft:

Scissors Poem

Have you read the clouds lately?
I have read enough to know
I don’t enjoy cultural intrusions
Etiquette is an enemy of mine

The more children you have, the less sex you have
This is how the generations go round
You run, you keep running
Sometimes your hands need a hand

Memory is the best medicine, I am told
This is the tale of a round belly
and the backbreaking work of apple picking—
No can do, mama san, you is on your own for that

Fiddlesticks, as my mother would say
The shamans say each organ has a soul
I say hope is one eye open, always watching
This plant life is staining my toes

I have been writing on the sky again
chalking clouds on the mid-horizon
cooling a good place to park
It keeps me looking up

I want to dance and keep dancing
drum, and keep drumming
Rhyme makes connections where else there is none
Dance, run, drum, dance, run

[drew]

Thank you Jeanie, for reading and responding.

And thank you Linnea for the Cut Up poem. Aren't they fun? I find this form takes the pressure off because it's not really ME coming up with the content. That's not entirely true, of course, because even the arrangement of lines, and the decision to use this phrase or cut that one is a choice. Still, I find it freeing.

Thanks for playing!

[Auburn McCanta]

Drew, I know exactly what you mean. I'm one guilty of spreading out my personal thoughts like a tablecloth. Then I sit at the head of that table and wonder if my invited guests will arrive. It's a terrible way to communicate, but nevertheless, my only avenue these days. We can call it networking, sharing, communicating or just plain blurting meaningless information. It's complicated.

Nevertheless, I continue to do a heel-toe, heel-toe narrow walk by keeping many things private, while allowing transparency for other things. I'll never post pictures of family or children. Except for Dan (who gives permission), I don't say their names. Part of it all is calculation of working toward a simple writing platform, which includes just enough private information to make me seem real and approachable, while still maintaining a narrow margin of mystery.

Always, it's complicated.

[drew]

Auburn,
I appreciate your perspective, and especially agree with, as you says, allowing "just enough private information to make me seem real and approachable, while still maintaining a narrow margin of mystery."

I suppose balance is what I seek.

-drew