{"id":7,"date":"2018-03-01T15:08:05","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T20:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:23:49","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T21:23:49","slug":"if-you-dont-know-who-does-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/01\/if-you-dont-know-who-does-know\/","title":{"rendered":"“If You Don’t Know, Who Does Know?”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Daddy and me 1964<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I was young that was my daddy\u2019s famous line when I was in trouble and he asked me, \u201cWhy did you do that?\u201d or \u201cWho did this?\u201d \u00a0I\u2019d look at my feet and cowardly mumble, \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d to which he\u2019d reply rhetorically \u201cIf you don\u2019t know, who does know?<\/em>\u201d The question was usually yelled, for my daddy was not one from the softer side of Sears, if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d leave the room with a door slam and that stupid question would sit with me, lingering in the dust storm he had blown up. As I\u2019ve been trying to develop my blog the last few months, I just keep hearing my daddy ask me that question in my mind over and over.<\/p>\n

Dammit Daddy! I still don\u2019t know! <\/i><\/p>\n

I will wholeheartedly admit, right out of the gate, that the idea of writing a blog kinda terrifies me.<\/p>\n

The platform itself is wide open. There are no guidelines, and there are also too many guidelines. No limitations. No set formats or rules to follow. You can totally make it up to fit whatever you want to achieve or go at it with nothing to achieve.<\/p>\n

Crap. I don\u2019t know if I can work like this.<\/p>\n

Much like I don\u2019t know where to start when I walk into an overcrowded dress shop\u2014it usually means I\u2019ll walk right back out empty-handed and feeling overwhelmed. I\u2019m the person you can take on an all day trip to the mall who will usually come home with nothing\u2014ok, cinnamon pretzels. I\u2019ll come home with cinnamon pretzels.<\/p>\n

Walk me into the most decadent designer bakery in the trendiest place ever, and I\u2019ll probably just walk through and say it \u201csmells good.\u201d\u00a0Too many choices and I do not make for a productive relationship. Give me a choice between just two cupcakes, two couches, or two men\u2019s colognes\u2026oh hell\u2026just two men<\/i>\u2026and I can make a decision, but load me up with too many options, and I freeze up (did you just read \u201cbuttload\u201d in that sentence too? And by the way, it\u2019s a real unit of measure, I had no idea. Look it up).<\/p>\n

So for right now I cannot tell you what type of blog this will be\u2014again, too many choices. \u00a0And why must everything fit neatly into a box that someone else has designed? I don\u2019t cook that way. \u00a0I don\u2019t love that way. \u00a0I don\u2019t think that way. \u00a0I sure don\u2019t imagine I can write that way.<\/p>\n

An artist hired to design for a company, but then told she can only paint or draw pictures of dogs isn\u2019t going to flourish at that job. And although she loves dogs, and she might stay there for a while to pay some bills out of necessity, her soul will not be nourished, and she will eventually leave. She\u2019s not being allowed to express the joy, the beauty, the sadness or the ridiculous sense of humor life possesses through her artwork.<\/p>\n

The creative outlet to this process is just that, taking some simple observation or experience and finding a unique aspect to it that is often hidden to some, but to a writer\u2014and especially to me\u2014it can leap out like a little, eye-rolling smart ass. It\u2019s just a good state of mind<\/i> I think\u2014looking for the outrageous in some of life\u2019s ordinary. And the more you look for it, the more life delivers it.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the gnawing little voice in my head that says \u201cIsn\u2019t it arrogant of me to think that anyone wants to read what I write?\u201d \u00a0And I know that is what every writer in the world thinks. \u00a0And I also know I just have to get over it. \u00a0People will read it or they won\u2019t. They\u2019ll like it or they won\u2019t. \u00a0None of that can influence me.<\/p>\n

Just like I had to get over the fact that perming my hair in 11th<\/sup>grade was a bad idea, and that no matter how much of a delicacy it\u2019s considered, if you put smoked salmon on something I will not like it, and the fact that I will never look good in little flat sandals\u2014I have duck feet (I had Ancestry.com do my DNA, and yes I am indeed 47.6% American wigeon duck). So Dolly Pardon and I agree on this point \u2014heels are the only way to go.<\/p>\n

My closest friends think I have a rather salty side\u2014personally, I prefer to think of it more as somewhat\u2026brackish<\/i>. I\u2019m really not a negative person, but I do find great humor in the darker side of life at times. In fact over the years, that humor is probably the only thing that has kept me from ripping all my hair out with my bare hands and setting fire to it in the sink. See? Not negative.<\/p>\n

A speaker at my writing club once told us that the best writers let their stories lead them, not the other way around. So here lies a leap of faith for me (imagine that little, eye-rolling smart ass again). By letting up on the reins, I\u2019ll hope that life will lead me in the direction it wants me to write and provide me with the ability to draw out something entertaining or enlightening lying just out of view\u2026 p<\/i>lease God\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

There are writers who love to write, and there are writers who have to<\/i> write.<\/p>\n

<\/i>My desire is that through the first, I will eventually become the second.<\/p>\n

And if not, to my family and friends\u2013 you better watch out because I will have no other option but to write about you. I\u2019m sorry, but if you didn\u2019t want me to write about you, then some of you should have behaved better, including you Daddy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was young that was my daddy\u2019s famous line when I was in trouble and he asked me, \u201cWhy did you do that?\u201d or \u201cWho did this?\u201d \u00a0I\u2019d look at my feet and cowardly mumble, \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d to which he\u2019d reply rhetorically \u201cIf you don\u2019t know, who does know?\u201d The question was usually … <\/p>\n

Continue reading ““If You Don’t Know, Who Does Know?””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296,"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstateofmind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}