I always wonder about bloggers. Is it some existential need to exist somewhere other than where we are that compels us to write ourselves into the ether? Is it the hope, the lifelong wish, the currently unfulfilled frustration to be HEARD?
Those who know me would probably laugh at my saying that being heard is a problem at all for me. I'm loud, opinionated, and never hesitant to engage. There's also never been a microphone I haven't been able to say about: "I don't need that".
But I've realized there is a difference between a deeper sense of being heard that for me is often unsatisfied. This despite my profession of choice, an English Professor, that would seem to offer endless opportunities to be "heard".
But to be heard -- to have your words digested and absorbed by another human being, an exchange that demands vulnerability and a true and just hearing -- is a transaction that rarely happens between my students and me. If we're lucky, we get a few people in our lives who willingly engage in such a transactions. There are any number of reasons for this I'm sure, but I've noticed of late that "listening", as opposed to "hearing" is a dying art.
In this moment in my life, this profound desire to be heard has made it possible (necessary) to engage in a process of letting go in my life -- of letting go of a relationship where I often go unheard, a letting go of being able to control how others "hear" me, a letting go of moments in my past when those who should have heard my cries didn't.
For me, this new venture, this sending of my words out into the ether, is an experiment in reciprocity, a vulnerable letting go of the control of my own words, their targets, and their intentionality. I hope to not only be HEARD but to be given an opportunity to HEAR other voices resonate.
It is my fondest hope that these listenings, these hearings, will keep me where the light is.
