I’ve been going back and forth quite a bit lately on how to start this whole venture. This isn’t my first attempt at blogging–truth be told, it isn’t even my second attempt. What I realized over a strong cup of tea this morning is that over thinking what the content should look like and getting too particular about what tone is set right off the bat goes against the revelations that brought me to create this space in the first place.
I had to return some books to the Evanston Public Library yesterday–Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery was in the mix, a childhood favorite that I hadn’t revisited since first reading it when I was 9 or 10 years old.
Circling back to a memorable piece of your youth can bring about any number of feelings, both joyful and unpleasant. Reacquainting myself with the very vocal, exceedingly imaginative, ginger-headed Anne spelled with an ‘E’ inspired a type of imagination and hopefulness I think I desperately needed with the state of the world we’re currently facing. (I could seriously elaborate on this point, but as this is meant to be an introductory post I’ll just leave that open-ended for now.)
About a quarter of the way through the book, I started really thinking about my own disposition and intentions. It got me thinking about a day, not so long ago now, I snapped too after having zoned out on the train ride home from work and had a very disheartening realization: I was stuck in the motions.
I have a job that I am thankful to have for the sake of my bills, but it doesn’t bring me joy or purpose. I’d let my energy be so consumed by that one part of my life that I’d stopped taking time to exercise creativity, to write, and connect with people. It made feel awful inside when I really started turning it over in my mind–did I really want to be a person so ultimately disengaged from so many important aspects of life?
On a grander scale, am I strong enough to remain optimistic in the face of the terrible events and uncertainties in the world I’m confronted with through news headlines and sometimes right before my eyes? Lately, it’s touch-and-go. Am I challenging myself to be a kinder, more compassionate person who champions and supports the rights of those who don’t share the same privilege that I have? Yes, but not nearly enough or loudly enough.
Though I may not have realized it when I was younger, Anne of Green Gables introduced me to magic–not the wand-waving variety you might witness in the castle tower of another world, but the magic that can happen when I stay present and remain aware of what I’m contributing to my own environment and those around me.
It’s easy to surrender to the desire to hide away and regret mistakes that we’re made today, living in fear of what tomorrow might bring. It’s also easy to focus my energy on blame and anger toward others–but right about the time that I was walking with Anne along the ridgepole on the roof, in that small moment just before she lost her footing, I realized that bravery begets bravery.
I could spend my life waiting to become wiser, waiting for someone to better educate me on the plight of people who experience a very different kind of world than I do, waiting on something or someone to engage my energy and inspire motivation to act. I could certainly do that–or I could just decide to walk the ridgepole and see what happens.
Anne is certainly not short on ideas or things to say, but there’s one simple thing that stuck with me this time around:
“I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend.”
I’m not entirely sure where all of this will lead. Maybe all this will turn out to be for me is a space to just think and write–hopefully, connect with a few of you out there. And if that’s all this leads me to, that would be one step further than where I was before. I guess I don’t really know what comes after this.
For the time being though, I’d rather be Jeff of Evanston’s Shore musing over storybook characters and rambling on than Jeff of Nowhere Particular with nothing much to say at all.
The JEFF Method 