The following is just too long not to reblog:

I would like to answer more plainly–as is not my custom, as those who know me would so tease. I will try to make my answers as short as I can. At this I may fail.

I feel like, I don’t understand.
Honestly.
I’m a little housewife poet, nothing more. I don’t understand, why my writing affects you so deeply.

First, there is luck. I was lucky enough to have looked at your site more closely. Looked in the right places. Noticed your first comment. Only a truly romantic soul could have made such a comment. I found it most unusual. The type of poetry I write is not as accessible to a wide range of readers as might other forms I have written. Free verse, on the other hand; well, there is a lot of it on wordpress. If I hadn’t looked carefully, I might have missed what makes you different. I am, in general, a lucky person. I think I inherited that from my father. The stories of his luck–and that he recognised it as luck and made the best of it–are possibly endless.

I have no training, no formal study, my grammar is atrocious… You seem educated and dedicated to properly instructing yourself in all matters poetic and linguistic. I am just a mom of five who writes some words. That’s it.

As I wrote in another comment, and echoed in another post, it is how you see that makes you different. Ones grammar is not at issue. My education is little better than anyone else’s; and I have the added deficit of not having had any interest whatsoever in the humanities. At all. No gift for them. As do you.

My mind is made for mathematics and rocket engines, and bridges; for circuits and blackboxes and code. My mind is made for the very abstract. It took love to change that. And clearly it did. And lucky for me, it happened when I was young enough to give me something of a start.

And I am much older than you. Sometimes, because of ones work, or ones duty, or both, one’s autodidactic pursuits–ones self edification, self education, etc.–can take a back seat to one’s life. Still it goes on over decades. And at some point–or perhaps, from time to time, many points–one picks up the pace. Sometimes it is because one has time. Sometimes, and even more commonly, it is because one makes time. That, education wise, is the only difference between the two of us.

I could write, day and night, hours, endlessly, and need to shut the writing voice down…to live at times. I am sorry if it struck a painful nerve, what I wrote. I’m not sure what to say. That my simple scrawlings touch you, is a gift beyond words.

As I stated, I’m lucky I had just squeaked over the threshold of wisdom needed to take a closer look at your writing. It is how you see, that makes you different. As to what you wrote yesterday, it was just so touching. And you gave me quite a lot of yourself.

But, I am in an odd place these days writing wise. I have been compiling. I am writing bits here and there, but, I think most of it is not very good. I am trying, and I do mean, trying, to regroup. Baring thought, heart and soul through verse, is really hard for me. I’m not shy, but I am private and when I write, all my guts spill… usually. I feel transparent and very exposed. Blog poetry is tricky. Used to be, I’d write, and nobody read, for years and years… now, so many people listen, I’m not sure what to do… it walls me back up. I do get withdrawn because, my insides feel so very soft here… inside a written world. I have cried while writing many pieces, cried while reading many pieces of fellow writers. Emotionally, I am raw so often inside written language whether reading or writing, it can feel, like open bleeding wounds all the time.

I do understand. And it can be scary. To look at me, one would find me as male in appearance and demeanour. Maybe after exchanging words with me for a few minutes, one might possibly find me quirky, but that’s about all. I do not cry easily from personal tragedy or physical pain. I have, in my life felt odd about that. I knew I should cry when I felt certain things. So, I am, as I appear. Except that music makes me cry if it is beautiful. And poetry. And fine prose–like Irving Bacheller, who I have mentioned before. (Try reading Vergilius aloud. It is quite short. And oddly, it is a Christmas story of sorts. Read his beautiful descriptions when he introduces his characters. Then go to amazon and notice that there are no comments on the book there. You will wonder why. You will wonder how one of the finest authors in the English speaking world can be completely ignored.) Try reading Vergilius with a dry eye. I would double dog dare any lumberjack!

And then, I have my real life, off the screen. I feel like I can’t share something that has become a sense of pride and joy with those who are nearest me… I can’t handle the scrutiny. It closes me back up.
When people on the internet, whom you’ve never met, and likely never will, become closer than those you are surrounded by, because you are able to open the vat of your soul, because there are no faces, no preconceived expectations or responsibility to be the mature, put together mom who runs a busy home… well, that’s where it gets confusing.
Does that make sense? That yes. Even my husband, could really not care less, what I write.

I realise I haven’t answered everything in the above; I do not wish to intrude too much; and I fear I may have stated too much already. I myself, didn’t expect to receive any attention whatever on wordpress. One doesn’t. Then it happens. Most people follow and like and reblog just to be neighbourly, perhaps, but even that is touching, because so many of them would perhaps disagree so vehemently with one another. This alone proves that people are kinder–much kinder–than modern interpretation in cinema or literature, or that the popular news sources would indicate.

But as far as people in ones own life. Real at home. In the flesh. I also do understand. Although you might think I’m too lucky in my sweet wife to understand such things. The truth is that although you are perfectly correct about her, there are others here I would like to reach. One very close friend of many decades who I know is capable on some level of appreciating life as beautiful but who now cannot bring himself to do so. This is in large part because of his education (Columbia University) and what I have, in another post mentioned as the Frankfurt school of art (a school of thought, not an actual school) which oddly enough landed at Columbia University, and for which Columbia, as such, is “ground zero,” so to speak.

I have never mentioned to him my sonnets, even though I see him almost daily. And truly perhaps I should, even though I feel as though he will not, in them, be able to see anything to any benefit. This, in fact, is something that has been done ‘to’ him by these people. He did not choose this. He was defenceless as a young man, as were many of us–myself included, albeit to a lesser degree. And truly, if emotion, if anger could do real physical damage, as in fiction, or as in film, my anger would have long ago have raised Columbia to the ground for what irreparable damage it has done to my friend; who was, and in many ways, still is a good man.

I say I should do so though because even though I think they will not be appreciated… And by the way, it has nothing to do with how or what he would think about them. If I cared one whit for that, I wouldn’t post my sonnets on wordpress at all. Still… Sometimes we ‘know’ people in our immediate lives so well, that we don’t know them at all, in some ways. I should do better–even if not for him, but for myself–by letting him see them all regardless of whether he will enjoy them or not. His reaction might surprise me, whereas if he never sees them, he will not have a choice to react at all.

How can I balance my written world and my real world. Old days, it was all off-line, and sometimes, though having readers is a thrill and blessing, and I love and adore this community, I was able to just, let it go, easier, to be picked up whenever I wished. A readership, expects and hope, for more writing, always. I know, because I have felt that my self… the crave for the words of the others… but, it has been a lot for me this year. A large part of me struggles with the weight of expectation… I buckle under outside expectation. And. Sometimes my brain spins so fast, that the extra voices of the sweet and well meaning, make it spin harder and faster, too much so.
Goodness, I’m not proof reading, so I hope this makes sense.

It makes perfect sense. And I was afraid I might be crossing a line by writing about you. I truly wasn’t begging you to come back; just expressing my feelings regarding your absence; however I realise that there is little perceived difference in these two. They may both cry with the same desperation. Still I keep thinking about you and your writing. And I happily imagine your home full of children running in all directions (like cockroaches, only much cuter.) This is something that my sweetheart so wished to experience, although she was not well enough, and we were so graced–if at a much more leisurely pace.

I didn’t realise, when I started writing here that I would have comments and want to respond to them–although I do not have so many as you, due probably to the fact that I have not been here as long, and that my offered work is less accessible than some–an acquired taste, let’s say. And frankly, I didn’t think it would matter one way or another. I didn’t realise that the “job” of writing a sonnet every day would cause another job of answering people’s inquiries and other such things, to materialise out of thin air. I really didn’t care if I had no followers at all with the exception of Mrs. Emeron.

I am trying to come to terms with all this. Truly. Your kindness, pushing me to spill, well…. I do appreciate it. And I do truly hope you are all right. I know, this time of year, is brutal on some. If it has been hard, know, you are not alone in that.

I can be sad during this season like anyone, but It’s also my favourite time of year. As I mentioned elsewhere, it was the shock, not of your withdrawal, but that you took everything down. I think that worried me more than anything else. It was partly that I had wanted to really explore your writing in depth. It was partly that such rash actions sometimes bode ill. Believe me when I say I know that well. I knew that you had some trepidation regarding your posts. Particularly those wherein you bare your soul more even than you usually do. I hadn’t realised it was enough to throw you back in to isolation. Not that far. Such a shock it was.

In any case, I have now made your very long comment into an even longer one. I hope it will not be a burden to read. I also am very touched that you enjoy my sonnets. I believe you are the only one so far out there in cyberspace that finds them as compelling as you do–although I could be wrong about that. And I think at this point, you know I feel the same way about your work as well.

And on the lighter side, as I may have mentioned before, don’t worry about grammar; when you do some writing or have a specific project that really requires it, you will not have much trouble learning what you need. This is all I have done. Most of my grammar I have learned through reading. But I have done some study. Public schools have gotten much more dismal in this way than they were when I was a boy, but even so… I tuned it all out because I wanted to do things not involving words. So I learned very little regarding such things while in school. Not even in college did I learn such things, because my first studies were in the hard sciences. I did pursue more of what I then called the “chaff” later in life. Liberal arts degrees of all kinds do require some writing. One is, all the time, writing writing writing. So that, I suppose was “free” practise. But that was actually quite recent, and the standards have lowered so much that even there, any grammar I may have learned during that time, either systematically or otherwise, had to be done on my own. Which reminds me, I should probably go over this tome and find all the words I skipped over because my hands go faster than my brain and at times vice versa, but I don’t think I will just now. Perhaps Lucas will help me there.

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