Vulnerability Hangovers

Part 1: When there is always someone better than you

SUPPING on Lake Simcoe, Georgina (Stand-up Paddle Boarding)

"‘But what if I can't do enough,’ I said, and love said, ‘what if you don't try?’"

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

You may wonder why I would attempt a balancing yoga pose when everything is going just fine while standing and paddling? Why would I share my defeat? Heaven forbid I let the internet see me far from my best, let alone totally missing the mark. I didn’t know it until last year when I began publishing blogs but I have always dreaded vulnerability. It might lead to criticism or rejection. Or worse, to complete failure. It may mean discovering how I truly measure up against others, because that’s what matters, isn’t it?

I keep proving to myself what many of us already know. Comparison IS the ultimate thief of joy and self-acceptance. Why would anyone share failure? I am learning that in order to really show up for ourselves, our partners, our friends, family and children, (and yes, our online audience) we might want to reveal our softer sides. But does this include when we are not at our best?

I can smell Fall as dead leaves begin to gather round our yard. I notice the trees succumbing to cooler nights and dwindling sunlight. This particular Lake Simcoe beach is a ninety-minute round trip from Uxbridge and I appreciate the drive, with its bare winding roads, cornfields and free-range cattle. The paddle is always worth what it costs me in time to get there.

The lake can alternate between calm ripples and white caps in minutes. So when my friend Kim says conditions are ideal (according to her Windfinder app) I am in, even when it means being out of the house by 7:20 am on a Saturday. This might be our last paddle of the season and I am pumped. The four of us meet just after eight o’clock and it is already nearly twenty degrees Celsius, with azure skies matching the lake’s smooth surface. She’s right; the conditions are perfect for my first open-water paddle, since returning from a month’s vacation on the shores of New Brunswick and Newfoundland, and spending much of our time open-water swimming and paddling in lakes, rivers, waterfalls and oceans.

My mom recently quipped, “You’ve got it made.”

She’s right - I kinda do and it is no accident. When I make time for this kind of morning, I feel more like myself, more balanced while living in this busy province - the one I call my second home - one which has been both vicious and kind to me in the past two decades. Since moving here in 2001 I have endeavoured to find physical places that ground and connect me to “the rock,” my home province of Newfoundland.

We paddle for close to an hour before stopping to swim. But first, yoga. I begin in downward dog, peddling my feet, then slowly easing into a low lunge, alternating to the other side, loving the feeling of being strong and able. There is no rushing allowed on a SUP. I manage a shaky warrior one pose on my left; this is what a yogi calls a full lunge, with overhead parallel arms. No one is camera-ready for my success. As I carefully switch sides, I bring my right knee forward while slowly lifting my back knee. I sense three pairs of eyes on me and feel myself shake a bit. I think about falling and as I push into the board and topple into the lake to the sound of laughter. But I am still having fun and I laugh with the others. My photo is a perfect example of trying and failing. Of going for it even when I might not make it.

Speaking of failing. As a kid, I hated gym class. I was generally picked second-last, if not last, for sports teams. I hated the slow, drawn-out process of standing around staring at my feet or picking invisible lint off my shirt. I silently pleaded to be chosen quickly, to avoid that embarrassment of being picked last, of being unwanted. I was never ever close to being the athlete of the year, not by any stretch - not even for soccer - which I loved and played well. The only time I considered my motor skills was during gym class, when other people cared if I was good enough for their team. It was the only B on my report card. There was always someone better than me.

I began playing piano and writing songs and poetry as a child. I did it to stay afloat, to find joy in what felt like a joyless world. I found a way to express myself when there was no other known way to do so. Twelve years ago while I was experiencing my “darkest night of the soul,” I was encouraged to write so I signed up for my first official creative writing course with Barry Dempster, who - unbeknownst to me - is a Canadian writing legend. I wasn’t ever considering writing professionally back then, but I needed to find something to bring me back to life. It looked like a lifeline that might float me through the ocean of deep grief and uncomfortable doubts I was holding about my then unexplainable life.

I had thought I was a decent writer during the first and maybe second class. However, during the fifth or sixth poetry sharing I started to realize I was swimming in a different pool of fish and I didn’t know the first thing about skilled writing. Looking back now, I can acknowledge that I was likely the least-developed writer. No one had ever criticized my work the way Barry did. Of course, he was trying to help me become a better writer, but I couldn’t and still wouldn’t yet find my writing voice. I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

But I was desperate to know who I was as a writer. Why write, anyway? I kept digging for clues as to what I thought about anything, and then to know what I wanted to say about what I thought. During Covid lockdowns, I ended up in a Zoom writer’s group with three women, one of whom introduced me to Vicki Pinkerton and between both groups I began writing under the Amherst Writers & Artists method of prompt and timed writing, which allows words to flow from our unconscious to our conscious mind. Their core belief is simple: “Every person is a writer, and every writer deserves a safe environment in which to experiment, learn, and develop craft.”

These groups made it feel safe to be doing it poorly. I felt like I was accepted for exactly who and where I was, doing it for the love and nothing more. I began learning how to be vulnerable by opening up in ways I previously could not. I began learning to trust what was beneath my own murky critical faculty, which has been dubbed the “firewall,” or separation between our conscious and unconscious mind. I devoured memoirs and signed up for more courses to help me get there. I started waking before 6 am every morning, journalling and reading poetry and essays from writers such as Mary Oliver, Billy Collins and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. I listened to podcasts led by Allison Fallon who interviewed regular people like me, people who were writing their story just for the sake of it. I also subscribed to Canadian literary journals.

Fast forward to June 2024, when I entered a maximum 2000-word memoir for an international writing contest. I had never done anything like this. But I’d been practicing writing the stories from my life for those four years, and sharing with friends how I’ve been working on my memoir, so I went for it. Just like I went for warrior 1 on my SUP.

It was the hardest piece of writing I’ve ever completed. It is not for a blog, as it is a story that requires context, which happens in my memoir. I wrote about those who might not like being included. People who might feel embarrassed or ousted and angry with me about my perspective, or, who may think I embellished or wrote fiction.

I didn't expect that I would make the short or long list, although of course I hoped I could and would. Maybe one judge would notice something about my story and recognize its value. But. How could I - a novice participant - even come close to being noticed? I decided it was worth it just to write it.

I spent hours refining by eliminating and editing. I asked a close writer friend for her insight and she asked me the right questions. I revisited childhood trauma. I cried. I wakened to some painful truths from that period of my life, made acknowledgements I couldn’t even consider before writing this piece. I wrote from my perspective, with my voice, and then I let it go for two months. The organizer had sent an auto-response for each submission. It was a something akin to “Congratulations for submitting, because you did the part that really matters. You finished a piece of writing that asked a lot from you so be proud of yourself. You did it!"

I felt her pat on my back but I still wanted to be noticed and recognized for my hard and vulnerable work.

While I didn’t expect to be the first picked “for the team,” I had secretly hoped I’d be chosen for the long-list, the top 24 writers out of 335 entries. But no, my story did not make it to the long list. I might never know why those judges didn’t choose my story.

Does it matter that they didn’t choose me? Can writing the story for myself suffice? Can what I learned - about who I was and who I am now - be enough to keep me going, to forge ahead into more unknown territory?

It all matters. Every single step.

ln some ways I felt like I was that kid back in elementary school. Standing around, head toward the floor, hands hanging, fingers clenching my shorts. In some ways, I felt that familiar sense of hopelessness in my abilities, thinking that maybe writing isn’t the right path for me because I didn’t come out on top.

Sometimes I think my ego is just as big as it ever was. I still want to be noticed. While I think practicing vulnerability is not an easy path, it might be the way to shrinking the ego. And, I am beginning to understand on a deeper level that this is what it means to be a writer, an artist, and a human being.

I like to read Rick Rubin, whom I call the Dalai Lama of the music industry. He has produced musicians such as Lady Gaga, Mick Jagger and Tom Petty and wrote “The Creative Act: A Way of Being.” His wisdom and insight brings peace to my soul about being exactly where I am. He says there is no way to predict success and it often boils down to timing. Great art is often missed.

"Art is choosing to do something skillfully, caring about the details, bring all of yourself to make the finest work you can.  It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorification, and need for approval."                              

The sting of not making the cut might stay with me for a bit of time and I’m going to let it, because I must feel it in order to move on from it. As most authors and writers will attest after experiencing rejection, it is a part of growing as a writer. Ick. It is also a part of being human.

We can and will always go deeper in order to move closer to wholeness, if we say yes.

On our paddle back to shore, I hear words that I never knew I need to hear.

While sharing my disappointment about the writing contest with a fellow paddle boarder, she tells me about her son who attended a highly competitive music school as a young child. She shared how ruthless they were at cutting those who weren’t the best.

I commiserate saying how awful that must have felt for him.

And she says yeah, “There’s always someone better than you!”

“That is so true!” I say laughing so hard I almost fall off my SUP, again.

And I could choose to stay upset about this truth, as I have been so many times in the past, or I can let it push me in the direction of practicing more vulnerability. I can decide to show up wholeheartedly, each day I write, whether in community or solitude. I choose to put my heart and soul out there in the world and continue learning how to be here in all that ways that truly matter.

And the worst thing that can happen is that I end up wet. Or embarrassed. Or both.

"In the end, the sum total of the essence of our individual works may serve as a reflection.  The closer we get to the true essence of each work, the sooner they will somehow, at some point in time, provide clues as to our own."         Rick Rubin

Journal Prompt

What keeps pulling at you? What do you desire or need to share? With whom? What will happen when you share it? Is it a piece of writing? An apology? Maybe you simply need to be honest with someone you love.

I paddled again this past Saturday evening and I landed the warrior 1. Hello Fall:)

I’m always here to chat, please feel free to:

All my best,

Jaclyn