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10 November 2006

a celebration in carrots

carrots at the market

This morning, as I opened up my blogger account to post a photograph of gluten-free pasta, preparing to write a post, I discovered something: this is my 200th post.

Gluten-free pasta can wait.

200. Two hundred. Eight twenty-fives. Two hundred x one post = 200 posts.

Wow. I’m astonished.

As those of you who have been reading for awhile must know by now, I love doing this. I adore writing — that sliding feeling of my fingers on the keyboard, tapping out a rhythm. But more than that, I love this ineffably beautiful process of telling stories and sharing my world, or at least a little sliver of it. I don’t always know where I am going, but I follow that small, still voice that points, “This way.” At the end of every piece of writing, I find myself somewhere I did not know existed before. And I am at peace.

One of my friends said to me yesterday, “You are so open. You really just don’t hold anything back in those posts.” Yes. That’s true.

She is not the only friend to say this. Sometimes, friends look at me in astonishment after reading a post, and say, “I can’t believe you revealed that.” I don’t know. I actually don’t know how to do it any differently.

You see, after a lifetime of struggles and joy, a terrible car accident, going gluten-free, and` many years of meditation, I have learned this: I want to be authentic. We are not here for long. I want to really be here, every minute that I can, for that brief amount of time.

So, here I am.

Writing this — and I had no idea I would be typing about this when I sat down to write; I thought I was going to tell you the story of how I started this site instead— makes me think of one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite writers, Mark Doty. Even though I am not gay, and thus did not have the same coming out experience of which he speaks, I can feel his words along my bones:

“I don't exactly feel that this openness has been a choice, although of course on some less-than-conscious level it must be. Rather it feels to me as if it's simply the course my life has taken, beginning in the early eighties with the process of coming out. I felt then a great thirst for directness, an imperative to find language with which to be direct to myself, which is of course the result of having been, like many young gay men, divided from my self, from the authentic character of my desire. I felt I had to hide for years! And the result of that for me, once I began to break through the dissembling, was a thirst for the genuine.”

That’s what I love about writing — a gay man writing about the results of his coming out can speak for me.

And since he spoke so directly to me in that quote, I would like to share this one as well:

“I like poems in which one gets the feeling of meeting a person; it's one of the reasons I read poetry — for that experience of encountering another sensibility in its context, a mind in its skin, as it were. So I would like my own work to be furnished with the stuff of my life. There is an element of illusion to this, in that the self on the page is always a construction; one can't put all of oneself on paper; there are always contradictions, divergences, complexities. Thank goodness! Any poem creates an "I", a character who is its speaker, and on one level this creation is always a performance; one shouldn't mistake the authenticity of art for the facts of autobiography, necessarily! I am interested in getting at something with the feeling of the lived life on the page, and that often involves rearranging the facts, compressing, heightening—lying, if you will. That said, I don't really make much up; my imagination's fired more by trying to limn what is!”

I think of these ideas every day, particularly as I am constructing a book, and working against a big deadline. Am I telling the truth in every sentence? I’m telling my truth. But if sometimes the details are different from how “it actually happened,” then the sentence becomes the way I see it. Every day, I understand my own life more fully by diving into words and trying to come up to the surface with something solid for you to see. Is the self you are reading the real me? Not wholly. But it is my best self, the one I strive to be, and the one I feel like most of the day, these days.

(Of course, I don’t normally write about the times I procrastinate against writing by checking out the Blogging Project Runway blog, because that doesn’t make me sound like a serious writer hard at work. But, I do sometimes. And there you are. I did that revealing thing again.)

One of the greatest joys I experience, every day, is reading the comments on this page, and the letters you send me after reading this site. Every day, I am moved by your kindness, your insights, and the ways you say that I have inspired you. Believe me, please — that means the world to me. Writing is a solitary, difficult act. If I have moved you by telling my story in these two hundred posts, slowly unraveling the life I love through food, then I am deeply honored. That is why I keep going. That is why there will be a book next fall, why there will be post #201 tomorrow.

Thank you for reading, everyone.

And now, I’m going to celebrate by eating some carrots. After all, carrots are gluten-free!

12 Comments:

At 11:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm new to your blog but I can't wait for the next 200 posts :) Great work!!

 
At 12:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

and they're sweet too.
I just don't know any other way to be either.

 
At 6:09 AM, Blogger Travis said...

those carrots look like legs, like a camera in an underwater shot of a synchronized swimming team.

 
At 6:15 AM, Blogger madre-terra said...

Happy 200th.

 
At 7:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've been reading your blog for a little while and I LOVE it! Not only do you have great recipies (my gluten free kitchen has gotten singificantly more interesting lately) you and the chef sound just like my (new) husband and I... except he's not quite a real chef. Every day I ask him if he'll marry me and he says, "How does last july sound?"

But I do have a question for you and your chef. Have you found a good buckwheat crepe recipe? I'd love to make some crepes for my cousins visiting from france next week...

Congrats on 200 posts!

 
At 10:36 AM, Blogger Geo said...

You are 8 X 24-carrot gold + 8 more for good measure. I adore your blog, and you, and your chef.

 
At 11:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

200+ YOU GO SHAUNA. And yes, you must write what you must write and that is why you got a book deal and a whole lot of people reading your blog. Coming out is coming out no matter what your preference is in sex partners and food choices and stream of consciousness...Let it be. HUGS

 
At 4:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

congratulations-- what a wonderful feat! Here is to more of your writing enter the world and making it better for all those who read it!

 
At 10:04 PM, Blogger Tea said...

I guess that's 200 times you've made me smile.

Keep up your amazing wonderful work (does blogging fall under work or play?). You are an inspiration!

 
At 8:13 AM, Blogger Nicola Pulling said...

I've been blogging only for a couple of months...and people, especially friends, have told me "how personal" it is, how "brave" I am...I'm always kind of taken aback by that. I write about my experiences and my thoughts because I think, no,I believe someone else in this world gets what I'm writing. Just gets it, right in their soul. And that "communion" is worth every drop of sweat, tears, agony of writing.

I've come to believe contentment is when my soul and my skin are meshed together, at the surface of me - as you say, that's when the truth is out - me as me. In my low times of life I feel my soul shrinking away from my skin - love (my Steve) and getting older (also over 40, in the land where nouns disappear) seems to have brought soul and skin together again. And so I've embarked on writing again..because I really like the person in that blog...and guess what? It's me. As you say, the best of me. What a privilege eh?

I so get you...thanks.
Nicola

 
At 9:32 PM, Blogger Shauna said...

Tracey,

Thank you for coming by! It's amazing how quickly 200 posts go by. I can only wonder where my life will be then.

Tanna,

I'm so glad there are pleny of us out there. We have too many closed-off people around. Let's open.

Travis,

That is a damned hilarious observation. And accurate. I can't see anything else now that you've mentioned it!

Madre-terra,

Thank you.

Zohreh,

Your husband sounds adorable. And I'm happy that the kitchen is improving. Oh goodness, buckwheat crepes. Well, we could work on them, but we have such a long list of recipes to make in the next six weeks! I think that Rose Levy Bernbaum has a great gluten-free recipe in one of her books. She also has a baking blog: www.realbakingwithrose.com/ She might be able to answer your question right away!

Geo,

Thank you! So good to see you here.

Lynn Barry,

You are right about coming out. Whatever we withhold (or is withheld from us) takes on extra power. It's such a release to know about my celiac. I can hardly believe what has happened to me since! Thanks for reading, as always.

Beastmomma,

Thank you, my dear. I'll do all that I can. And you keep up the hard work in law school. As soon as this manuscript is finished, we must have some food again.

Tea,

Blogging is play. So is writing. I can't believe someone is actually paying me to do what I love! And you always make me smile, my dear.

Nicola,

Thank you. I love that line, "...when my soul and skin are meshed together." Good work.

 
At 6:31 AM, Blogger CaliFORnia said...

I too am a gluten-free girl. It has been 4 years and still food does not love me back. I suspect I am eating gluten daily without knowing it. Or maybe I am also allergic to something else. I was diagnosed after a biopsy and I have not seen that doctor since. I know! I know! I LOVED reading your blog this morning...a guilty pleasure that does not happen often to this teacher and mother of 3! I also love food and life but find myself low and depressed more often than I wish to be. How can I find out what I am eating...is there a way? It seems the FDA has not met the gluten-free world yet? Is there gluten in my coffee, my tea, and how do I know IF I am allergic to oat. I would just like it to be more black and white I guess. Not that I don't love some grey tones at the right time. Just not all the time! Thanks for entertaining me this morning. It was the first blog I ever took the time to read. :) Tracy

 

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