Why Write Another Blog?

Helene Hanff (played by Anne Bancroft in 84 Charing Cross Road): One of my top 3 favorite writers. Like me, she wrote in her bedroom.

"Why write yet another blog, Lenora?" you ask.

Because I am frustrated!

Yes, I love writing AMERICA: The Blog but America's not the only topic I think about. The entire concept of protecting Freedom is that Freedom protects us and frees us not to think about it so we can enjoy our lives to the utmost.

Limiting myself to only write about America/politics has left me stranded with a backlog of thousands of words about other topics, all jostling in my brain behind a dam labeled, "But It's Not About America" spilling over onto thousands of hand-written journal pages, read by no one but me.

Well, that stops now!

The truth is, philosophizing is one of my favorite hobbies. Okay! Okay! It may well be my only hobby. Be kind!

But what's the fun of compulsively philosophizing if I can't share it with you!? Hence the new blog! It might be a blessing or it might be complete caca. Either way, it's gonna be fun!

I'm Stuck

This  was one of my father's favorite quotes. He oft repeated it with a jaded sigh but until I Googled the quote today, I never knew it was John Lennon who said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

He's spot-on!

When my Real Adult Life finally began in my thirties (it's a long story!), the decade flashed by so quickly I hardly remember it!

Now at age forty-{ummmm-counting-on-fingers}-two, I've come to one huge conclusion: I'M STUCK WITH ME.

We are all stuck with ourselves, no matter how busy we were making other plans and trying to be someone much cooler than who God made us to be.

You're Never Cool to Yourself

That's me on the right, fiddling with a group at MBOTMA's Winter Weekend event.

Why do little girls want to become ballerinas?

Because of the wonderful feeling they get inside watching Ulyana Lopatkina twirl and float above the stage.

There's only one person who doesn't get that wonderful feeling and that's Ulyana. She cannot thrill herself because she knows only too well the thousands of hours of grueling practice, starvation diet, bloodied toes and bullying directors she suffered to create a beautiful illusion for everyone...except herself.

That's true for each of us. I may think you are just "So cool!" but you don't feel that way about yourself. (And if you did, you'd be insufferable!)

No matter how many nice comments are posted or emailed to me about my writing, I don't feel cool at all. I know too much about me.

So I fled from myself. In my twenties, I took up the fiddle and mandolin to pass the time while waiting for Mr. Right and to attempt to feel about myself the warm glow I felt towards fiddlers who make your toes tap and your heart sing.

It didn't work. I became a decent violin player but I felt like an imposter. My hands cramped, my head ached. I could fiddle alright and indeed fiddling events were some of my happiest moments because I felt accepted but music didn't come naturally to me. It's too mathematical and God has only given me words, not numbers.

So I tried to become an artist, even majoring in Graphic Design in technical college. To this day my desk is overflowing with art supplies I never use because that's not me. My brain works like a spreadsheet, not like Monet and certainly not like Picasso.

Finally I tried to become an amazing cook because I adore books and TV shows about food in all its splendor, but I dislike cooking. I'm clumsy. I haven't got a crafty bone in my body and cooking is a craft that involves fire and sharp knives. Why would I enjoy doing that!?!

In the end, we are all stuck with ourselves. The person God created us to be Will Out. There's no escaping our uncool selves.

Finally, at long last, I've accepted that I'm a philosopher. I think day and night. I write day and night. Can't stop. Don't want to stop because I enjoy it so dang much! But until now I hadn't quite allowed myself to realize nor accept nor say outloud that God created me to be a philosopher.

"Deal with it!" (I'm saying that to myself.)

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My Inspirations

Who changed your life? Was it a favorite teacher? A grandparent, aunt or uncle? Perhaps even a movie or song?

The three writers pictured above are my inspirations. If I can become half the writers they were, I shall be very well pleased.

I suppose they're the least likely inspirations for someone who, for eighteen months, has written almost exclusively about President Trump and Conservatism.

Anthony Bourdain was a Libertarian, a wild child, alcoholic, reformed drug addict and an atheist who, like all atheists, talked an awful lot about God...but hated Donald Trump.

He burst onto the scene simply because he was a brilliant writer (and his mother pulled strings for him at The New York Times). Vicious. Brutal. He went straight for the throat of every topic. No holds barred. No quarter asked and none given.

You can read Kitchen Confidential over and over without ever getting bored.

Personally, I don't believe he committed suicide. I believe he was offed. More on that topic in a future article.

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Helene Hanff: A Jewish New York Liberal who struggled desperately to make a living by writing until a lucky break changed her life in her 50s when her book, 84 Charing Cross Road, became a cult classic that changed my life in 2011.

For decades Helene worked very hard to become a good writer while dashing off the most teasing, acerbic notes to a prim-and-proper Englishman who worked in antiquarian bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road in London.

When Helene tried to be a good writer, she was mediocre. But when she was herself in writing, she was brilliant!

Without dear Helene, you wouldn't be reading this blog now. I'd still be living in the Twin Cities and never would've met my Michael. It's a long story.

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And C. S. Lewis. Dear, dear C. S. Lewis. A former atheist so intensely, deeply, grittily honest that in his writing he managed the impossible: he made Being Human and Being Christian compatible. How many pastors or so-called "Christian" writers accomplish that!?

I suppose I fell in love with Lewis when he wrote about the joy of peeling off a scab. No one else would dare to write something so intensely human and embarrassing but C. S. Lewis did.

Without Lewis, I might've lost all hope in God.

When I fear death, I remember that in death I'll (hopefully) finally get to meet C. S. Lewis and then I don't mind the idea of dying at all.

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Honourable Mentions

Photo by Paul Child

When I'm sitting in the Eye Clinic waiting to have a hypodermic needle plunged into my eyeball (Avastin injection), the only thing that takes my mind off my impending doom is reading My Life In France by Julia Child.

In its transporting pages, she takes you to 1948 post-war France and the meal that forever changed her life...and ours: Sole Meunière.

Large in the pages is her husband, Paul Child, who loved to photograph his beautiful wife and those long, long legs of hers! If the movie Julie & Julia is right, he's a lot like my Michael. Everytime Mastering the Art of French Cooking was rejected by yet another publisher, Paul had one response: "FUCK 'EM!" That's what my Michael says too.

It's nice to have someone in your life who always has your back and believes in your writing. Julie and Paul Child were a great team who changed the world, our cuisine and television itself.

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Ah, the wonderful mind of Carrie Bradshaw. It never stops grinding, no pun intended.

Mentally, she chews on every situation in life and then regurgitates it in her column.

I relate, oh! I so relate. Fellow philosophers, dear lady, just with different, ahem, topics of interest.

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What Shall I Then Write?

Everything. Nothing is off the table. Everything in life, every situation, every person, every relationship, every hurt, every blessing and every misfortune is grist for the philosophy mill. No topic is out-of-bounds. No detail too small. No subject too embarrassing, too profound nor too simple.

Will I finally make sense out of Life? Nope!

If our best minds have tried and failed for thousands of years, I haven't got a prayer. Nonetheless, it'll be fun to wander through Life together, hand-in-hand, philosophizing about this crazy, untenable thing we call Life.

Welcome to  Philosophizing by Lenora.

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