The Filial Shear
“The children were reaching the age I referred to as filial shear, and as the landscapes overtook my family pictures, their figures began to recede from my gaze.”
This post is part of The Quiet Lane series.
I read those words and was gripped by a warm, oozing sort of vertigo, the ground suddenly shifting, giving way, like quick sand. Certain truths will do that to you. It’s fear mixed with recognition and certainty at the sight of a predator, knowing you won’t escape its jaws, no matter how fast you run.
According to my notes (and a quick search), I published the first post to what would eventually become this blog about five months before our youngest daughter—Héloïse—was born. Today, she’s thirteen. Thirteen and giddy about her new Nintendo Switch, waiting for Animal Crossing to update so she can play with her friends online. She’d been counting down days for months, a makeshift calendar pinned to the wall above her bed, a pencil nearby to cross out the dates. This is innocence in its last throes—I know this, deep in my bones. Something both lovely and sad.
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I made a change this morning, small enough that it’s barely worth mentioning. I changed blog to journal on the main navigation menu. Because that word—blog— is the butt of jokes now, even though it only means writing without someone looking over your shoulder. But mostly because a journal is anything you want it to be, direction-less and imperfect when you need it to be.
A few weeks ago Jason Kottke published a post that echoed across several writers I follow. Here’s an excerpt:
Does what I do here make a difference in other people’s lives? In my life? Is this still scratching the creative itch that it used to? And if not, what needs to change? Where does kottke.org end and Jason begin? Who am I without my work? Is the validation I get from the site healthy? Is having to be active on social media healthy? Is having to read the horrible news every day healthy? What else could I be doing here? What could I be doing somewhere else? What good is a blog without a thriving community of other blogs? I’ve tried thinking about these and many other questions while continuing my work here, but I haven’t made much progress; I need time away to gain perspective.
I’ve asked myself every single one of those questions during the past few years, and I’m still no closer to an answer. Can you retire, at some point, from being a “content creator” if creating defines who you are? And should it define us in the first place? No, I don’t think so. But it’s inevitable. Do anything long enough, successfully enough, and the world will assign you to that task. And their mission will become your mission, their perception will be your own, obfuscating any other desire or possibility.
There are moments when this leaves me breathless.
Like that filial shear, both lovely and sad.
