Tag Archives: Writing

Dying of Shame…

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“I once read an interesting book, it said most people lost in the wild, they die of shame…”

-“The Edge”

There’s this Mamet film, “The Edge” that came out in the late 90s. I saw it in the theater and maybe a few times on television. I’m a big film person and moments, lines, scenes, energy from films stick with me, in my emotional DNA for years.

In the Edge, Anthony Hopkins character, a billionaire who finds himself stranded in the wilderness with Alec Baldwin and Harold Perrineau and hunted by a blood thirsty Kodiak Bear shares with them something he once read about people in their situation, that when they die, they usually die of “shame.”

I never understood it. I got that they were scared that they might never be found because no one even knew they were lost but I figured, at least they had each other and would find a way. But I get it now. And I’m not even lost in a literal wilderness unless my mind counts. He meant that when we’re scared enough, we can kill ourselves with shame before anything else finally finishes us off because we become so paralyzed with fear and a negative internal dialogue where were tell ourselves the worst things about why we’re in the situation we’re in, that we cannot act against real and immediate threats to our survival. We’re so ashamed of being lost in the first place that we die before we can be killed or create larger problems for ourselves than what might actually exist. Either way, we don’t move, we don’t act. We spiral.

I am spiraling. I am spiraling and I can’t seem to stop. I am spiraling and it is draining. I am spiraling and have allowed the spiral to rob me of joy, passion, curiosity, confidence…life.

My usual coping mechanisms aren’t coping. I’m on a ledge and have been for months. And the shame is very real. Overflowing into areas of my life that I thought I could protect. How long has it been since I last made an entry here? And this is where I’m at.

The details don’t matter. And I’m know I’m not alone. But that doesn’t matter either.

HERE I AM

Books, Creativity, culture, expression, Writing

How long has it been since I wrote here? I mean I write everywhere else. In journals, on the backs of envelopes in my living room, on social media posts, in my head. But not here. And there’s been a lot going on. And a whole lot of nothing as well. All at the same time.

Lets start with the fact that that I submitted one of the last pieces I wrote here to be published in a collection of writings by over a hundred talented souls of a writing workshop that I began attending last year when there was some really rough shit going on in my life which I never talked about.

The writing workshop itself was announced by Kevin Powell, a writer, journalist, activist, filmmaker, publisher and more whom I’ve been following forever, like since before “following” was a thing. I saw his announcement of the workshop sponsored by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on his IG feed. It was free. I, like so many of us have been shut in since the beginning of the pandemic, employing various means of not losing my mind and when I saw the announcement I just thought, why not? I mean, I do write. I’ve been writing forever. My friend Cece who is friends with Kevin also joined the group so I felt that at least I would know someone there. I know it’s ridiculous to require peer support at my age but then again, maybe it’s not. What’s ridiculous is we’re all on Zoom in our PJS. How much more comfortable do we need to be? LOL!! But I’m still nervous, still want to be on time, still want to challenge myself the way I would if we were meeting in a physical classroom or space.

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