WILL THE REAL LUANN UDELL PLEASE STAND UP?

I was going to reorganize some of my blog posts, adding ones that originally ran in Fine Art Views, combining suggestions for newsletters with topics for press releases. What a hot mess! So instead, I’m republishing this one today, from the WayBack machine: May 4, 2009. Because I need a laugh, and maybe you do, too!

So should you believe everything you read here? Getting to the real “me” can be tricky.

Someone wrote me recently, commenting on the phenomenon that many writers don’t actually resemble in real life the personae they’ve created in their writing (or in their online presence.) People who seem so saintly are actually kinda mean and petty. People who seem so forthright and opinionated in online forums are actually too shy to ever say what they really mean in real life.

How do you know anyone is who they say they are??

Coincidentally, another friend recently accused me changing a word or two when I quoted him in an article. I lied, he said.

So…Are all writers liars??

My first reaction was, Ruh-roh. They’re on to me.

I try to be calm and loving and accepting, always looking for the lesson, always looking for the other side of a situation.

But sometimes that all goes out the window when someone cuts me off in traffic, or when somebody gives me attitude. Or when I simply don’t get what I want.

I try to to be cheerful and upbeat, and a good friend.

But sometimes I just want to crawl in a hole and die. Sometimes even my best friends really piss me off. Or worse, are highly annoying.

Much as I pour my heart and soul into these articles, you can’t get around the fact that I write them.

I get to decide what parts I put in and what parts I leave out. I get to frame the problem, and I get to position the answer.

I get to be too hard on myself, and I get to fudge the happy ending.

So who IS the real Luann?

1. Is she the compassionate and wise, thoughtful and kind person some people think she is?

2. Or is she the verbally quick and bright-haired woman who always feels she has to be the smartest and funniest person in the room?

3. Is she the loving mother who will fight fiercely for her children’s right to simply be who they are? The supportive wife who is always there for her husband?

4. Or is she the screaming shrew who actually once yelled at one of them, “If I had a pointy stick, so help me God I’d use it right now!” Or the bickering partner who says, “You know I’m right, so why don’t you save us both some time and just throw in the towel on this argument now?”

5. Is she the writer who publicly shares a struggling, sometimes painful spiritual journey to understand her place in the world, with anyone out there who will listen?

6. Or is she the self-righteous indignant and angry crabby person who still has the self-awareness to laugh when the writer Ann Lamott writes,

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

7. Is she a person with a core of hot truth who examines what role she plays in the sad places of her life, and willingly embrace the lessons she finds there?

8. Or is she the idiot who falls back into the same patterns that didn’t work before, and has to learn those same lessons over and over and over again?

9. Is she the nicest person you ever met?

10. Or is she so empty inside, she still believes that being nice is more important than being honest/whole/self-reliant/herself.

11. Is she brave and fearless in her approach to love, life and art?

12. Or is she hanging on desperately to what she already knows, because anything else is too terrifying to contemplate?

13. Is she an amazing artist whose work with texture, color, mixed media and narrative has resulted in a formidable body of work?

14. Or is she that woman who spent an hour in Home Depot’s paint section, agonizing over what color to paint her bathroom?

15. Is she someone who understands this is her journey in life, accepting it with a whole heart (only having to be dragged kicking and screaming to the next step occasionally), doing the best she can? That it’s not about what others think of us or what we do, we just need to do the right thing?

16. Or is she fearful that others might think she is putting on a pretty good but false persona, too?

Answer:
a. All the odd-numbered statements.
b. All the even-numbered statements
c. Some of the above.
d. All of the above.
e. None of the above.

If I’m learning anything in this strange journey called life, it’s that we’re all very different, and that has to be honored. And we all have a lot in common. A lot.

We all have our dark side, and our bright side. We all struggle to love and be loved, and by the “right” people, too. We all want to be recognized for the incredible things we do, and we all wish the bad things could go in a closet somewhere, forever.

We all have the “inner work” to do, and most of us will never finish it. In fact, some of us will never even acknowledge there is inner work to do. “Oh, that’s, someone else’s inner work!” they’ll exclaim. (I just corrected a typo here that read “sinner work” & realized, that works, too….)

And they’ll be right, too. (And wrong.)

You see where I’m going with this.

If you met me for the first time, and I were having a good day, you might think I’m delightful and funny. Or you might think I simply talk too much.

If you met me on a bad day, you might think I was thoughtful, a compassionate and ready listener. Or you might think I have a chip on my shoulder the size of a Buick, and I whine too much.

Some people love the fact that three years ago, for the first time in my life, I dyed my hair. A deep, rich, intense auburn color. They think it’s brave and cheeky and fun and artistic. Other people think it’s pathetic that a woman my age is so desperately hanging on to her youth. Who does she think she’s kidding??!

The real me? Your guess is as good as mine. I only know it seems important right now to accept all these things as true. Without judgment or censure. Without pride or smugness.

Because what I do, or what I think, or what I have, or what I choose, are all aspects of myself that could disappear in a heartbeat. What is left then?

And that’s what my journey is about.

Because I think what I’m going to find out is, who I really am–just me–in the end, is something much, much bigger–and much, much simpler–than all of these other things.

And that will be….enough.

Just remember. We’re all in this together, and nobody gets out alive.

p.s. My friend, who has mental illness, objected to my use of the word “crazy” to describe the way he’d “altered” his rented room. So perhaps I should have been more sensitive to his condition and used a less volatile adjective. (Update: Perhaps?? Oh hell no, I was totally at fault on this one. Once I know better, I try to do better.)

On the other hand, the other word he complained about was just way too picky. So I think–you guessed it!–we’re both right.

Update again: In my effort to create a “perfect” and grammatically correct article, I accidentally copy-and-pasted the article TWICE. Corrected. For now.

IDENTITY AND AUTHENTICITY

What happens when one person’s right to privacy trespasses on another person’s right to their own identity and authenticity?

Today I received one of the most upsetting phone calls of my life.

A local woman, whose husband has been in the news lately, called to tearfully ask me why I would ever write such terrible things about her on a public forum.

I was totally bewildered. I asked for more details and found the disturbing situation:

Someone had posted insulting, derogatory and hurtful personal comments about this woman and her family. Then they’d linked their pseudonym (“sad”) to a blog article I wrote in May 2010.

To the casual observer, it might be construed that I had also written those awful comments.

Let me state here and now:

I did not write the comments written by “sad” on that website. (Actually, searching for those comments was the first time I’ve even visited that site.)

I do not know who did.

I hope to find out someday, and I will do my best to do that.

But….how do I prove I didn’t do such a sleazy thing?

I’m in the process now of talking to my lawyer and our local newspaper. Turns out not much can be done, legally. But there is a story here, maybe several, and I can only hope The Keene Sentinel will take on this complex story of privacy, identity and authenticity.

We worry so much about our privacy in the digital age. We feel strongly that we should be able to be anonymous sometimes–to protect our jobs, perhaps, or to offer an opinion or insight while distancing ourselves from our professional ethics or…whatever. I’m not well-versed on this. There are circumstances that allow anonymity, and often for very good reasons.

But what hits me hard today is, this is actually a matter of identity and authenticity.

The anonymous poster wanted to express his crude opinions in a way to protect his own reputation and profession. But in doing so, he maligned mine.

Anyone who knows my writing (and I’ve been blogging since 2002) knows how I operate. I write with as much truth, honesty and integrity as possible. I would never have written the awful things that “sad” (pun intended) person wrote. I would never have hidden behind a pseudonym. I would never have implied someone else said them.

This person’s “right” (not sure, but they felt they had that right) to be anonymous trespassed on my right to my identity and my authenticity–a reputation I’ve built and maintained all my life.

It’s frightening to think this person could take that away in a few minutes of venomous spurting.

It’s upsetting this woman would (understandably) conclude that I could write such things.

Frankly, it pisses me off I have to spend so much time this morning scrambling to defend my reputation.

And since we’re having dinner tonight with our family lawyer, I anticipate a lively discussion on one person’s right to privacy vs. another person’s right to their personal and professional identity and authenticity.

Stay tuned–“lively” is an understatement!

WHAT ARE YOU CALLING?

IMPORTANT! On 9/2/2010, an anonymous poster on a local website published derogatory, insulting and personal comments under a pseudonym. They then linked their pseudonym-signature to this article.

It would be easy for a casual reader to assume I wrote those comments.

I did not write those comments, and I do not know who did.

I am extremely upset that someone, to hide their own ugly act, then impugned and sullied my professional integrity and reputation.

Regular readers will know I have never, ever written anything as hurtful and unkind as that unknown poster did.

You may see my thoughts on this incident here.

We now return to Luann’s regularly scheduled post for today…..

What is it you really want in your life?

A local lawyer was in the news recently, for allegedly shortchanging the interests of his client in order to line his own pockets.

Soon after the story broke, we walked by his office, a building that sits prominently on our Central Square in downtown Keene.

We saw the strangest sign on the building. It read something like this:

$$ John Doe Law $$

We’ve walked by that sign several times a day for years now, and never noticed the dollar signs used as brackets til then.

Obviously, money was very, very important to this man–and/or his clients.

We all get caught up in money. I do. You do. Can’t live without it, right?

And yet….

What is it about money that we want it so badly? That we call for it so passionately, so persistently?

And is money what we really want?

What we really want is what money represents. Security–knowing we’re prepared if something goes horribly wrong. A roof over our head, preferably one that doesn’t leak. Food on the table. Maybe really, really nice food on the table. Travel. Adventure. Education.

But if these tangibles and intangibles are the things we really want, why do we focus so completely on the money?

What am I calling for in my life?

What happens if I call for money, call for it more powerfully than for anything else??

I know money is a means to an end. In the case of this lawyer, however, it may be that the pursuit of money, over the best interests of his client, became the end. The end of his career. The end of his reputation in this community. And probably the end of a whole lot more.

What I’m thinking about today is not how evil money is. It’s not. But I’m thinking about what money represents to me.

I’m wondering if some of those things, maybe I already have ’em.

And thinking maybe there are other ways to get the ones I don’t.

What do you intend to call for in your life?

P.S. A dear friend in the biz once wrote me to say, “You’re one of the few craftspeople I know who evaluates their success in many other ways besides money. I like that.” I still treasure that remark.

P.P.S. Just in case you’re thinking I’m trying to get nominated for sainthood here (ho ho!….NOT!), let me say I’m expecting a visit this afternoon from an African bead trader.

And I never say no to African trade beads.