Cindy on January 25th, 2010
As a culture, I see us presently deprived of subtleties. The music is loud, the anger is elevated, and sex seems lacking in sweetness and privacy.” — Shelley Berman
Last week I told 325 friends on Facebook that our bedroom in this old house is torn apart for remodeling and looks like a mess. Later that same day, I announced that I was making pea soup for dinner. (Earlier in the month, as part of a dubious “campaign” for breast cancer awareness, I also posted the color of my bra in my status update.)
I haven’t even met some of these Facebook buddies — so I’m asking myself why I’m compelled to do this.
Touching on a Facebook issue in Newsweek earlier this month, a journalist confessed that she tries to avoid “over-sharing” on social networks. Likewise, a friend of mine recently asked: “Is there such a thing as ‘personal’ anymore? Is any topic sacred?”
My friend was referring to her co-worker’s latest blog post — a post in which the co-worker over-shared intimate details of her love life. As my friend put it, “Blogs and social media are sucking the mystery, romance, and privacy out of everything. Everyone’s a publicity whore.” I had to smile at her use of the words mystery, romance, and privacy — words that seem to have gone the way of the manual typewriter. But she has a point.
As a writing coach who specializes in memoir and personal essays, I’ll be the first to defend the importance of sharing our stories. Sharing stories is how we connect with our fellow humans — and crafting those stories beautifully makes us artists. We glean invaluable lessons when we read memoirs, autobiographies, blogs, and essays by gifted writers. When handled with care, the personal can be universal.
But I wonder if we (as a culture) need to rethink what’s fair game for public consumption? How far “out there” do we need to be? How much do other people need to know about us — and why? If we wouldn’t dare include a personal detail or episode in an essay or a memoir, is it really appropriate for a blog? For Twitter or Facebook? Exactly what are the dangers of over-sharing?
Writing a weekly newspaper column early on, I learned the hard way when I’d crossed the line and violated the tender privacy of loved ones. My son, who was often mentioned in my columns when he was much younger, taught me to think carefully before exploiting a person — or a topic — for the sake of entertaining or amusing my readers.
I’m quick to add here that I seriously enjoy connecting (and reconnecting) with friends on Facebook. And keeping a blog is almost as much fun as writing a weekly newspaper column.
Still, I’m intrigued that so many of us today are driven to share our deepest yearnings and secrets with virtual strangers. At the same time, we complain that it’s hard to forge true emotional intimacy with others — in person. As a writer who covers lifestyle issues for magazines and newspapers, I can’t overlook the paradox. Women’s magazines thrive on this very topic.
So what is it that compels so many to unload information that was — in the past — considered rude (or just plain foolish) to parade in public? I open this topic for discussion here. Please share your thoughts in the “Comments” section below. – Cindy La Ferle
– Photo above: Detail of “Box of Secrets,” altered art piece by Cindy La Ferle –
Cindy on June 4th, 2009
“Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.” — Emily Dickinson
Growing up in the 1960s, I never fully understood the meaning of “The Sandwich Generation.” I thought my parents would be young and vibrant forever. But once I hit my late thirties, I got it. My father died suddenly, and not long after, my widowed mother’s health began to decline. I knew then what it meant to be responsible for my own family and an aging parent. That’s the topic of my new Midpoint column this week in The Oakland Press. To read the column, click here.
*Previous Midpoint columns are archived with links to The Oakland Press (look under CATEGORIES in the “Browse” panel at right). These columns focus on issues of special interest to mid-lifers between ages 40 and 65.
Cindy on May 21st, 2009
“Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash.” — Dr. Joyce Brothers
Here comes the bride — and there goes the family’s life savings. Over the years, I’ve watched newly engaged couples spend months selecting elaborate floral arrangements, inspecting menus from caterers, auditioning professional musicians, and outfitting enough bridal attendants to cast a chorus line on Broadway. How much is too much? Is there such a thing as “over the top” when it comes to weddings and receptions? Click here to read more in today’s Midpoint column in The Oakland Press. –CL
Cindy on April 16th, 2009
“My father used to say that when you die, if you’ve got five real friends, then you’ve had a good life.” — Lee Iacocca
By the time we turn 50, we’ve established a complex social network of neighbors, friends, relatives, coworkers, and colleagues. At some point during midlife, we begin to reconsider some of those relationships — and where we need to devote our attention. We might try to reconnect with friends from high school or college. Or discover that we’ve outgrown a few relationships we enjoyed in the past. While midlife is all about growth and change, cutting old ties is never easy. Read about it in this week’s “Midpoint” column in The Oakland Press, then share your thoughts on how friendship evolves over time. — CL
Previous “Midpoint” columns are archived under CATEGORIES in the panel at right.
Cindy on February 17th, 2009
There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (Letters)
Lately I’ve noticed a lot of magazine articles touting the medicinal wonders of tea, but I don’t need to be persuaded. While I still rely on strong black coffee for my morning jump-start, I’m primed for the pleasures of tea by the time my workday winds down.
Unlike coffee (tea’s rich but nerve-racking cousin), tea is a soul-soother. Whether you prefer the delicate jasmine aroma of Earl Grey, or the spicy citrus bouquet of Constant Comment, one cup is enough to transform the dismal hour between four and five o’clock into an uplifting occasion.
I can’t pour a teapot without remembering my paternal grandmother, Robina Scott, who grew up in rural Scotland, then immigrated to this country in the 1920s. A lifelong tea drinker, Grandma Ruby taught me the grown-up custom of “taking tea” when I was a child.
To a five-year-old whose parents drank coffee, tea rituals seemed wonderfully prim and sometimes a little exotic. According to Ruby’s native Orkney Island folklore, reading tea leaves was a reliable way to forecast a person’s future. Following old-country custom, she would interpret the various shapes of leaves left in a cup, then predict weather conditions, the health of an ailing relative, the sex of an unborn child, or even the arrival of a love letter.
But my grandmother never took fortune-telling seriously, nor was she a British purist who insisted on using loose tea in a metal infuser or strainer. At my urging, in fact, she’d generously stock her kitchen canister with Red Rose tea bags after I had pilfered all the collectible dinosaur cards from the box. As surely as I can spell brontosaurus, I can still picture the floral-print housedresses Ruby would wear when she “put the kettle to boil” and rolled great masses of dough for her perfect apple pies. During my weekend visits, I was always allowed to make my own cinnamon-sugar strips from her leftover pie dough.
“Use a bit less o’ the sugar, dearie,” Ruby would scold. “And don’t eat the dough before it’s done!”
While the pies baked, Ruby and I sat at her kitchen table, dipping and steeping our tea bags until the water in our steaming cups turned amber. Sometimes we talked between sips; mostly we stared quietly out the kitchen window and watched the sparrows, our silver spoons breaking the reverie as they chimed against cup and saucer.
As my grandmother liked to remind me, tea had Oriental origins but was a British import to the early American colonies. As most of us recall from our grade-school history classes, it was heavily taxed by the monarchy and eventually incited the boisterous Boston Tea Party of 1773. Since then, our country has harbored a stubborn preference for coffee.
A mug of coffee is quick, feisty, and all-American — easy to consume on the run in disposable cups.
Tea, on the other hand, requires that we sit down long enough to assemble its various accoutrements. Drinking tea entails a fussy battery of saucers, spoons, bags, lemon wedges, and pots with lids, not to mention the optional milk, honey, or sugar. Which is why most waiters don’t cater to tea drinkers; they think we’re a high-maintenance bunch and would rather not be bothered with our hot-water refills.
But there’s another revolution brewing here. Researchers claim that tea, especially green tea, is naturally laden with antioxidant properties that promote good health. A survey conducted by The Tea Council in Great Britain reported that drinking four or five cups of tea per day “may have a beneficial effect on high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure,” and may reduce the incidence of certain cancers.
If Ruby were alive today, I doubt these new-age health claims would have impressed her. The real merits of tea, as we both discovered years ago, are tied to its soothing, soul-filling rituals. — Cindy La Ferle
Last week I told 325 friends on Facebook that our bedroom in this old house is torn apart for remodeling and looks like a mess. Later that same day, I announced that I was making pea soup for dinner. (Earlier in the month, as part of a dubious “campaign” for breast cancer awareness, I also posted the color of my bra in my status update.)
But I wonder if we (as a culture) need to rethink what’s fair game for public consumption? How far “out there” do we need to be? How much do other people need to know about us — and why? If we wouldn’t dare include a personal detail or episode in an essay or a memoir, is it really appropriate for a blog? For Twitter or Facebook? Exactly what are the dangers of over-sharing?
