My Little Prison

ghosts of capitalism

I’ve never been able to shake the haunt of guilt when I’m writing. I had my first child at 19, maybe it began there, or maybe it’s capitalism, or my mother’s worried voice about making money, or my later, older kid’s teenage mocking that I’m not writing- I’m staring out the window or reading about ancient Mayan rituals ( which all writers understand IS writing ) but surely it’s all of those things because before then, guilt wasn’t part of writing for me, just sheer, blissful creative explosions and short concentrated bursts of experimentation and emotional releases, and blessedly concentrated structure building. It was juju, it was a heady mix of intellect and soul meeting each other and creation, creation.

Intellect structuring emotion and observation into patterns of words and sentences that create and allow us into singular experiences.

Theta waves occur in the brain with flow. When the back of the brain and the front of the brain ‘talk’ to each other neurologically - which is a huge distance in the brain - when they share information, this is deep concentration, hard work for the brain to reach all the way across this vast expanse of neural network. Deep concentration or flow state was immediately accessible to me before guilt.

Capitalism is the largest offender, next to my own choices. I chose to have my unplanned baby at 19, and I chose him first before all other concerns, including writing, and including holding the luxury of not giving a shit if I had any money. I grew up a mix of extremely poor- like living in a motel for a year as a family of four- to kind of poor to solidly middle class for a while there, and this didn’t make me want money. It made me want art; I wanted beauty, connection, understanding, deep thinking, creation.

The way that anything can be connected to writing excites me still; maths, history, astrology- anything can be pulled from the back of the brain to the front and then back again in that beautiful exchange that pulls seemingly disparate threads together into a picture or pattern we can recognize and experience.

The experience of guilt while writing is at its height when I’ve been out of work or when I’ve felt that everything I’m good at or great at isn’t worth jack shit. There really isn’t room in this world for people like me anymore, in the sense that of course we exist, but life in the United States makes it impossible for 90 percent of us to actually survive. By survive I mean pay rent, bills, food, gas, and still be able to buy Christmas presents or pay for a vet bill or save. I remember vividly my now deceased Grandmother Elizabeth Gardner ( Ever Elizabeth’s namesake ) telling me that she worried for the future of our country, when so many people who didn’t want to or weren’t capable of doing higher level careers were locked out of a decent life. The psychology degree I’m pursuing now is the only higher-level career I’ve ever been able to think of doing that feels possible for long-term sustainability. I can work my body’s needs around it, and pyschology as a career is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, which is commonly listed as ‘why you might not want a psych degree’ but for me, is a highlight. I love to learn about many different subjects and put them together in new and exciting ways. So much of my past will fit into this perfectly. I can make an actual living. I have no illusions that I won’t still be struggling financially to a degree, but as someone who has been truly poor off and on her whole life, there is struggle, and there is The Struggle. I’d like to escape the capital letters.

Sometimes I sit in front of my computer or my notebook and have an idea so exciting that I have butterflies, and yet when I go to write, I feel as if I’m going to get into trouble for not doing something that is making money.

I suppose that’s part of the appeal of Substack for me; I have some paid subscribers, and they allow me a mental scapegoat to justify creation. I can whisper in the candlelight of my living room to the ghosts of capitalism as they rattle their chains, “ I am COPPING CASH, BITCH, LEAVE ME AT PEACE.” And for a little while, in my small suburban condo with the broken door, peeling paint, unsealed screens and mismatched tiles, I can write.