The art that moves me

Don't tell me when to weep!

I experienced Imposter Syndrome for the first time this year.

It wasn’t work-related; I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m not a trained writer or artist, and sitting here just telling my stories in solitude never brings up “I don’t belong here” discomfort.

Rather, I referred to it later as emotional imposter syndrome.

I found myself in a group of beautifully sensitive, lavishly feeling people. We met as strangers but, guided with prompts, we began sharing intimately right away.

Since my internal ‘sea level’ is like 20,000 leagues under the average, I love going deep in conversation with people right away.

“Hi I’m Mari, nice to meet you, want to talk about the saddest thing that’s ever happened to us and how it shaped us?” is a comfortable level for me to be.

But there’s a moment during these scenarios where my squishball heart starts to stiffen up. The drawbridges to my inner world begin rising, and iron bars lower over the doors.

It’s the moment when I suspect I’m supposed to be feeling something that I’m actively not.

“It’s safe to cry here,” we are told, “Let it out.”

But I have no impulse to cry, or even feel much of anything. I’m hungry, distracted by someone’s outfit, and squirmy watching others heave in raw emotion.

It’s beautiful to see others emote; I’m honored to witness it whether it’s on the subway or in a sharing circle. And I understand why, as soon as permission is granted, emotions erupt.

But I’m urgently uncomfortable when I get the impression that We’re all feeling something now! and I missed the memo. In those moments, I’m taken out of the experience, unable to ignite even the pilot light of wonder that I can usually turn on to full flame. In minutes, I’m shut off completely.

I questioned, “Am I emotional enough to be here?” which is rich coming from a little fireball of sentiments such as myself, whose coworker used to tease with the Eminem lyric: I can’t tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like.

And my question has come up a lot recently.

In another instance, I’d heard a song earlier in the day at a yoga class that moved me to streams of tears. What came to mind during that powerful lullaby was a horrible news story I’ve never forgotten, and I prayed the song toward a family I’ve never met.

The next day, I heard that same song during an intense bonding activity for a community I’m a part of. While others stared into each other’s eyes and wept, the song grated on my ears and I actually experienced distance from the group rather than the intended closeness. I even felt skeptical as an instant outsider, with a pang of distrust.

“Emotional imposter syndrome” came to mind again. I’m not supposed to be here. I put the blame back on me.

What was going on?? I was so curious about my response that I spent days analyzing it, when a memory came to mind:

In evangelical churches that I attended in college, folks around me would close their eyes and lift their hands up as they sang worship songs. They’d nod with the sermon Amen, Amen, and sob during altar calls and testimonies.

I never felt any of that. If I closed my eyes, I’d peek. If I raised my hands, I’d look around to see when we were putting them down again. None of it felt spontaneous or natural, so I assumed that it was impossible for me to connect with God. Like I was missing the gene or something.

“Oh you’re a Mystic,” my philosophy professor diagnosed me when I confessed this to him. He asked me what sorts of things did move me (if not worship songs projected onto the wall accompanied by electric guitar) and I told him: the river, birds, springtime, grass, the orange streetlights that make apartment buildings glow in October, the October-ness of the city in general.

Mysticism was the opposite of evangelicalism: It emphasized subjective moments of spontaneous awe as experiences of the Divine. This was much more attractive to me than evangelicalism, which was trying to manipulate me into sobbing in public all the time.

Perhaps that’s why my walls go up when I’m in a group setting where I guess we’re supposed to be feeling something specific….and I don’t. It mimics the experience of that heightened-sensory manipulation that led me to believe something was wrong with me.

I talked to a friend who shares my flinching response to these seemingly manufactured emotional experiences and he said, “I need emotion to come from an unexpected or previously unapproached place—an unlikely source somehow.”

YES YES YES.

Unlikely, such as: a lullaby playing during yoga class, or Eminem lyrics karate-chopping through the speakers, or an orange streetlight emitting an achingly soft glow.

Those moments don’t tell me that I’m moved, no more than mountains demand our admiration. They just exist, and allow us to respond as we may.

Response is a mysterious experience, a holy event. I don’t know why some cities captivate me and others don’t. I can’t tell you why the beauty of the Hudson River sometimes stops me in its tracks on some mornings, and most other days I take it for granted. I can’t explain what the lyrics to my favorite song mean, or why the opening four notes have direct access to the deepest part of my soul.

And I like it that way. I like that I can’t explain my responses.

It reminds me of a distinction that Haley Nahman wrote about:

Whenever I see those big corny tags in my neighborhood telling me I AM ENOUGH, I think about another bit of street art that actually manages to move me whenever I see it. It’s on a blue-painted piece of plywood, part of some scaffolding erected around an apartment that burned down last year, tragically killing a beloved local known as Ms. Pearl, who was 74:

‘You were in your 30’s,
Pearl.
You gave me a hug.
And I woke up.’

The words leave so much to the imagination, concerned only with expressing something true rather than aesthetically pleasing. There’s no right way to read them.

Haley notes that the words invite reflection and curiosity, something that I have personally never experienced from stencil art that tells me YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE.

When I’m told what to feel, even implicitly, I’m somehow incapable of feeling it. That’s why any movie/book/show that is recommended to me with specific emotion attached (“You’ll never stop crying!”) is already ruined for me. Sorry, Fleabag.

As a huge fan of 90 Day Fiancé, I am definitely not above having my feelings manipulated by media! But I’d like to cut back as much as humanly possible.

When I think about any art that really moves me, all it does is offer the truth. There’s no emotional end-game in mind; I can’t imagine an author setting out to bring people to tears and then actually accomplishing that (unless of course they’re writing about a mama duck who adopts an orphan kitten).

This past week I learned that a dear friend’s husband died suddenly, of one of those freak sudden physical failures that cruelly takes otherwise healthy young vibrant people who complete Triathlons and drink green tea.

There were no words, but I had to scrounge around for them anyway.

I picked up a poetry compilation about loss, which promised to tell the truth of death. The first poem by W.H. Auden did just that:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I didn’t send the poem to my friend, but I followed its example in telling the truth.

There was nothing I could say, nothing anyone could say, to provide her any emotional respite from her utter despair. During a time when she must be receiving so many sentiments attempting to leave her with a more tolerable state of mind, I thought it was more important to speak as plainly as Auden taught us and allow her to respond as she may.

It’s not up to any of us (especially artists!) to try to control how others feel. Now of course we’ll try anyway because we’re human and that’s what humans do; I am an especially human human, and absolutely hate that I can’t control the emotional experience of others!

But when I myself am surprised by awe at the ending of a book or at the sound of a creek, I remember that my response is sacred. And if that’s a holy event for me, then I must acknowledge the holiness in another person’s response, even if it’s not in line with mine.

Humans are continually ping-ponging with each other’s responses: Why don’t you care? Why do you care? Why don’t you care? Why do you care?

Doesn’t it make sense that we would all have different gifts, different pains, different worries, and different hopes for this world? That’s why artists have a responsibility to keep telling the truth: not to get others on our side, but to awaken the right response in the right person for the job.

So maybe I won’t be weeping with the group, but you best believe I’ll be crying the next day when I watch a video of an Andean bear released from captivity and making friends at a wildlife sanctuary.

Our responses tell us something what’s right with us, not what’s wrong. It’s weird to be the only one experiencing a moment differently, but it wasn’t a glitch on the assembly line. It’s telling us to probe and explore further: Maybe I experience the Divine differently, maybe I make art differently.

Perhaps the “imposter” sensation is really an “I do this a different way” sensation.

Maybe the next time I feel like I’m doing something wrong by not emoting in a group of keeners, I’ll remember the way I’m moved: by surprise, hearing the truth, from an unlikely source.

Special thanks to those who tuned into my first ever live event, Sharing Your Work! I’m planning another online workshop at the end of July for my lovely paid subscribers, and I hope you can make it!