Spoken Word Blog Round-up

(Note: this post and video was written and recorded on Friday October 26, 2012)

Well, I finally did it.  After a lot of stewing about, I finally participated in Angie's spoken word blog round up.

It will most likely be a little underwhelming for most who watch.  I picked my first entry, which is all about a miscarriage I had back in August... but I really didn't have much to choose from, and I did a run through of a few posts earlier this week... and it was taking me 15+ minutes to read them!  I'm a better public speaker when I'm telling some sort of story..reenacting a bit... if I'm strictly emoting, and unzipping my heart for conversation sake... I do better with a person (or people) in front of me (and not so much with the lovely camera in face approach). 

It was hard for me to select a post.  When I read more emotional posts, I felt I couldn't really "go back" to when I wrote it.  I could "go back" in my heart, but it wasn't reading well in my presentation.  My tone of voice was coming across as a ramble, and my reading them felt very disjointed - and ultimately I just couldn't get anything under nearly 20 minutes, and I was certain I'd be boring anyone attempting to watch as I was starting to bore myself - and I almost bailed on the entire thing yesterday.

I finally realized that my iPad has a good set up for recording (I was doing test runs on my black.berry the other day, and it was falling all over the place)... and here is the result.  One try... with a tickle in my throat almost the entire time.  And I think I said "open up my story about my son's loss" and what I meant was "open up about my story about losing my son.." 

I hope after this reading, who ever follows this blog feels like they've "met" me a little better.  I watched a few of the entries posted recently, and I cried along with the participants.  I got cold feet, and suddenly felt like my attempts were futile, and I'll have to give it another go with a better post next week.  But I'm not sure I'll follow through.

I know when I read last years entries (over this summer as I picked through some of Angie's archives), I felt more connected to who loses babies.  Every day, common, wonderful, beautiful people.  They were no longer just words on a page, and stories I've read from "authors".  They were people, living in homes across the world. 

So even though my entry isn't all that interesting, or isn't even all that emotionally fuelled (it was at the time of writing it!)... I just wanted to participate so I could carry a bit more of an identity in this community.. and maybe make others who are new to this baby loss world feel like they too have a better understanding of who loses babies. 

I did.  Me.  Hello.  I'm so sorry to meet you like this. 

***

back in real time...Here I am... still trying to get this blasted thing up!  I am very technically challenged, and waited nearly 4 hours for this video to load on Friday night.  Daniel came home, and checked the size, and it was over 330,000 megs!  My recent cat vid's were 30,000 megs, and took less than 10 minutes to upload.  So Daniel shrunk the video, failed, tried a different program to convert, and spent way too much this weekend trying to get it to work, and now it's finally working. 

I saw that my video wasn't going to be synced to the day it was posted, so on Saturday I wrote somewhat of an explanation, and touched on the fact that another 27th has come and will soon be gone.... and then my computer crashed without saving the changes to the post.  My updates to the post along with all the lovely things I said were flushed.

So I will try to pick my brain, and reflect on my lost words from the other night.

I definitely got distracted from my end of the month funk with trying to get myself involved in this project.  When I had some quiet time at home, I'd try to set up my phone to get a good shot for a good read.  By the time the days came to an end, I had only done a dry run through - off camera - of a few posts.  I watched the date and the 20's blew by, and I knew the end of the month - along with my dear 27 - was fast approaching.  But I felt a normalcy about it... an okay-ness

I was going to read "thank god he was ok".  I wanted to connect with the happier residual effects of pregnancy and having a baby.  I wanted to think about memories, and closeness, and talk about him while he was alive.  I tried setting up my phone, and did a "take one".  I cried, and smiled through the entire thing.  I checked my phone - it had stopped recording.  I was frustrated, and knew that another read through would come off as staged.  I almost threw in the towel.  So, Friday midday I on a whim, set up the iPad and picked my first post..and just read it and tried not to sound like a fool.

Anyway... on Saturday I watched the footage back (of what I'm now posting)... and I feel unrecognizable to myself.  I can see I was obviously in a more positive state...ready to speak all 'as-a-matter-of-fact' like about anything.  Not really all that down about anything.  I'm showered, and dressed for pete sake - and not because I have to be!  I don't know where that energy is today... I really don't know if I feel this is a good representation of myself.  I don't think I'll have the opportunity to do this again - I have a busy 2 weeks with my sister coming in from out of town - so this will have to do. 

Until next year... when maybe I'll get it right...

alas... I Will Hit Publish!