Transparency and Intimacy

Editor’s Note: Melodie Davis is on a one-week vacation from writing her column. Here is a column from the summer of 2000, about her life as a sometimes-recognized local newspaper columnist.

I got my hair cut recently, and even some people who know me well had to look twice to see that it was still me. So I was a little surprised when a total stranger in Burger King asked, “Do you write the column in the paper?” He said he is one of those people who is able to recognize people by face alone—he doesn’t look at extraneous things like cut or color of hair.

To have a column in the paper makes one’s personal life just a little bit transparent; it’s not quite a fishbowl, but people often ask me whether my husband or children mind when I use them in stories or illustrations.

Being recognized by face alone doesn’t happen a lot, but still it makes me feel a little weird. I think, Oh dear, did he catch me frowning at my husband? Did I just say a cross word to one of the kids? Do I have toothpaste around my mouth?

To have a column in the paper makes one’s personal life just a little bit transparent; it’s not quite a fishbowl, but people often ask me whether my husband or children mind when I use them in stories or illustrations. The answer is “not usually,” and I do clear anything that I think might be sensitive with the respective family member. Sometimes it is the things that I never even think of being sensitive that trip me up. For example, one time I wrote about a minor mistake one of them made. I didn’t really think it reflected badly on them. But that individual felt like it might contribute to someone’s idea of them being a klutz or spacey.

I have promised my husband that sometime he can write a guest column called “The Revenge of the Columnist’s Husband” wherein he tells stories about me and reveals all of my worst habits and downfalls as a wife and mother.

Sometimes my coworkers become self-conscious during lunchtime, worried that their story or illustration will wind up in a column. I heard of one woman who turned down the opportunity to ride in a taxi to the airport with well-known speaker and preacher Tony Campolo. Campolo is always full of wonderful stories collected from all the thousands of people he talks to in the course of his travels. She said she didn’t want to ride with him because she didn’t want to “wind up as an illustration in a Tony Campolo sermon!”

Another Way columns from over the years.

Before I was a columnist, I remember reading a very painful, personal story by another columnist in our local paper, who wrote of her daughter’s struggle with a learning disability. She talked about her decision to go public with the struggle, and what it meant for their family. Her courage and honesty in sharing their problems was very meaningful. Because she was so personal she was undoubtedly able to identify with many others struggling with the issue.

And that is the reward of intimacy and honest sharing, whether you are a columnist, or whether writing your personal struggles in the paper is the last thing you would think of doing! When we are able to tell others how we are feeling and thinking, we learn to know each other just a little better.

When I hear two people having a conflict, they often seem to be talking past each other. Jane tells you her daughter never likes to visit her. The daughter says her mother criticizes her from the moment she walks in. You’re thinking, Well that’s a no brainer. Why doesn’t the daughter tell her mother she feels like she is always being criticized? It may be too difficult to put those negative feelings into words, or it may be because she hasn’t been heard in the past.

Yet when such issues are discussed and couched with love, sometimes you can make a little progress: “Mom, I really love you and want to come over, but it feels like you always have a number of things to criticize about me.” If the daughter has illustrations, and those, too, can be expressed in love, then the mother can say, “But I ask you about these things because I am worried about you.”

This kind of sharing and intimacy takes trust. If trust has been broken between two parties, sometimes there needs to be time and space for it to be restored and healed. Sometimes a third-party counselor, pastor, friend, or other family member can help two people get back in communication. Once in a while a relationship gets to the place where there has been too much pain and one or the other party is just too difficult to relate to. But usually, while it is sometimes difficult and risky to be transparent with another person—to share how you are feeling—the benefits of deeper, peaceful relationships are worth it.

And that is part of what makes baring my soul and my family in print and online worthwhile.

Comments? Questions? Feel free to comment at www.thirdway.com/aw or at the Another Way Newspaper Column Facebook page. Or email MelodieD@MennoMedia.org or write to Another Way, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22802.