EAgeR

[2-min read] My upstairs neighbor is deep into a rollicking grand piano practice session just above my desk space. (Ah, yes—it’s Spring Break.) Thank goodness they’re talented. Nevertheless, they flub a few notes now and then and I’m struggling to get any work done that requires concentration, so, here we are.

Instead, I’m contemplating the word “eager.” Generally, it makes me cringe, but maybe that’s just me and my history with it. My mom and her two sisters use the word often: “I’m so eager to hear that you feel better,” is perhaps the most common way. (Does anyone else interpret that sentiment as pressure to feel better sooner, or is it just me?) Sometimes, one of them will tell me how eager they are to hear about a trip I’ve taken or an event I’ll be doing. Their use of eager sounds to me like there’s some expectation for me to fulfill.

What got me started with this is that an editor recently labeled me eager. (Oh no you didn’t.) As you can now imagine, I flinched. However, she sandwiched it in what was otherwise a compliment: You’re so open and eager, and you have a lot of heart and soul… so I didn’t get caught up in it. Being open and having heart and soul sounds lovely to me. I focused on those qualities.

I interpret eager as having a negative connotation, perhaps even as a sort of desperation. I’ll speak for everyone when I say, no one wants to be desperate. But in further defense of the person who said I was eager, honestly, she was perceptive. The material I was working with was edgy enough that it made me somewhat distressed, and I was indeed eager to do great work and earn her approval—and that of other readers.

Coincidentally, a newsletter with this quote from Susan Sontag’s poignant 2003 commencement speech landed in my email inbox last week: Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager. That sounds like a positive spin on eager. Vitality and connection are important, and Sontag was a brilliant writer, so, should I reconsider my stance and “stay eager” for the sake of focused attention?

Fellow Minneapolitan Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew put it similarly, writing in her recent Brevity Blog post, “I most treasure how writing wakes me up. The practice asks me to look closely at what is, … to be fully present … and like any contemplative practice it brings me more alive.” I’m realizing now how this business of being eager is a writerly thing. So, that editor attributed a quality to me that fellow writers apparently strive for (how cool is that?) and one with the power to make a writer’s writing vivid.

My neighbor has stepped away from the piano and I’m eager to get back to other writing. (See what I did there?) After my dad passed away, I wrote a personal manifesto in which I stated, “I am here to connect.” Now that I’ve had this time of contemplation—with a fitting soundtrack in the background—I can see how my manifesto relates to this and agree that we, my friends, should stay eager. My hunch is that it will provoke not only better writing, but deeper living.