Flailing, Falling, and Figuring It Out

Also known as "The Latest Janna Barber Life Update," or "Dear Mr. So and So: Part 2." You can find the first part in my archives, under Dec. 1, 2023. Enjoy!!

The other night I dreamed about Elvis Presley when he was young, although in my dream he was chubby, more like his older self. In fact he seemed to be some sort of fusion of himself and Johnny Cash, wearing a white ribbed tank top and black boots and Wranglers. I watched him sing into a microphone, admiring his bare upper arms from a weird angle, as if they were the grainy subject of a documentary film. I still loved the velvety sound of his voice, and I so enjoyed getting to view this rare footage of him with a band that wasn’t famous yet—just some friends he liked to jam with on occasion.

When I woke up the next day I thought about those old cheesy movies of his that Mom used to watch when I was young, and how unlike the star version of himself this dream sequence felt. It occurred to me that just before going to bed I’d told someone I love about the repetitive Kyrie, Eleison prayer:

“Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy”

as a thing I often refer to when I don’t know what to pray…or to say. So maybe my subconscious remembered hearing the King’s voice saying “Lord, have mercy!” about some beautiful woman he’d encountered in Blue Hawaii, and converged all these experiences while I was sleeping. It’s as good an explanation as any for my dream.

Another night last week I cried out in my sleep, waking myself and my husband for a minute, convinced everything had gone black, as if God himself were resetting the router on the internet connection of the universe. When I returned to dreamland this time, I was a fourteen-year-old, and my family was packing up and moving to a new town. But I was having some sort of psychedelic experience while loading up the mattresses and cardboard boxes with my younger brother, who looked a lot like one of my sons when he was that age. I kept telling Dad I couldn’t see my own hands, and felt like I was floating above myself in some stranger’s body. He just looked at me as if I were being a rebellious teenager and told me to get back to work. God, I hated him for that.

Photo by Valentin Salja on Unsplash

Yes, it was just a dream, and thankfully I don’t hate my father, but those feelings were still stirring around inside my chest when I woke up and they made for a bit of a sad morning that day.

I often wish I could take my painful experiences in life and rework them into comedy for the world to consume, like a female Dave Sedaris or a slightly younger Tina Fey. But I don't seem to possess that particular talent, or else I haven’t honed it yet. Instead I wallow and wish for everything to be different, and end up writing essays that make people think or cry rather than laugh. Is this my infamous Enneagram 4-type, drawn toward melancholy and drama rather than humor and spontaneity? Afraid of finding the absurdity and reality in a scene, for fear those aspects won’t take away the hurt like I want them to?

The last post I shared here comes from a compilation of some seventeen thousand words I’ve written over the last four years, for a book I can’t seem to find a title for, and am beginning to doubt the entire purpose of.

When I wrote my first book I thought I might help others as I untangled the knots of my young life—growing up in “the various homes of a nomadic preacher and his Southern Belle wife.” I felt like I was a whole new person when I started writing that book, and that by exploring the life of the old me at a safe distance, I’d be able to learn, grow, and heal even more. And perhaps offer some of that same healing back to my readers.

On good days I think I accomplished both of those goals, even though my readership is small. On bad days I think everything I’ve ever done with pencil and paper was a waste of time. See? I told you: dramatic melancholy.

Lately I’ve been itching to move on to a new stage of life, like I did when I got married and became a full-time caretaker for three kids. Yes, those kids are grown now, but since they’re all living at home right now, life doesn’t feel much different than it did before they became adults.

Maybe that’s why I’ve decided to head back to college this summer, going so far as to live in a dorm room on campus in a town over two hours away. For six whole weeks I’ll be taking care of no one else’s needs but my own, and I can’t wait. I’ll be taking one three hour class in poetry, and another one in fiction. Then next summer and the summer after that I’ll take similar classes, and hopefully figure out a thesis to write that’s worth six more credit hours. The degree at the end of this road is a Masters in Fine Arts, and while I have a hard time justifying the cost of this path, my family and I agree it’s the one I’m supposed to take for now.

Perhaps this new setting will help me figure out how to finish, or at least title, this slippery little book project; or perhaps it'll give me the courage to throw it all out and start something new. Either way, it’s bound to reboot my brain just a bit, which is why I’m both nervous and excited to go.

When you spend the first half of your life having to move every two to three years, then suddenly stay put for going on nineteen, you may wake one day to find yourself confused about where your roots are, and whether or not roots belong on human feet in the first place. But then again, maybe this is how the middle of life looks for everyone, and I should just sit back and enjoy the ride for once.

Either way, I’d appreciate your well wishes and prayers over the rest of June and July. I’ll see you guys when I get back here in August. I pray your summers are filled with mercy and highlighted by joy.