Society has recently come to the conclusion that labels are bad. There are those who pitch their tent firmly in the “Don’t Label ANYONE for ANYTHING" Camp and I can see why someone would want to be accepted by society without any preconceived notions as to what they are all about. Labels can be cruel, derogatory, and just plain untrue so I try not to call someone by a label they have not previously self-applied and probably not without asking permission first.
"Is it true that you're a barefooter?" That first gives them the option to correct me, "No, actually, I'm a protopedalist" and to educate me as to the difference. Second, it offers the chance to check their "proud meter" on it. "Yes! I am a barefooter!" or "Yeah, I sometimes go barefoot."
To casually say someone is a Foodie, for instance, is fairly innocent most of the time. By definition it bespeaks a love of food, its ingredients, and methods of preparation. In the wrong environment, "foodie" might mean "food snob" or "restaurant elitist" and while that might be true, it's wrong to assume that of a person who may just be someone who finds food interesting and entertaining. They'd like to invent the next best burger, sure, but they're not above the occasional Big Mac.
Personally, I know that I am a complex being and rather mercurial, so I find that labels are helpful for others. Like the proverbial "Do Not Immerse In Water" tag that can be found on most small appliances, its useful for people to know things about me from the outset, therefore, I have no difficulty labeling myself.
I have no problem telling people that I am a Crocheter, a Shelf-Dust Gourmet, A Marathoner, an Anglophile, A Whovian, A Brown Coat, a Dog Parent, and an Auralibrophile (that’s a word I made up for "audio book lover" so don’t use it like it’s real. Unless you like it. If you like it, share it often and it will become a real word by virtue of common usage.) In short, I call myself all sorts of things on a fairly regular basis.
There is one label I would very much like to apply to myself but for some reason I have great difficulty doing so. Writer.
Clearly, I write. Quite often, actually. I have two complete novels on the hard drive of a defunct computer and two more at different stages of completion. I have several poems and essays in notebooks and on this blog. I write. I do. But for some reason, I cannot call myself a writer. It feels...arrogant and awkward.
Just the other day, for example, in talking with some neighbors while they walked their cat on the front lawn of our apartment complex, the conversation turned to the hawk circling above and the possible threat it posed to the cat. The thread of conversation turned to stories of small dogs being carried off on the pinions of eagles and an example they knew of personally where a friend's dog had been snatched and then dropped by a red-tailed hawk. "And that's the last time the chihuahua went kayaking." said the husband (who is also a Whovian, a toe-shoe wearer, and a martial artist, besides).
I repeated his words with weighted reverence and grinned before saying "I'm going to use that one day" and then, rather inanely "I'm a writer." Though they expressed polite interest and remarked that they were looking forward to seeing what I would do with the kayaking chihuahua, inwardly, I cringed. My inner critic jumped up from her seat and ran down the aisle with a giant sign reading "POSER". And then she turned it around to the other side where the word "FRAUD" was emblazoned in day-glo pink and yellow glitter. (I have a very creative and emphatic inner critic.)
I think I would rather make up my own label for what I do. Perhaps then it will settle a little more comfortably about my shoulders.
To be a writer, you have to write, so sayeth the many. But to have something to write about you have to be a noticer. Have you ever thought about how difficult it would be to describe the flight of a fairy without having noticed the same action performed by a butterfly or a bumblebee? How the susseration of leaves in the wind can also sound like the rushing of a storm-swollen river? To notice, for instance, how your mother sees the fact that your fly is down but does not appear to be bothered by the three cupboard doors hanging open?
You also have to be a thinker and I say so because it's hardly ever a good idea to write exactly what you notice without some thought as to how to present it. That's what got you sent to your room as a kid, remember?
You must then become a shepherd to those thoughts. The things you noticed and thought about must be dressed by your imagination and nudged properly into line for inspection. You also have to understand when there is no real word for what you want to express and you'll have to make one up. I sometimes feel that's the case for many, if not all, onomatopoeia and it's my problem right now...what to call myself.
Stuff sayer? (everyone who can speak is one of those, so that's out.) Imaginist? (ooh, sounds magical.) Word-herder? (almost there.)
I think I have it. Expundiary Observationalist. That'll work and at the very least, it will keep me from getting so tipsy at parties as to be unable to pronounce my own title.
Somehow, Obspundiary Expedutionalist just doesn't have the same ring to it.
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