As of lately, I have developed a writing habit. I have never been a committed journaler, as I lack commitment to doing things daily: I suck at reading my Bible each day (though I most definitely should), taking vitamins, and calling or contacting my parents somehow.
Still, I have had the greatest pleasure in writing as of late. My large project has required me to lock myself in my room, sit at my desk with a pot of coffee, put my iPod on repeat of the same song, and write for two hours straight. My process has required me to immerse myself in a memory, plunging me into some of my darkest moments headfirst and reliving them all over again. Still, I never would have guessed how much I would heal in this process.
For some reason, I, as I'm sure many people do, cling to the worst mistakes I make, never quite allowing myself the sufficient grace to forgive myself. Punish, punish, punish. However, I have also seen that I could make a habit out of doing this to others, not allowing me to love and forgive them for mistakes they have made in the past.
(I learned this after writing about my mom.)
It's time to let it go, I've decided.
So when I finish this piece of (sometimes very) creative nonfiction, I will have unclenched my fist and let all of it leave me, ahold of grudges and regret no more.
If you haven't pursued writing about your hardest times, I would encourage you to do it. It's amazing what a little hindsight and a lot of coffee and Gospel can do.
Not to mention music.
I can't wait to hear all of your pieces, dear ones.
19 September 2010
11 September 2010
Small memoir on a memoir about memoirs.
Today, I read our readings for class. I had a very rough night last night, so when I awoke today, I desired nothing more than to do some mindless reading to fill up my afternoon.
Note to self; don't pick up creative nonfiction homework when you have days like these.
What we have this week, folks, is a vignette about writing memoir and a vignette about a poor young woman learning the truth about her parents. Both are painful to read in their own ways. I hate to say that I enjoyed Kelly Grey's essay more than the other, but it is safe to say that I did.
Maybe this is why: for me, when I am reading about a particular genre of writing that I don't know how to write very well (or when learning to do just about anything) I find it easier to understand when the explanation that is given is not bogged down with metaphor and so much reasoning. This is the biggest problem I had when reading "The Nonfictionist's Guide." For as much as I love metaphor and using metaphor to express feelings and concepts that ordinary explanations cannot achieve, I don't appreciate it being used in situations when I am attempting to learn something concrete.
(Unless perhaps you're Jesus, telling parables about salvation to those in the dark. But that is DEFINITELY different.) :)
I had another run-in with this situation in my Education 424 class, in which I was instructed to read passages in my textbook about particular metaphors describing what teaching is like and then forming my own teaching metaphor. As fun and warm-fuzzylike as this exercise may be, I do not see anything concrete in describing your classroom as a kitchen in which you know each of your spices well enough to know which works well together with which.
I did enjoy the pieces in the end, and I always enjoy finding ways that the pieces we read tie together. For example: last week's readings were about pain in very different places. This week, I see how the past can effect us.
[I must admit: I liked the author's metaphor for how our past effects us as a lighthouse, with us walking up the staircase and seeing it from a different vantage point constantly.]
Maybe one day, I will write a memoir. I'd be kind of nervous that my mom would have a similar reaction as the author's father did to his-- like I was raging some personal vendetta against her (assuming I would write about the pain I felt growing up a la Augusten Burroughs' "A Wolf at the Table"). She's just like that sometimes. I feel like I still have a lot of condensing and decompressing to do before I can write said memoir, also known as "getting my shit together."
Until then, I'll keep blogging. Maybe you'll keep reading.
Note to self; don't pick up creative nonfiction homework when you have days like these.
What we have this week, folks, is a vignette about writing memoir and a vignette about a poor young woman learning the truth about her parents. Both are painful to read in their own ways. I hate to say that I enjoyed Kelly Grey's essay more than the other, but it is safe to say that I did.
Maybe this is why: for me, when I am reading about a particular genre of writing that I don't know how to write very well (or when learning to do just about anything) I find it easier to understand when the explanation that is given is not bogged down with metaphor and so much reasoning. This is the biggest problem I had when reading "The Nonfictionist's Guide." For as much as I love metaphor and using metaphor to express feelings and concepts that ordinary explanations cannot achieve, I don't appreciate it being used in situations when I am attempting to learn something concrete.
(Unless perhaps you're Jesus, telling parables about salvation to those in the dark. But that is DEFINITELY different.) :)
I had another run-in with this situation in my Education 424 class, in which I was instructed to read passages in my textbook about particular metaphors describing what teaching is like and then forming my own teaching metaphor. As fun and warm-fuzzylike as this exercise may be, I do not see anything concrete in describing your classroom as a kitchen in which you know each of your spices well enough to know which works well together with which.
I did enjoy the pieces in the end, and I always enjoy finding ways that the pieces we read tie together. For example: last week's readings were about pain in very different places. This week, I see how the past can effect us.
[I must admit: I liked the author's metaphor for how our past effects us as a lighthouse, with us walking up the staircase and seeing it from a different vantage point constantly.]
Maybe one day, I will write a memoir. I'd be kind of nervous that my mom would have a similar reaction as the author's father did to his-- like I was raging some personal vendetta against her (assuming I would write about the pain I felt growing up a la Augusten Burroughs' "A Wolf at the Table"). She's just like that sometimes. I feel like I still have a lot of condensing and decompressing to do before I can write said memoir, also known as "getting my shit together."
Until then, I'll keep blogging. Maybe you'll keep reading.
02 September 2010
Ms. Bliss.
Dear Eula,
I understand.
Sincerely yours,
Dottie.
Except not really;
"But I am comforted, oddly, by the possibility that you cannot compare my pain to yours. And, for that reason, cannot prove it insignificant."-- p. 39.
Eula, can I at least say that "I feel you?"
Whilst reading this passage, I possibly annotated its fourteen pages more than I have entire books: underlining, starring, bracketing, little quips and sighs. I was swept into this passage as if taken in by a tornado. I could feel myself swirling around in the author's world, pain and purpose being the eye of its storm.
And so there I sat in the library, pouring over this creative nonfiction Gospel lesson. And then, who should walk in but my past, clothed in the same pain and hurt that Eula had just spoken about, mostly in this passage:
"Imagination is treacherous. It erases distant continents, it builds a Hell so real that the ceiling is vulnerable to collapse."-- p. 37.
I was frozen solid. I opened my mouth to speak and felt my words had shrunk in size and in meaning. I laid them on the table in front of me as if in an attempt to sort them out before my past.
My past does nothing but smile at me. Though it is often painful and more often forgotten, it has its days where it sits in my line of vision, allowing nothing to pass but my grievous thoughts.
"I cannot ask [my body] to remember not feeling pain it foes feel. I have found that I can ask my body to imagine the pain it feels as something else. For example, with some effort I can imagine the sensation of pain as heat." -- p. 37.
Or in my case, imagining my past as something I cannot be made accountable for.
So I sat at that library table with my past so effervescently leaning against a nearby bookshelf. He smiled. Then laughed. Then whispered. Then left.
And I, with this book in my hands, sobbed into it with my own suffering.
"I would happily cut off a finger at this point if I could trade the pain of that cut for the endless pain I have now." --p. 37. (by now a good page.)
I feel the same way as Eula when she states, "I struggle to consider my pain in proportion to the pain of a napalmed Vietnamese girl whose skin is slowly melting off as she walks naked in the sun. The exercise is painful." --p. 33. I hate that my day can be ruled by what I'm sure seems trivial on the outside to an innocent bystander.
"Who is she? Why is she just sitting in the library window, sobbing over her book, at 10 a.m.?"
But it's like I said; though we as human beings are all connected by having the feelings of pain at one time or another, we cannot possibly begin to compare our pains to others'. It can only cause more pain in many situations.
We must at simply try to build an understanding through patience, trust, and love. And for the hurting: several boxes of tissues, a pen, and paper.
Dear Eula,
Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Dottie
I understand.
Sincerely yours,
Dottie.
Except not really;
"But I am comforted, oddly, by the possibility that you cannot compare my pain to yours. And, for that reason, cannot prove it insignificant."-- p. 39.
Eula, can I at least say that "I feel you?"
Whilst reading this passage, I possibly annotated its fourteen pages more than I have entire books: underlining, starring, bracketing, little quips and sighs. I was swept into this passage as if taken in by a tornado. I could feel myself swirling around in the author's world, pain and purpose being the eye of its storm.
And so there I sat in the library, pouring over this creative nonfiction Gospel lesson. And then, who should walk in but my past, clothed in the same pain and hurt that Eula had just spoken about, mostly in this passage:
"Imagination is treacherous. It erases distant continents, it builds a Hell so real that the ceiling is vulnerable to collapse."-- p. 37.
I was frozen solid. I opened my mouth to speak and felt my words had shrunk in size and in meaning. I laid them on the table in front of me as if in an attempt to sort them out before my past.
My past does nothing but smile at me. Though it is often painful and more often forgotten, it has its days where it sits in my line of vision, allowing nothing to pass but my grievous thoughts.
"I cannot ask [my body] to remember not feeling pain it foes feel. I have found that I can ask my body to imagine the pain it feels as something else. For example, with some effort I can imagine the sensation of pain as heat." -- p. 37.
Or in my case, imagining my past as something I cannot be made accountable for.
So I sat at that library table with my past so effervescently leaning against a nearby bookshelf. He smiled. Then laughed. Then whispered. Then left.
And I, with this book in my hands, sobbed into it with my own suffering.
"I would happily cut off a finger at this point if I could trade the pain of that cut for the endless pain I have now." --p. 37. (by now a good page.)
I feel the same way as Eula when she states, "I struggle to consider my pain in proportion to the pain of a napalmed Vietnamese girl whose skin is slowly melting off as she walks naked in the sun. The exercise is painful." --p. 33. I hate that my day can be ruled by what I'm sure seems trivial on the outside to an innocent bystander.
"Who is she? Why is she just sitting in the library window, sobbing over her book, at 10 a.m.?"
But it's like I said; though we as human beings are all connected by having the feelings of pain at one time or another, we cannot possibly begin to compare our pains to others'. It can only cause more pain in many situations.
We must at simply try to build an understanding through patience, trust, and love. And for the hurting: several boxes of tissues, a pen, and paper.
Dear Eula,
Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Dottie
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