it's hard sometimes... figuring out what needs to be said and what doesn't... and which of those necessary words need be offered up to the outside world. it can be so confusing and daunting.
i return, again and again, to the memory of watching my mother burn her day's writing in a coffee can on the back porch. perhaps she was performing a ritual of release, not enacting a vow of silence... perhaps she was letting go, not erasing herself... but that was not the impression i got at the time.
my mother burned her written thoughts as a way to ensure her own safety from shame, humiliation, and wrath. her words had been twisted by others too many times. she had been made to feel wholly ashamed of her inner, truer self for too many years. so she set the expression of that self on fire in a can. the ashes of her words was a type of insurance. this immolation was an act of self-preservation, protection, and security. i understand it, mama, but i sure wish i had something of yours to read these days. i wish i could see your handwriting, smell a sheet of paper your thin hands once smoothed the wrinkles from... i wish i had anything at all that still carried your vanilla, your musk, your sandlewood, your smell.
scents float off and are subsumed by others but words remain. i wish i had a few more of hers. i wish i could have access to some of what she thought about, some of what she wrestled with. i wish i could see her fighting for answers, fighting through her own fears and insecurities. i wish i could see her inside her own, full humanity rather than the singular and limiting image i have of her as my mother. the question mark she has become grows taller the longer i go down the road of my life without her. by writing my own story i at least have a shot at seeing myself inside the fullness of my own humanity... and maybe that catharsis of writing through my experiences, all of the loss and shame and humiliation and hopelessness, all of the joy and ecstacy and fulfillment and hope, the crazy swirl of opposites that make up a life... if i can tell the truth regardless of my fears, despite my shaky voice, maybe i will be able to see her, even if only fleetingly, as a woman and as a human being, not merely as my mother.
she must be allowed to keep her shortcomings. she is entitled to her flaws. she must be allowed to retain her humanity this way. she was not a perfect being and nor am i. allowing for imperfection seems a mandate of real love. i don't want to make an angel of her. i want to know that she struggled and that she did the best she could. i want to know she was sometimes resentful of having to be the bigger person and maybe delighted every now and then in choosing not to be. i want to know she sometimes indulged mean-spirited thoughts. i want to know she was afraid sometimes but stood up and faced those monsters anyway and i want to know how she did it. i want to know that she stumbled but found a way to pick herself back up. wasn't she the one who said, "You gotta put blue-jeans on your dreams." wasn't she the one who urged me in the weeks leading up to her death, "Soak up all the joy you can out of this experience, little girl."
and it seems to me that writing through the hard stuff must be part of it. running from it has done no good. drowning it has proven to be impossible. i am nearing the end of my personal challenge to go 100 days without alcohol and all the pain i thought i was obliterating is still here, still throbbing as hard and as fresh as ever. but i can look at it now and not fall apart. i can carry it. i can heft the weight of my own tears.
and...
and yet...
and so...
i go to the page, every day, and i write for hours. i don't know what will make it out from under the safety of my trembling hands but i know that i am tired of feeling so afraid of how much trouble i will get in for telling the truth. after all, i am no longer a little girl.
one thing i learned from my mother is that telling the truth need not be malicious. in fact, brutal honesty is not something i have ever believed in. intent to harm is nothing to esteem, no matter the cause. not every thought needs a breath behind it. i am allowed the dignity of privacy, just like everyone else...
and...
and yet...
and so...
i simply go on writing for now. i haven't had the experience of writing as a method of inquiry and discovery in such an intense way in quite a long time. i am watching myself figure out my own opinions. i am watching myself figure out what my own emotions signal and belie. i feel more and more like my true self. a steadier sense of self-worth grows in place of the insecurities that choked out my ability to be who i really am.
my stories belong to me.
behind the scenes, i am learning how to write them.
No comments:
Post a Comment