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even the moon sees me, part i

So it’s Sunday, and I’m following my usual routine. Coffee shop. Americano. A ready laptop and Mum streaming into my ears.

Sundays are all about sifting through the archives, finding old journal entries and exploring what is there, what is possible, what might be spilled over into Acceptance. This morning I ran across an entry that is, in a way, prophetic. As I’ve said before, I’ve known for years that I was meant to write this book. I’ve come close to beginning it, only to see my own fears staring up from the page, telling me it’s too soon to go there, too soon to share.

This morning I found this, written November 13, 2008. I couldn’t figure out who the audience was until I found part of this entry on my old LiveJournal blog:

I have thought a lot lately about writing about that time, or of writing about the time that stands between here and that moment, or set of moments, five years ago. But while I am able to go there in my mind, sometimes without willing it, I am not willing to write it down. I do not want to tell you about it all.

Some of it you already know.

But most of it you will not be able to understand.

So I try to steer my thoughts away from those moments and instead let them settle on something else. Those words that need to resonate are not coming and I cannot find that something else.

Tonight I am remembering and the remembering is so strong I cannot will it away. I have been able to will it away when I am at work. I can throw myself into meetings and email and make it all dissolve into my day to day. At least, temporarily.

It is when I am at home, after my day has ended that it comes to me. Here is when it is so powerful it seems, in some spaces, all consuming. Like it could pick me up and carry me away. My memories are that strong.

But, as I told you, I do not want to write about them.

………………….
So I go back into my mind and push the remembering aside. Push aside the memories and the act of remembering. I go back into my mind to find the now, to find what is more pressing, what it more welcoming. What is easier to write about.

I have thought a lot about writing these past few days, but haven’t made time for it. I have thought of several things to write. About Veterans’ Day, and being a veteran. About my mother and her many illnesses. About my dog and his lack of hair. About puberty and fall and eagles and deer. Some days it seems I could pick a topic and run with it. Some days it seems so easy I almost do not want to do it.

I have been thinking about my place in the writing life, how I came here and if I belong here and where I am going with it all. I have had several dreams about grad school and searching for a place to write, for someone who will show me how to do it, for someone to model myself after.

I have been thinking about my place in this life, in my day to day, in the way I enter my office and the way I leave and the things I do when I am in there, at my desk.

I have been thinking about my place at home, my house that I rent, the things inside it and how it can seem so full and so empty at the same time. I have thought about buying a house and how that cannot happen anytime soon.

I am in a good place, really. I should tell you that I feel fortunate, that I have a good day to day and a good house and a good life in general. I should tell you that I will incorporate writing into all of this, that I will push myself and do more and do better and write more and write better.

………………….

I want to show you some things I wrote two years ago when I was doing some of my darkest journaling. I want to show them to you but I do not want you to see them.
………………….
Perhaps it is this: perhaps it is that I do not want you to see me.

(to be continued)


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the practice of sharing

Earlier this year I had my first haibun published in my campus lit journal, Clamor. This was my first attempt at the form, and there’s a story behind why I wrote it.

Several students on my staff worked on the Clamor editorial board and, knowing that I’m a writer, kept prodding me to submit something. My short stories are way too long and I didn’t have anything short enough that was anywhere near worth sharing. So I started poking around through old journal entries—stuff I’d written probably four years ago when I was processing a lot about my childhood. I found a piece that was mostly narrative and started playing with it, trying to cobble together some sort of story. But the more I played with it, the more I extracted and peeled apart the layers until I was left with something very condensed.

Then I found another journal entry, written a few months later. I followed the same process. I rewrote the entire thing, changing the point of view from first person past tense to second person present tense. This helped quite a bit. The pieces I was working with were intensely personal, and changing the POV and tense felt like putting on a warm, comfortable mask.

I changed a couple details—very minor things. What was really a car is now a truck, for example. But the story was the same. It’s told in two parts. The first is a scene:  a girl getting picked up from her grandparent’s house. The second is a reflection, an awareness of why the narrator is who she is now.

I liked these pieces. I liked that I could hide behind my truths by changing some very minor details. If this were to be published in the campus lit journal, I would be putting myself in a very vulnerable position. Friends and colleagues might see it. They might learn my secrets.

And then I thought about those secrets: that my mother suffered mental illness most of her life, that her illness affected me tremendously, and that I have struggled with depression and will likely remain on mood stabilizers for the rest of my life, even though I have been in remission for more than four years. Both of these things have been difficult for me to accept, and are very difficult to admit to others. But the thing is, they are common stories, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

So I kept writing, poking at what I had on the page.

It wasn’t enough. It needed more.

And that’s when I started playing with haibun.

I love haiku and its simplicity, but have never really played with it. All I know of how to write it is the 5-7-5 structure. So I played it safe and followed that rule (knowing that most haiku does not follow this structure). I wrote two haiku, one to follow each chunk of prose.

The first is from the narrator’s point of view and it marks an awareness of what was happening when she was young. The second is an acknowledgement of her present reality. The two haiku are meant to sit as contrasts: treatment of the mother’s and the daughter’s depression.

The piece doesn’t feel finished, largely because I don’t yet know enough about the haibun form. I haven’t practiced it enough to know how to present this story the way it should be presented. But that, I think, is okay. Simply having the piece out there—accessible to nearly everyone—is what’s important. I remind myself that this isn’t about writing perfect pieces. Truly it’s not about form at all; it’s about telling a story, finding a way to tell it so that I can make it real to my reader. More than anything, it’s about putting my work out there, sharing my secrets.

Yesterday I was talking with someone about practice in the context of some of my new adventures. I’ve recently started dating and, as I was telling K., I feel as though I am fumbling through the process, completely unaware of how to approach this new phase of my life. She paused for a moment and told me this:

In Eastern cultures, many things are talked about as practice: martial arts and yoga, for example. Even the best black belts and the most centered yogis practice. It is all a pursuit of continuing to learn, continuing to be better.

And this is how it is. I should approach dating or work or writing as practice. None of these pieces will be done. I will never be the best at haibun. This project will never be everything I want it to be. I am evolving. My writing is evolving. This book is evolving.

More than anything, though, when I put that notion of practice into the context of my writing—specifically this project—I realize  that it’s all about the practice of storytelling, the practice  of sharing, the practice of telling my truths.