Writing a Wrong

Photo of the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

I sat in the passenger seat of our car with my notebook spread open in front of me, gleaming and white, ready to absorb whatever ideas, thoughts, and stories I might bleed onto it.  My counselor, Gloria, had recently read to me a poem I’d written in a previous session with her, and when she saw the look of shock on my face at the raw power of the words contained in it, she pointedly said -- “Sophia, start writing again.”

Writing was the only safe way I knew how to exorcise the corrosive memories smoldering inside of me.  Six years had passed since the day my old life had abruptly ended, but my blood pressure, which had never been extraordinarily high, was beginning to escalate as the past began creeping into the present.  I couldn’t account for the midnight panic attacks and racing heartbeat that would rev inside my chest, like an out-of-gear engine when you step on the gas.

So there I was, sitting in the car, trying to obey Gloria’s advice.  I stared at the notebook and pen that I’d bought for the sole purpose of dumping the trapped memories that were suddenly roaring to life in the form of physical ailments, trying to come to terms with the fact that the words apparently weren’t going to write themselves.  Outside, the rain turned to hail.  I heard it on the rooftop of the car, smattering and pinging, as I watched my husband Noah and his soccer team chasing the ball, completely unfazed by the spring storm.  I finally put the tip of the pen on the paper.  Once I started writing, there was no holding back.  Years of turmoil, frustration, and black humor poured forth from my heart and head, through my hand, onto the paper, pure and unfiltered.  I couldn’t get it out fast enough.  Later, I would describe my experience writing the “Big Bang” chapter of Illumination as an almost uncontrollable bodily function.  I felt as though my body was expelling the story, vomiting uncontrollably, allowing toxic waste to exit in giant heaves.

I was writing again.  I’d written since I first learned how to.  Journals, short stories, poems, even timid beginnings of novels eventually discarded.  Writing was my original and most precious form of self-expression.  Even my ex-husband, who was devoid of the ability to compliment me, used to say I could write.  Writing about one’s own experiences (“ME-moir”) can seem gratuitous.  It is certainly one way to expel the demons.  But it’s also a way to call them back to you – to bring them to life so you can look at them when they are standing still in the full clear light and possibly make sense of them.  My demons were more manageable once I could see them laid out on paper in the form of black and white words.

In all of my writings online, I’ve been surprised not to have elicited more negative comments and harsh words or judgments about my life decisions.  But the other day, I found one that took a direct shot at me.  A woman wrote in response to a piece I'd written for the Post Divorce Chronicles:

“I’ve read your articles for many weeks here and I have also read a ton of your blog and I keep telling myself to keep a open mind to you and the ways of your family,...and I’ve decided I just don't like it I don’t like the way you have chosen to live and to blog and to put your self out there for the world to see, I think the likely hood of your children resenting you is very high.”

The French have a word for whatever thing frightens us most, a “Bete Noire,” or “black beast.”   I know why I made the choices I did for my family years ago and, truthfully, I’m not always at peace with those choices.  I will be haunted by the guilt that comes from them.  It is nearly impossible to know if I did everything right.  And beyond just defending my choices to myself, I do wonder if it’s okay for me to write about them.  The commenter claims my children will one day resent me for doing this.  Is she right?  I don’t think so but I can’t say for sure.

One thing, however, she might not have known is that, to shield and protect my children, myself, even my ex, I have changed all of our names.  But even though I use a pen name, I do not want to hide my story any more.  I do not want to carry it around silently.  It was eating at me from the inside out.

When I began writing and regurgitating my past, my story, it was impossible to stop.  It feels like the reason I’ve gone through all that I have.  And the pen really is mightier than the sword.  When I am angry or frustrated or scared, my thoughts and words congeal in my head and stick in my throat, like a giant hairball of emotion.  When confronted by a hostile or aggressive person, I freeze.  Like an animal that poses as a statue, I hope the attacker will miraculously forget that I am standing there, or be deceived by my lack of motion, and leave me in peace.  In person, I am inept at fighting back.  But I can write.  Buffy used a wooden stake to vanquish her demons.  I use a pen.

Most of the response to my writing has been positive.  I’ve seen enough responses to my book and my blog entries to know that my stories give a voice to other women who thought, as I did, that they were alone in being a non custodial mother.

“I shouldn’t read your blog at work… Here I sit. At my desk, tears rolling down my face, because this the closest I have ever come to having someone who has been there, and lived it tell me, it's going to be okay. And It means the world to me. Thank you.”  This, from “Anonymous,” is just one of many examples.

Grace Paley once stated -- “We write what we don’t know we know.”  Sharing our stories is a way of processing our thoughts and experiences so we can make sense of our lives and give meaning to them.  We should be brave enough to write nakedly from our own point of view.  Only then will our stories be free and, if we choose to share them, free to affect the minds and hearts of others.

Four years ago, almost to the day, along the banks of the mighty Columbia River, the heavens opened above me and poured down as I hunkered in my car and quietly began writing.  By the time I finally looked up, Noah was headed back, looking both refreshed and exhausted from his game.  Without ever stepping out of the car, I realized I too was out of breath and exhausted.  My fingers ached and my heart was slowing down again after pounding away in my chest.  I had been running for years from my Bete Noire, but now, I was staring at it in front of me, captured on paper, and finally in my control.

Tomorrow's entry - Slaying a Demon.