Another page in the Writer's Life
A tough morning today, and I'm groping a bit. A minute ago I almost slammed the computer and stalked downstairs to shout "I'm done with writing this memoir, it's too hard."
I just reviewed the 'chronology' I wrote for an exercise last year. It's just as difficult to read as it was to write. I haven't looked at it in months. Set out in that order it looks so harsh, so stupid. What was I thinking? What was my mother thinking? How did we get so far off track?
I've been writing this week about the weekend of my brother's fatal car accident (in 1968 this was, a long time ago) and the two weeks between then and his death, and noticing that this incident, too, doesn't seem to have much to do with alcohol. (Does it belong in a memoir whose working title is "The Alcoholic's Daughter"?) The incident, and what I'm writing about it, has lots to do with perfectionism, with people-pleasing, with imitating adult behavior while not feeling grown up; but there's no drinking in it. (Of course, my father hardly appears, but still).
So, wondering if that was really the next chapter, I went to look at the chronology.
My initial feeling is 'yikes -- who would want to write about this stuff?' It was all so long ago -- 1960s and early 70s. I was so much a different person then. I like the person I am today much better. Why don't I just stay in the present and focus on what's good in my life right now?
Why would I want to tap back into all that frustration, avoidance, angst, anger? Why would I want to revisit a husband who dealt with his unhappiness (in our marriage, and elsewhere) by going out for cigarettes and coming back in a couple of days (or, once, a couple of weeks) -- and who finally pushed me into divorce by walking out without saying goodbye? Sheesh, maybe I don't want to go back there.
But when I look at more recent stuff, there's my housemate getting blotto at my mother's funeral and staying that way for the whole week we were there. There's my husband knocking back bourbon in a hurry to get to sleep and waking me up at 2 am by falling into the furniture, staggering out the door of our rented cabin, crossing the lawn naked in full view of other campers, and being unable to speak for more than an hour except in fragmentary word salad. There's me being unable to articulate just what it is that I'd want to do instead of what (or whatever) we're now doing.
Do I want to write about any of that, any more than about the ancient past?
There's also the fact that, pretty much without my requesting it, all three of my housemates have sharply reduced their drinking in the past few years. Do I want to try to decode that? to figure out what shifted for them? what shifted for me that made it possible for them? for me? Am I really ready to live without the excuse of someone else's drinking to hold me back in my life? How did I arrange that?
Do I really think I can write about any of that?
So this morning I'm feeling some despair about the memoir. My next workshop submission is due in three days, there's nothing even close to ready except material that's been workshopped before, I'm irritated, frustrated, close to tears. And it's raining and I'm out of yogurt and chocolate. I want to be home in my own bed with the covers pulled over my head.
Thanks for listening. I just finished "The Florist's Daughter" by Patricia Hampl. She writes SO much better than me. I'm going to go read Philippa Gregory now.