Some years ago I took a memoir writing class. It was nothing short of life-changing. I wrote a lot of pieces, the best of which achieved the lofty exposure of being read before my ENTIRE writing class of 11 people - and my sister, who came to the reading for much-appreciated moral support.
In that class (and since) I learned two things.
First, that there is nothing more satisfying than taking the facts and distilling from them the emotional truth, or at the very least an entertaining distortion; my true calling may have been editing reality TV. (A corollary: the more loaded and haunting the facts, the more cathartic to purge them in a fierce literary construction.)
Second, that it is very tricky to write about real people and events without getting in trouble for writing about real people and events. So for instance some people would advise against calling your family dysfunctional; at least in a public forum.
Since I hail from Canada, the chances of my parents going all Billy Ray to my Miley are slim to none. Even if it was not the case that We are a relatively non-litigous society, They have too much dignity and reserve for that.
On the other hand, I harbor a great deal of Protestant guilt. This is much much worse than Catholic guilt because in my childhood religion there isn't much of an emphasis on forgiveness. It's not that it's frowned upon or anything. It's just not really on the agenda. I've dated enough Catholic boys to know that confession is one of the major headlines from the Vatican Press. There is no equivalent sacrament available to Presbyterians; instead forgiveness is on the second to last page, sandwiched between the classifieds and the porn advertisements.
I chalk this up to the fact that we drink grape juice instead of communion wine. There may be nothing worse than an unflinchingly sober interpretation of scripture. Particularly when absorbed from the hard bleacher in a cold, fluorescently lit gymnasium echoingly too big for its diminutive, fiscally restrained, community congregation.
But I digress.
I have collected a number of female mentors over the years. Written down that sounds a lot more stalker serial killer than the reality. I hope. Anyway, my Nia instructor and occasional ad hoc life coach is one of the most loving, positive people I know. She is also the only person who has been able to pull off this adage without sounding either trite or annoyingly didactic: "unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." From her it sounds... well... just true.
This is not about forgiveness, so much as it illustrates her point of view which I have found helpful on occasion. As for instance, today, it helped me frame what I want to say in a way that will not get me sued either legally or emotionally.
I was at work, having a less than stellar day - mostly because I'm PMSing, having an unusually prolonged existential crisis AND it's Day 537,562 without sun in The Rainy City (now that can't possibly be TRUE can it? This must be memoir!)
My temporary gloom had nothing to do with being at work; I am lately in the habit of thinking that going to my job is a privelege rather than a chore. Not long ago a former boss did the equivalent of crash and burn my little work family by driving our financial bus into a brick wall, and terminating my position about three years ahead of schedule. In this uncertain economy where many gifted friends are unemployed, I was very grateful last month to land a new job, and even happier to discover that my colleagues all quite sane.
On this day of unwonted out-of-sorts-ness I was standing three feet from my new boss, whom I am daily, shamelessly, trying to impress, when I very nearly destroyed a multi-thousand dollar piece of equipment.
This is what happened: I accidentally spun a fragile glass tube at thousands of rpms so that seconds after I pressed "start" and the machine began whirling up to its target speed, there was a horrible noise. Immediately I hit "stop" and lifting the lid, observed that the tube had literally disintegrated into thousands of tiny glass pebbles. Lest you forget the proximity of my boss, I could have reached out and touched her. I had visions of my paycheck being garnished for the next six months to pay for the damage, or worse yet, being fired for incompetence.
I casually scooped out the rubble, wiped down the interior, vacuumed up residue, and carried on an uneventful conversation, all with the smell of burning rotor in the air.
To give credit where credit is due, I must give a shout out to my family: thanks for the decades of experience that have taught me how to appear completely calm and collected in a situation that is, in fact, totally fucked up.
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