The Elephant in the Room

The Elephant in the Room

 

Often we write about our experiences in a general sense, i.e., who, what when and where.  We’ve honored the prohibition on honesty -- we don’t air our dirty laundry, reveal family secrets, cross boundaries, hurt our loved ones, etc.  But if we strain against these barriers, our work becomes deep, compelling and lifts off the page.  Consider the most difficult, the most taboo subjects in telling your truths in an artful way.  This can be done through irony, metaphor, humor, tone, point of view. 

 Keep in mind that we must beware of revenge as a motive.  Writing that has retaliation as its goal is always transparent and makes readers uncomfortable.

 On the other hand, what if we write about the elephant in the room? 

For example, my mother was always getting “sick.”  She spent hours in bed during the day, visited the doctor often and spent time in the “hospital.”  She “fainted” at my aunt’s wedding.  The elephant in the room was alcohol abuse.

I have had it relatively easy.  Mother has been dead for 20 years and I can always tap into one of her “episodes” to get me started writing.  She’s a never-ending resource for me to get words on paper.  The way she held her glass and cigarette in the same hand, the lipstick on her glass, the package of Pall Malls along side the bottle of rum.  The Bacardi bottles teetering on the garage rafters.

Writers are users.  We use the stories around us.  We have the right to tell our stories, but also must be ready to accept the responsibilities, if our writing is to be considered art and a power for good.  If you are worried about the consequences, legal or otherwise, of publishing a story that might upset someone, consider making them unrecognizable.

Writing and publishing are two separate stages of a writer’s work.  Deal with them one at a time.  Sometimes writing about the elephant may spur us on to other lively subjects!

A memoir is a slice of life about which a writer muses, struggling to achieve some understanding of a particular life experience.  A successful memoir demonstrates a writer’s slow coming to awareness, some reckoning within herself/himself over time, some understanding of how her/his unconscious is at work.  Because of this reckoning, the writing of memoir is not without pain.  A memoir that successfully taps the reservoir of universal human feeling resonates strongly with its readers.  The writer has the capability to connect with everything and everyone.

Look deeply within yourself, calling up emotions that are often repressed or avoided. Letting sleeping dogs lie is not conducive to successful writing.

 SHAME

 Shame is said to be a made-up emotion, but some of us feel it deeply within us. It’s a powerful resource for writing.  Tap into it.  Do you remember how you felt when someone said to you, “shame on you?”

When I was four, I traced a swastika made on the house next door. I took the paper with the tracing up to my room and practiced over and over trying to make a perfect swastika.  The longer I worked, the worse I felt.  I have no idea why I felt shame, perhaps it was collective, but I tore up all those attempts at drawing and put them down the toilet.

 I think I was seven when I passed a baby buggy parked in front of Rexall Drugs.  The baby was crying furiously.  I walked back and peeked into the buggy.  The baby’s little fists were balled up tight and its face was purple. I took my squirt gun out of my pocket and let the kid have it. “Now be quiet,” I said, and ran off.   Shame on me.

 GUILT (very closely related to SHAME)

Another baby story.  I was 14, babysitting Norman, around three months.  The card table was used for changing.  I put him on the table and turned around to grab a diaper.  Norman rolled off onto the floor.  I grabbed him and ran next store, which happened to be his grandmother’s house.  She took him into her arms and told me to go home.  Norman’s mother called me that night and told me never to come again.  I felt too guilty to ask how the baby was and I never told my parents why I wasn’t going back.  Still to this day I don’t know what happened to Norman.

 HATE & SHAME

My friend and her husband had this Siamese cat called Valentine.  He was a talker and a hisser, mostly hisser, around me. When I tried to pet him, he would go to bite or scratch me.  Heaven forbid if I ever tried to pick him up. Penny and her husband treated this cat like their child.  One night I was over for dinner and they set a place for Valentine, with a bowl of Scotch broth with barley, apparently his favorite. It was his birthday.  They called “Vally” to come to dinner and planned on singing Happy Birthday to him.   I thought I was going to get sick.  I pleaded illness and left without eating.  I HATED that cat and could not sit at the dinner table with him, let alone sing Happy Birthday to that monster.  And yet I felt shame (whether it was justified or not) because my friends adored that animal, mean as he was.

 FEAR

What scares you the most?  Why?  Have you ever felt on the brink of disaster?  Threatened?  In a place where you couldn’t get out? 

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 Writing exercises:

 Who said “shame on you” when you didn’t deserve it?

 Is there a person or animal you dislike and you feel guilty about it?

When were you last on the brink of disaster?  Look at your stories, if there’s no brink, add one.

Try at least one of the following:

Make a list of everything you consider taboo for yourself.  Think about which things on the list you could begin to write about.

 Write a memoir beginning with the words “It would be much too dangerous to talk about..."

 Tell the story of something in your life you are proud of without trivialization or modesty.

 

Good luck.

 

Catherine@catherinealexander.net