Practice

I have been writing, off and on, during these last months.  There have been interruptions - coronavirus, the death of a sister's mother, Holy Week and Easter - little things like that.  But I haven't been sharing what I'm writing, because I have the feeling I'm practicing, learning about writing as much as I'm writing.  I'm reading Mary Karr and Natalie Goldberg on the art of memoir, and doing exercises, writing sections small enough to share with my new writers' group.  And I'm wandering down pathways I had almost forgotten, memories of childhood that may never show up in a book.  I could think of them as diversion, but I know they aren't.  They are helping me sort out what I'm trying to do, and what I am to learn from this.

I'm learning that memoir is first and foremost for me.  I have a story I want to tell, and others say they want to hear, but if all I do is tell the story they've already come to expect, the story I tell when I speak, it will just be an exercise.  Sort of interesting, maybe, to people who can relate.  But I know this is an opportunity to find the story, or the parts of stories, that I don't already know so well or have rehearsed.  It's a chance for me to grow, as I share with you.

So I'm practicing.  I'm practicing description, which is not my strong point.  Looking at something, describing it, lingering with it enough to convey it to you - no.  Ideas, yes.  Thoughts, even feelings, yes.  But sensing combined with language is a new challenge for me.  I consider skipping over it, and claiming the essay form; but a good essay also needs to convey.  So I dive in.

I'm practicing dialogue.  Again, not strong for me.  I didn't have many conversations with people for much of my life, unless they were about political theory or current events or complaining about what other people were doing or not doing.  I'm so up in my head that details like actual words shared mostly remain only as wounds.  But as I continue to practice, more will come to me.  I hope.

In fact, I have some big chunks of actual "memoir" in my computer now.  Why haven't I put them here?  I think partly shyness, and partly no one read my last post, so why bother?  So we will see.  If you want to read on, let me know.  Otherwise this can just be my typed journal, my companion to the other.

If you do read this, thank you!  This journey is for me, but it's also for you, in case there's something in my story that will help you see God's crazy love for you.  So God be with you, until I post again.