This will be good for me, I told myself, as I put on my jacket and headed for the door. My daughter is in the hospital, again, and perhaps a walk in the Portland sun with a new audio book will be just the distraction I need.
This hospital visit entails yet another Interventional Radiology procedure with the goal of beating back this aggressive cancer- a game changer that entered her life, and ours, two and a half years ago.
So I walk and I listen, mostly, as Ann Patchett reads essays from her latest memoir.
I like memoir; it’s like listening in on someones conversation but with the added benefit of knowing their thoughts too. I guess I’m curious, nosy even. I mostly wonder how life works for these people, and of course, what they have to say about it.
I think in the writing I’ve done, I’ve written a type of memoir; stories of my experiences, which, when put together, make a biography of sorts. I won’t lie, they’ve been predominantly sad stories. Life has dealt me a hand of loss and sorrow so this is what I write about.
Yet, in two and a half years, this is my first attempt at putting my life into words.
Upon Abi’s diagnosis, it was as if a switch was flipped, I had no words to describe this latest card, taking my handful of sorrow to a new, unforeseen level. The truth of it has felt too immense, impossible to distill into essay or short story.
I’ve had many conversations about this particular writer’s block with my therapist and even my psychiatrist. Finally my doctor said the magic words: what if I approached my writing as therapeutic rather than something to be shared? What if, indeed.
And here I am, words forthcoming, not with terrific ease, but here nonetheless. Not exactly spilling out but emerging as a slow drip.
by 