Writing a memoir is the opposite of slapping the snooze on the alarm, pulling up the covers and tucking myself back into sleep in the morning. Writing my story means rolling out of bed, facing the mirror and confronting every last one of the freckles on my cheeks. It’s acknowledging them, naming each freckle, it’s humbly asking them more about how they got there, and what they mean. I often pause between commas or periods and in the pause, I notice the reflection on the screen of my computer. In the pause, my left hand always rests my chin, or its backwards fist smooshes my cheek as an automatic resting pose. There’s something tangibly comforting in smooshing my cheeks. My mom says I used to pose like this as a baby from my high chair while waiting for food or toys, and my family called it my “bored student” look.
It is very difficult to confront the mirror some mornings. There are bottomless questions and true things I’m afraid to say out loud, even if only me and my typewriter* will hear it. Sometimes I have to lock myself in a quiet room in order to face the mirror (the freckles, if you will). I've been haunting the Watertown Public Library for quiet space a lot this summer.
I've found a good way to keep this confrontation going instead of hiding from it, is to make some writing friends and make some dates that you are committed to sharing something with them -- even if it’s something you already wrote years ago and you’re improving it or even just grappling with where to put it. My memoir class at Grub Street has thankfully given me an opportunity to have a number of these small groups of writers to keep in touch with and report in progress to when we're not regularly meeting for class.
Back to work now.
*I'm not really using a Royal typewriter although I have one. I just call my chromebook my typewriter.
*I'm not really using a Royal typewriter although I have one. I just call my chromebook my typewriter.