B ROLL no. 2
Notes from Writing a Memoir
Baby Girl, Can you please stop being such an asshole?
In April I had a brilliant idea. I decided to go to Kauai for ten days to write. I have been writing and not writing this book for over seven years, and sometimes I am so painfully over “the process.” The process is too hard to hold, it’s too messy, it’s big, it slips out of your hands and then suddenly looks you straight in your eyes and kisses you. Completion is tidy, or at least the fantasy of completion is tidy, it fits in your open palms. I am working on an essay about my mother, my grandmother, my childhood, Florida. I’ll go, pound it out, what could go wrong? I can go wrong. I can go very, very wrong! And you cannot pound out a book. Or you can sometimes, but not often when airline tickets are involved.
Kauai is beautiful, I know. I know I am so lucky to have a place to work there. Kauai is where I go to face my past. It wasn’t my plan, but it is what happened. A few years ago I found myself sitting at a bistro table in a Ohana unit in the Wailua Homestead writing about my family. I was writing and re-orienting to a time I have tried for nearly two decades to forget. I remember wishing I still smoked cigarettes, because I basically would’ve just eaten them straight from the pack. I heard a rumor once that souls exit the world above the mountains of Anahola, maybe this is why I am more brave on Kauai.
I start writing on the airplane. I stop and get groceries and expensive juices after I land. I do the ritual of moving my groceries and bags into the Ohana. I sit on the bed. I look around. My psyche knows what is happening, she knows what I am about to demand of her. I sit. I look at the lizards that also inhabit the space with me.
There is the gentle way to proceed; the gentle way is to show my psyche what is about to happen, to warn her, then grab the keys, take a drive and get a fish taco in Kilauea. My psyche is like a horse, skittish and powerful beyond her comprehension, she needs gentle warning and time. Then there is the hard way to proceed, the you just spent time and money to get here and write, stop dilly dallying and get to work. Pull out your laptop and write MORE. Make it good and get right to it. Sometimes I choose gentle and sometimes I choose hard; on this day in April I choose hard.
A commitment to writing about your life with rigorous honesty is hard. Unpacking the moments in a life that you’d rather forget is hard. BUT THE DOING OF ALL THIS IS ALLOWED TO BE SOFT, this was the magic lesson that I learned in those ten days, and I learned it the hard way. I write for three days. I do not leave. I take selfies in the rain. I play a lot of Mahjong on my phone. I play a weird word find game that creeps me out because the only categories are chemistry and a very weird selection of movie titles. I write. I am writing about my mother’s choices, about our year in Miami together. I write about being bullied, about escaping a drunk and violent man she loved back in New York, about this unbreakable bond that is, and always will be, me and my mom. I am filling with a Tetris game of contradicting wants and needs and feelings. I am filled with so much compassion for ten year old me. I fight through the constructed walls around my heart and my lungs. I play more games on my phone. I google neighborhoods in Florida and read reviews of them. I cosider leaving a bad review of a teacher on their obituary page, but think better of it. I miss Florida. I miss my mom. I miss my mom so much as the words and anger unfold. I’d give anything to sit next to her.
And then it happens, the defensive structure alarm rings. It happens fast, but it has been moving up the warning levels for days. She’s going too far, too fast. Interpsyche offices are sending memos through neuropathway highways, shut it down, they say. SHUT IT DOWN. And then it shuts down.
What is your particular flavor of defense? I think we should know. Here’s mine. It’s anger turned inward. It’s being an absolute monster to myself about myself. It’s you are a whiny privileged cry baby. Why are you writing this book? You spent too much money coming here. You should only feel joy and luck. Who cares about death and trauma. You are self involved. Go get a real job. This is my monster. She lives here too. If you don’t live with a monster this may sound harsh, but I am mostly used to her. She is a real pill, but she loves me so much; she is trying to save me from pain, I can’t be mad at her because this is the only way she knows. So… When I am in pain I double down, that’s my style.
Self attack is the fight response turned inward. We do not get to design our defensive structures, they design us. Just like we do not get to choose what our nervous system fires off in an emergency - it works faster then our choices, gathers information at lightning speed while we are still giving ourselves metals for being so well read and in control. But we can get to know them. We can be curious about them. Sometimes we can even be tender towards them. I could for example say, oh sweetie, you were so mad, but it wasn’t safe to be mad outward, so you were mad inward. I could say that, but I often don’t.
It takes me three more days to have a glimmer of possibilty that I am maybe being a huge asshole to myself. I finally begrudgingly put my hand on my heart and say, I am having a moment of suffering and I am being really mean to myself. I call my friend, I tell her all the dark things I’ve been thinking, I tell her I quit the book. She says, yeah I’ve felt that. She says, it’s okay to quit the book. She shows me compassion before I am quite ready to take the wheel. I go sit on the beach. I feel the way the sand merges and molds to my body as I sit and watch the waves. I let the sand hold me. I have a choice to be kind to myself. I don’t quite beleive it, but a window of kindness toward myself has opened up. I make a decision to climb through.
On the way home from the beach I get stuck on the one highway around Kauai for three hours. There has been an accident. I make the prayer I always make when there is an accident. I sit there with the engine off. I sit and I wait. I wait for the defensive structures to loosen; I wait for the road to open up. I watch the sun set. I am tired now. I have tired myself out. It is night. When the road clears I drive back to my little writing room and fall fast asleep. I am tender and nearly empty. The next day I force myself to listen to my favorite self compassion meditation by Chris Germer, Affectionate Breathing. I still cannot write, but I get fish tacos. I walk along the ocean. I am gentle with myself. I decide I will continue with the book. I fly home and write for three days.
After Breakfast by Elin Danielson Gambogi
One of my favorite guided meditations from my favorite Mindful Self Compassion teacher, Chris Germer!
