February 2017

At risk of being misunderstood

We are all at risk of being misunderstood.  Even two people, who have lived together for decades can find themselves at odds.  She, perhaps because she needs two comforting arms around her just when he turns his back and goes away to be by himself; he, because he was only giving her some space that she was so obviously crying out for…And when he is upset, he likes to be alone.  Misunderstandings can so easily proliferate, like pins and needles after sitting too long with our legs tucked under us.

It is trite to say that we write memoir because we feel misunderstood.  And I have said that I wrote Trapped because I felt misunderstood.  But in fact, I simply didn’t understand anything.  That despair, nestled at the root of utter incomprehension, turned me initially guarded, then defensive, then prickly, then isolated.

In retrospect, and having had the courage to spell out as much as I could for myself and the reader, I feel that much misunderstanding and sorrow might have been avoided, or shed more easily, if there had been more people around who were unafraid to grasp me in their arms, speak to me as I needed to be spoken to, firmly and kindly, in order to break through the self-imposed isolation that becomes one consequence of being misread.

I find I am still grieving for the obvious reason that life was awful, and for the less obvious reason that I have wasted so many years being unhappy.  There is another, more insidious pain of knowing that my perceptions – like those of others! – were often greatly mistaken, and that if I had been less fearful and stood my ground, no-one would have minded terribly.

Sure, the world is full of insensitive oafs, and cruel people who are casually unjust, and it is our focus on such people that turns us inward.  But as I have since learned and continue to discover, the world is also brimming with delightfully kind, forgiving and thoughtful people.

I have missed so many opportunities for joy, and for love, fun, humour and sheer delight.  Meeting wonderful people, knowing they can see past my social awkwardness, my stumblingly stupid statements, to the smile that hopes it will be accepted, is so liberating.  I am sorry for all the wasted opportunities to show kindness and caring.  Life is full of inexplicable contradictions, isn’t it?

Without having gone out of my way to excavate my experiences by writing them, none of this would be clear.  Muddy confusion would all be sitting still, at the bottom of a dark glass, festering muddily.

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Memoir motivations revisited.

Why to memoirists write?

There is something in the way in which we approach the subject of our lives, perhaps viewed sceptically and a tad fearfully, like a huge pile of dishes – needing a good scrub, perhaps, or newly washed and waiting to be stacked in the cupboards. I approached Trapped  cautiously, and I suspect all memoirists tiptoe, gradually getting closer, until we are able to plunge in and immerse ourselves in the subject for a while. Life as a cold shower, perhaps.

It is a coming to terms, a reappraisal which, after all the angles have been explored, allows us to draw away again, review matters more objectively, or at least, from a different angle. For, no matter how we go about it, writing memoir forces us, at the end of a long and often painful process, to see life differently. In fact, in drawing away, we cannot but have shifted our view, even if by a minute fraction.

So, one main reason for writing memoir, is to allow us to see things differently, in the end, and to acquire fresh awareness of the struggle and heartache of others, and of our parts in the struggles of others. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Ironic, really, that readers of other genres, standard fiction and standard factual books, sometimes say that memoirists are rather self-involved. Yes, but that is part of a process of release that allows us not to be. Ironic, that in apparently being self-obsessed – why else would we imagine that others would be interested in reading about our lives? – we acquire deeper empathy for others.

I got to forty, and thought, hey, I’ve arrived, and getting old seems to be the world’s best kept secret.  I became even more sedate and withdrawn, dignified, as a forty-year-old thinks she has to be.  But as I cranked up some steam into the following decade, I knew I was hiding, and that my personal silence was much less important than finally – finally – letting my family discover who I was, and  that I really, really love them.  My family have their own issues and challenges, and my husband and daughter could do with a few more clues about me.  I thought it might be helpful if I could maybe throw some love and understanding their way: come to terms, discard those grudges that go back years, empty out the pot of resentment and clear away the backlog of mistaken assumptions.

Writing helps with all these aspects of growing up.  The process of learning to write and having the courage to publish is in itself so rewarding, that even if I knew then, what I know now that a bit of discomfort is never a reason to shy away from home truths.

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Recently I was asked to contribute.

Recently, I was asked to contribute to an anthology of memoir.

I thought this sounded great, so I readily agreed, knowing that the editor will be reading all the contributions she is sent and selecting those she thinks are most likely to appeal for publication.

And I’ve written the first page, the first of ten pages or three thousand words.  It is not a bad page.  It encapsulates, in words I have not assembled before in that order, some of the pain and awkwardness of feeling and being different.  It says something a little bit different too, about the nature of regret.

But – but – though every word is true, my daughter’s friends never ask about that.  With her, I doubt my impairments are a wise topic of conversation, or that it arises often.  My husband never mentions it either.  And now I feel a glissando of that old, familiar heaviness on my shoulders after writing, and I pause.

I have no real wish to rehearse all that again.  There will be times when I feel in the mood for it, and this is not one of them.  I don’t yearn to lift aloft that large plank of the past, to indulge in scrutiny of its unalterable underside.

Rather, I’d prefer to lay that plank firmly on the ground and tread confidently along it to the rest of – what is left of – my life.  Doing anything else feels like picking at a healing scab or breaking a fragile covering of winter ice on a freezing puddle to get my hands and sleeves soaked in the water below.  I’ve always hated getting my sleeves wet.  But I’m quite happy to swim in the ocean.  If I get a chance, I’d far rather it was the peaceful Pacific or the Caribbean….not the Arctic.

‘Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.’

Walt Whitman

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