Authentic Writing

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In the memoir workshops that I participate in, we write.

And then we read aloud what we just wrote, if we so choose.

Most participates choose to read, but not all. For me, there is something powerful about committing one's words to another's eyes, another's ears.

I've heard Fred say more than once, "Don't commit to reading before writing."

As I dove into writing last night, I had to center myself. Would what I write offend people in the workshop if I chose to read it? How would it affect the workshop, for I might even mention the workshop in my writing?

I wasn't sure what would come off my keyboard, but I had an inkling in my head. And if my writing took a certain course, it was going to be difficult.

I recall words from another time in another memoir workshop when Fred quoted one of the McCourt brothers, I think it was Frank. Something like, 'Write what shames you. Write what scares you.'

On more than one occasion, Fred has said something like, 'Don't commit to reading (ie: publishing) before writing.'

If only I can keep that at the center of my core. For it is only that way that I can be true to my self.

My self.

I recently made a promise to never again abandon my self to another's silhouette.

And if I find that I have failed;
if I look inside and find a hollowness;
or if I look down and realize that I am trying to mold a certain shoe to my foot that I really don't like or walk a stretch of gravel road that I really don't want to be painfully trudging...
I hope beyond hope that first I can recognize my self from the hollowness, from another's silhouette, from shoes not designed for me, and definitely from the crunching of crushed rocks from a quarry.
I hope I will always be able to distinguish my self from what isn't my self.
And if I find my self being another self, that I can get back to my self.

And when that happens, I won't be the same self.

The hollowness; the shoes; the gravel road; the silhouette - all will have become a part of me.
There is no way around it.
***

Abe

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Betrayal. Abandonment.

I don't think I can ever expect that people are able to live up to the promises of never betraying or never abandoning. I understand that a person may tell another they will never betray or abandon that person. I understand that the promise maker has every intention of living up to that promise and that they are sincere and that it is a noble and loving thing to do.

But the reality is, that given certain circumstances, an individual may not be able to live up to their promise.

Abandonment is betrayal, in a sense.

Death would be the ultimate abandonment. The loved one left to live, is left without. The abandonment may not have been intentional; death is typically out of one's own control. Still the one left living is left with an emptiness.

I don't know if a human being can live up to, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

For me, coming to the realization that, ultimately, a human being cannot guarantee that promise, brings with the realization a freedom.

But why?

What is that is liberated? Is it that I know I cannot depend on anyone to fulfill that for me and therefore I am free from living up to the same expectation for another? Hm. Is it that I no longer need to look to others expecting them to fill that need, that in a sense it is an unrealistic expectation?

I thought earlier today that the only one I want to expect to live up to the promise to never abandon or betray me is me. And if at times I find that I have abandoned my self, that I am able to recognize that, acknowledge it, forgive that part of me, and embrace my self again.

I hope that I am finally learning to not betray my self, and to not abandon it to someone else's silhouette.

As I met with Dr. McColloch yesterday, I asked if everyone has such a deep need to not be silenced? It is like air to me. I have a deep need to express, and to express out loud, in a sense. Like on this blog, not hidden in my journal.

We both laughed, because for years, I hid in my journal and Dr. McColloch was my soul audience. I'd go into his office, journal in tow, and I'd read bits and pieces of what I had written that week. He was my first publication, so to speak.

God, I loved my journals. They were my salvation for years. All that suppression that was bottled up came pouring onto paper. But only for my eyes...at least for about eightish years.

Abandon. Etymology. "A" means "at, to." "Bandon" means "power, jurisdiction." Etymologically, the word carries a sense of "put someone under someone else's control."

Wow. Interesting.

Betray. Etymology. From the Latin tradere "hand over," from trans- "across" + dare "to give." Hm. Similar to abandon in the sense of it is handing over, like giving someone else control.

I have two poems about "abandonment." They describe a part of me. A part of me that I named Abe.
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Shadow Colors

I just read a couple pages that open "Chapter 3: Commitment and Consistency" in the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

The chapter (it appears) will explain how humans figure out a way to justify a commitment, even when that commitment is at cross purposes with what a person may really want or is a commitment that may be detrimental to the person.

As I read the first couple pages of the chapter I thought of what is known as "cognitive dissonance," that is when we justify our choices so that our brains don't blow a gasket when we are confronted with opposing information that crosses what we believe is true. As humans, we somehow must reconcile that kind of dilemma. So we reframe the situation in order to justify our decision in order to bring down the static, the dissonance, in our minds. It's a human thing.

But sometimes the static gets too loud and the justification makes it even scratchier. At that point we then make a change. Hopefully, it's a change that is beneficial.

Anyway, I read a sentence in the book, Influence, that caused me pause.

"Once a stand had been taken, the need for consistency pressured these people to bring what they felt and believed into line with what they had already done. They simply convinced themselves that they had made the right choice and, no doubt, felt better about it all."

It is the second sentence (in the quote above) that caught my attention.

When I read that second sentence, I felt that something might be "wrong" with me. I then had to think through why I felt that way. Only after writing this out, have I figured out why I felt there might be something "wrong" with me. And that is because I seldom feel I make a "right" or "wrong" choice.  I simply make a choice based on the best of my ability at the time of the decision.  I won't know if it is "right" or "wrong" until later, if I ever really know at all.  

Perhaps that outlook comes with age, or perhaps it is due to experiencing 'shattered faith,' so to speak. That is when one's structure around which they built their lives comes crumbling down and doubt the size of a gigantic edifice is continually looming casting shadows.  

There are most always more than two choices, than "right" and "wrong."  There are most always a variety or "right" choices and a variety of "wrong" choices. And many in between choices.

In other words, life has many shades of gray in the shadows. Not to mention all the colors and hues in the prism of a crystal.