Pay-dirt

If you aren't going to go deep, then you won't find the pay-dirt. I suppose the logical next step for me is to write about some heretofore forbidden topic. For example, here's what I have never written about: sex, money, bathroom going-on, obsessions, and noses (picking, blowing, and sniffing). Also, family secrets.

 

But I don't feel like taking that next step today, no matter how logical it might be, so don't expect a new direction from me. Perhaps another day.

 

I read an interview with an author whose name escapes me. He has written a memoir that covers not just himself but his family. Asked about the difficulty of writing so honestly about his life, he answered that he has done it for years, starting with writing about his experiences as an alcoholic—and then giving up drinking. He said, "Once you've made yourself write about repeatedly waking up soaked in you own urine, you've pretty much gotten over the shame of baring your life to the public." He then went on to say that writing in an equally honest way about his family is a different kettle of fish.

 

But I was struck by that "waking up soaked in one's own urine" sentence. Have I ever written anything half so honest? (I have to say here that I can't remember ever waking up soaked in my own urine, though perhaps I did when I was still in diapers—which I'm pretty sure is not quite what he was talking about.) When I write about my life, I stay on the surface, where things are funny and not too scary. Occasionally I dip down into the well and come up with some mud-covered memory, but I make it a point to give it a good rinse and a shine before I lay it out on the page for all to see.

 

Sanitized pay-dirt lacks grit.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com