For Realzies
Here’s where I get intimate with you all: I decorate my mother’s grave with stones. (See Melina’s post from yesterday–Jean Michel Basquiat.)
All the stones are from bodies of water. The first set came from the Wisconsin River about a year after she died. It seemed natural to sweep off her gravestone with dead grass and line up a handful of rocks. Then I’d talk (or not) and head out. Simple.
I didn’t realize that I’d made it into a “deal” until I came home from fly fishing in Montana with a pocket of rocks and had to find a new storage space. I’m starting to forget which rocks are from which rivers/lakes/other. I’ve got at least four years of collecting to figure out and haul home.
But today. I visited Amber Lake, looked for a stone for Ma, and left without. I created a pattern, realized that pattern, and broke it. Is this what we do in the arts? Work in some mode, figure out that mode, and try to rebel? This is also when my nonfiction head screams, But what does it mean?! (interrobang)
I’ll be honest with ya’ll, I’m a bit nervous about writing nonfiction because finding the right end of a personal essay seems nearly impossible and often smacks of self-psychoanalysis. Poems are easier. They can rest on the image rather than the Meaning of that image. I don’t have to reach out to humanity with go-go-gadget arms. I can just line up water rocks on a gravestone and say, There. Is it enough to write an essay that says, I realized that I do this? Should I be wandering around in my childhood memories of my mother+water? Is it significant that the smallest one is from he Pacific Ocean? D: All of the above?
I know that’s all crap that I have to figure out. And I know people often talk about the false sense of “end” in a personal essay because there is no actual “end.” How do we deal? Take smaller bites of life?
Take smaller bites of life! Yes! I love that. I’m not anywhere close to an expert, but I like what Lopate says about going at something from every angle, squeezing it until it’s almost dry. For me, it’s harder to rein myself in in an essay. If I’m talking about my relationship with my mother, obviously I need to pick something tiny in that relationship and expand on it. But instead usually I try to pack a couple of decades’ worth of wisdom (which I don’t have!).
Honestly, that’s what I love about poetry. Just lining up my rocks. I think the essay about you realizing you do this is spot on. That could uncover some little truth you may not have realized consciously. It does feel like a lot of self-analysis, but that’s only because it is.