Part II coming... just a glitch in the brain here

Two glitches, perhaps.  The first is my writing class.  We have assignments in memoir that are things like "Tell a story using primarily dialogue in no more than 379 words, including the title." Another was setting a scene in 401 words. Character was, I believe, 392 words. And each assignment is supposed to stand alone.

Apparently, I'm not particularly good at this. I am working very hard on these assignments, but I choose too big a subject and get in a twist, I guess. I get one reaction from the class and another from the instructors. Now they are NOT at all nasty. Their critiques always include good things, and they suggest. I am learning a great deal about working hard on looking at what works and what doesn't. The problem for me is that these assignments are alien for me. I'm wordy. No doubt about that. However, when I read, I LIKE wordy! (We are not supposed to use exclamation points, adverbs, or adjectives. I used one exclamation point because, I said, when someone shouts, an exclamation point can say that instead of the word "shout." They actually said my exclamation point WAS correct in that situation. So I got one of my three "lifetime" exclamation points.)  !!!!

What happened before the last class is something that showed me how afraid I am sometimes. AND insecure. I am not looking for 89 comments of keep going. I WILL keep going. It's what I do. In fact, after the comment one of the instructors made before class, I came home, came to my blog and went to my comments over the last six months and took a deep breath and went, "GET A GRIP." Yeah. Outloud. But after forty-plus years of people telling me that I am not "such a much," the demons in the brain don't just shut up. I'm better at shutting them up or ignoring them, but ... well, perfect and I will not likely become acquainted in this lifetime. I can live with that.

The instructors rave about some people's work and justifiably so. I LOVE listening to other people's work. I learn from them.  But when I read a piece, the two instructors looked confused. Lary asked whether the class understood what I was saying and five women went, "YES." He asked for them to tell him and each one took a different bit. They understood the whole piece. He seemed surprised.  It was a bit about my brother's and my vigilance, even when I was not quite four--Not Mommy and Mommy. How we watched out for this, took stock of her body language, her eyes, her voice... wary. And what it was to go on one of the magical picnics. The preparation. The excitement. And, yes, the relief of knowing that Mommy was there--not the psychotic or drunken woman. The class got just enough to realize that my mother was not always quite right. And to see that she was quite wonderful otherwise. In 401 words. But even when I got the piece back they said that it was unclear in places and took apart the pieces they did not understand. And they even mentioned that I have to have something so that the readers feel that there is something at stake. That there is something that would compel them to read more.

I had to miss a class because of my back. Both feet were numb. Driving through rush hour would not be a good idea, nor would sitting for two hours in a student chair. Suzanne, and instructor, came to me the other night, when I returned. She was concerned because, well, I wasn't doing that well THAT night either. We had a guest author, who wrote Girls of Tender Age, an amazing memoir. Didn't want to miss that, and am glad that I went. I had sent Suzanne the attachment of my last painting and told her two of you were interested in having it, as are two people here at home. You all know me... I was amazed. But after asking me how I could cope with being as incapacitated at all, or what impelled me forward, a question which shocked me, she then suggested I might want to "rethink" my future!

Okay, she then was called away before I could really respond to that. I had said to her that it would not occur to me NOT to move forward, that lying down or giving in would have given me a lifetime of WORSE health and boredom.

Naturally, I doubted myself.  I have gotten a grip and this showed me that there is recovery left to do inside. However, it also showed me that I am not who I was the first time I had a class where Lary, my present instructor, was a visiting instructor. That teacher's and his criticisms got to me and I gave up writing for a decade. I was worthless, I thought, at 26.  Plus, the manuscript he handed me back was all wrinkled, with coffee stains. Not the other manuscripts. Just mine. As if this were intentional? I know Lary now. I lived for two years seeing his office. The man is not organized and spills on his own manuscripts.

But it took me only two days--no--a day and a half, to realize that this is nothing. And there is no reason to believe that it's personal. Other members of the class have been confused, too. And Lary finally said, at the end of class, that the object here is NOT to think we must write in a style that is almost self-consciously brief, but to learn how to truly look at every word, to experiment with different conventions, styles, techniques to find our voices.

One of my best friends in the world, Linda, helped me there. Today. Reminding me not to stop. Well, what she does is just remind me of who I am because of our conversations, period. It is always good to have at least one person who can help you find solid ground just by virtue of being who she is. (or he.)

I already found my voice. Here in this blog. With all of you. And I am learning every week in my class. I need to be true to myself, to accept the critiques as opinion, not gospel. Besides, some of the suggestions have been extremely helpful, and the "rules" have put me in touch with ALL my vocabulary, not just some of it.

So. Part II is scary for me to relive. It's an exercise in storytelling, but it is also an exercise in moving through that four-year period of operations without having my heart race, without getting the shakes. I learned so much through those nine operations. GOOD things. There may be a part three, but not for a while.

Okay. So. I won't stop writing. I couldn't stop writing and be okay with my life. It's what I have done to process everything since I was about ten. And I will keep learning in my class. I will take the suggestions in the spirit in which they are offered--as learning tools.  And I will not assume Suzanne was saying, "Be a painter. Your writing's a dead end." THAT is a reaction based on junk that has nothing to do with her.

But I'm not going to beat myself up for my bouts of fear or insecurity, either. If the only scars I have out of this life relate to a lack of self-confidence, then I'm not doing too badly, really. The back is a direct result of the battering by a brother in the days before people looked at things like sociopathic or psychopathic behavior in children. Boys will be boys. No one wanted to hear of torture or violence of a child against a child.

I was thrown down the stairs, pushed off chairs when I was reaching for things. I was battered and then called a klutz because I "fell." Jim was expert at it. He would find me at the bottom of the stairs, after pushing me, and tell Mommy how Jetty had fallen again. I began not to know the truth from his fictions. And by the time I was 26, I was missing a disk and there was evidence that vertebrae had been cracked in the past...

So writing about that journey is hard, the journey of the physical toll and the hell I had to live through because of it. Once again, though, for me, it is necessary. I am not ashamed of having all the surgeries; and they saved my life and ability to walk at a time when most multiple back surgeries failed entirely. (I know I'm hyper-sensitive there, but perhaps recounting that journey will help me stop reacting.) I am a SUCCESS story, not a failed back surgery story. I have gone twenty-six years now without another back operation. I've gone twenty years without another back "treatment" beyond occasional periods of intensive PT. I am alive, as I said. I am not wheelchair-bound. I stand.

And right now, I am about to ride fifty minutes on my recumbent bike, at level 12 out of 20. When I get off, I'll need an hour and a half to recuperate. A year ago, I could not manage more than twenty minutes at level 8. At all. Even sporadically. And then I will paint.

My life is a miracle to me, and writing about that is, for me, an exercise in FINDING the graces amidst the terror. You all are the people who help me believe that maybe this journey is worth the READ for others, when I doubt myself.

I found my voice just fine. With you. And I'll refine that voice as I work at home, and learn whenever the opportunity presents itself in classes, with other writers. (And on blogspot with other writers)

It's kind of fun (that's a strange word to have used, but it actually fits--weird), in some ways, to explore the last of my traumas. Oh. Wait. There is Jessica... But that is another journey, for another time. One at a time may be the best idea for now.

Part II is nearly ready.