Reno 39: Revisited

I know this has happened to you. Feel my pain.

I was working on this piece, tinkering, editing, feeling it out. Next day: gone. None of the changes took. I admit, I ignored a message saying I had unsaved changes, but I'd been working on the thing for hours. It was autosaving; I saved. I figured, at most, I'd lost the last few word changes. The program was just being persnickety. Nope. The ending, the last two paragraphs: gone. I tried to rewrite, but lost steam. I was discouraged. But then, (cue heavenly music) I realized: maybe this post wants to be something else?

I think what I really wanted to write about was not the night in Reno I spent with a few buddies, which happened to coincide with my 39th birthday, or familiar yarns about casinos and sin city scenes, but this:

A couple days ago I finished reading Anne Lamott's book called "Operating Instructions." I appreciate her stuff, and "Bird By Bird," a book about writing, is a staple on my shelf. (Though I can't seem to find it today. Anybody got my copy?) Operating Instructions is a diary of her son Sam's first year, and I liked it best when it reminded me of Bird. At times, I must say, it seemed a little neurotic. When I said this to my mom, she said: duh. Other times, though, I thought it was lovely.

I was curious about this book because I've been working on a memoir piece about my impending fatherhood. (Impending; sounds like waiting for the jury to deliver the sentence.) Some weeks ago, I had lunch with the writer Ethan Watters and he asked what I was working on. When I mentioned my memoir piece, he suggested, by way of examples on similar themes, O.I. by Lamott.

Lamott passes my how can you tell the writing's good? test because you feel it--that is, her voice, her style--in your mind. You find yourself crafting sentences like her. You try her humor, her italics, her confessional style. That's good writing, because it makes you want to write, or at least to consider the possibility contained in the discipline. To ask yourself: how did that sound? Could I have said it differently?

I've been ruminating on the confessional concept. I offer it out as food for thought to my good and true Influence the Spacers. I'm talking about very honest writing. (Many might say: is there any other kind?) In a memoir or diary, honesty or frankness might seem obvious, but think about the choices we make when we write. I was writing up stories of my trip to Reno. What details should I leave in, and which to leave out? (Got you curious now.) Discretion is the better part of valor, sayeth the proverb, and it's true that one must be very careful when considering telling tales that include others. Still, there's something very powerful, very humanizing about the real deal, all names and all activities included without veils, without code.

I was thinking about how much I like it when a writer talks about her life with that kind of truth. The real, honest details. If she had been out drinking, she'd write that she had three Ketel One martinis, not "a few drinks." And, of course, all the other luscious details, the olives and how many, the soggy beer coaster, the Marlboro Light she passed up because that particular brand hurts her soul. Writing, like life, is in the details. Otherwise, who are we fooling, ourselves? Who are we hiding from, our spouses? Our mothers? The details aren't just "naughty" things, either, they're emotions, anger and love, and they're juicy, like sex. We seem so busy disguising and code-naming, veiling threats and offers, that nobody knows exactly what people mean, or what, in fact, people are doing. It occurs to me: isn't much of homophobia a result of the unknown?

A writer's job is to say it true. Graciousness is fine, magnanimity is great. But so can be jealousy. So can be anger. When it's true. When it's hot and raw. Be honest, that's the point. You ask: at all times, in all situations? Here, in this context, I'm gonna say yes. I prefer to err on the side of honesty, not caution. I'm JDA. Do you know me?

But ok. Yes, it's among the trickiest of tasks, this detail decision-making, because these days the "confessional" form has gone so far toward that nitty-gritty, de rigueur basement-hovel-junkie thing that I sometimes wish folks would euphemize or metaphorize them details. A little subtlety, please! Consider: was that more than any of us really needed to know?

So, there's a paradox here. A contradiction. Yes, yes. I contain--we contain--multitudes. But you get my point.

Lamott, in this book, refers frequently to her past days of heavy drinking and cocaine use. While I appreciate her honesty (a virtue I daresay I've belabored) I do have a problem. I often found myself wondering if her particular honesty was made easier by hindsight. By which I mean, is she so forthcoming now (in the book) because the lifestyle she's referring to is in the past? Would she have written so frankly if she were in the middle of a serious bender, engaged with a serious habit or other (cue ominous music) debased phase of her life?

Perhaps. I'd like to think she would. And I do have to include this qualifier: when appropriate. I want to err on the side of honesty, of exposure, yes, but I'm not necessarily advocating a wanton indiscretion. Does that make sense?

Why I like the artful application of confession in writing is because I feel it connects more than exposes. We fear the confession because of the exposure, but as we realize from telling the truth--really being truthful--it connects us much more than it alienates us. That's my experience, anyway. It's the closeted stuff, the dark secrets in dark corners, the Unknown, where real problems germinate. And they grow because of the hiding, the suspicion and assumption inserted into that place of uncertainty. It's the filling in the blanks that happens, by all concerned, the hiding of the doer, the suspicion of the watcher, that creates separation and fear. Vicious cycle.

Would I not write something, even at the tender age of 39, because my mom might read it? Maybe. But I'd like to think no. What about my in-laws? I'm not ashamed of who I am or what I do. I love to tell the truth. (Cue my internal black man: tell it like it is!) But, I ain't no fool. I know when to apply the white lie. Or, do I? To be honest, har har, I've never been very good at lying. I have truth-told on many an occasion and regretted it, sometimes because I simply wasn't clever enough to fib, or devise somesuch clever subterfuge. It takes skill and practice to lie. It ain't my ballgame. I'd rather win with the truth. Ah, but have you ever bluffed in a poker game and won the hand? Delicious!

What am I after in this piece? Maybe in my deeper dedications as a writer I'm abolishing all forms of deception. From now on, I'm just gonna let it rip. Readers: beware. From now on, I'm using all your names! I'm telling on you!

It's a choice. One that must be made consciously and carefully, indeed. What I hear in Lamott's writing about her past behavior, albeit in hindsight, is something that I think comes from going all the way to someplace terrible, recovering, and then facing it. Reviewing it from the rescue platform. After that trip, honesty is all you have. You wear it. There is no cloak, the cloak is you. But it's good like that. She uses words like addict and alcoholic and thereby seems to give herself the freedom to just let fly, because the worst is already out there. And while it might not always make her feel great to remember certain things, or re-read something in all its (in)glorious detail, I bet she feels good, because it's true.

As the man said, the truth rings true. Or was it the woman?