Talking about the family outside the family, part 2

photo: einalem, courtesy of FlickrTelling the truth all the time -- telling the truth every single day as part of what has become my daily practice of writing this blog -- is a pain in the ass.  

This is what I started writing about two weeks ago when I wrote part 1 of Talking about the family outside the family.  Which was me wondering how to deal with the fact that my mother reads me and may not always appreciate my retelling of a childhood story.  How to deal with the sinking oh-shit feeling I had when I read her email response.  But it's not just her, naturally.  Most of the time it's just having mentally to rewind and remember my own words before people quote them back at me.  It's not that I ever write anything I regret.  It's just that it can be challenging, when I make my private thoughts public, to then reclaim the ramparts of my own sacred privacy.  People know things about me, because I tell things.  And then sometimes I'm a little stunned and sheepish because people already know.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that that's the deal.  

When you routinely hang your laundry out for all to see, then yes, you ARE inviting questions about that particularly holey pair of black tights you're still wearing even though they're basically crotchless.  

And yes, that's a true story.  I do have really ridiculously abused undergarments that I don't replace because they're still serviceable.  I just make sure I wear them on days when I don't think anyone but me will ever see them.  But that doesn't stop me from talking about them.  Because I think they're funny and they make a good story.

In Part 1 of this story, I included the questions I asked of two friends who I thought would be able to help me, to provide some guidance in how to manage this balance of telling the truth, my version, and dealing with the consequences.  I asked my childhood friend (since 1977) Frances Lefkowitz, memoirist, author of To Have Not, and my more-recent friend (2002?) Sarah Clark, the hostess of the uber-popular Sarah and Vinnie morning radio show on San Francisco's KLLC.  Here's my distillation of their advice, which I think is a sound way to approach not just your writing but pretty much every way that you're re-telling the stories of your life:

Edit for Kindness

To be fair, when I asked Frances and Sarah for their input, I didn't include a disclaimer that anything they said might wind up in the blog.  At this point, and particularly in dealing with these two, I think they know it's a given.  When asked how she dealt with her family reading how she spilled the beans about their shared history, Frances replied:

Oh, Ariane, this is the million-dollar question with personal writing.  I'm at a witers conference right now in Chicago and one of the panels (on memoir) is called "Selling Out Everyone You Know." Still, as I approached publication with my book, it began to sink in, how different writing about [my family] was from publishing (making public) about them. And then I went over the manuscript looking for every place where I might have been flip for the sake of funny, or hurtful without it really advancing the story, and I took out some stuff and changed the wording in places (this applies to scenes with ex-boyfriends, too!). These are very difficult issues that are endemic to this kind of writing.

I'll be spending a whole day with Frances next weekend, listening to her on an another panel at a women's conference -- this panel's title: "If it's not one thing, it's your mother" -- so I'm sure I'll have more to share on this subject from her perspective soon enough.  But really, this is super helpful: edit for kindness.  Take out any snark that doesn't move the story. Edit for kindness.

Apologize after

It's not unusual for people to know about things I've done or said based on another channel -- not my blog, but Sarah's radio show.  I often forget when we're hanging around having fun that Sarah has such a massive audience, an audience that includes people who actually know me and people who actually work for me. So I roll into work and am asked questions by my staff about things they shouldn't have any idea I did.  Sometimes it puzzled me -- I stand there for a beat, wondering how they know since I try to erect a cyber-barrier around my personal life (I never Friend anyone who's in any way connected to my job, for examps,  and I don't publicize the url to my blog at work.  These are feeb measures, I know, but still...).   And then I remember that they're loyal listeners to the Sarah and Vinnie show.  Oh yeah, of course they know about what happened at the cabin.

So Sarah definitely knows a thing or two about this particular conundrum, about the impact of all the telling.  Her response:

truthfully, when it comes to what i say, i don't filter it and i've written my share of apologies over the years.  people who love you and know you best always understand, they really do...  as long as what you say is the truth and isn't delivered hurtfully, most of the time you can shrug and say, but you know i love you and have a whole blog to fill...sorry today it was at your expense!!!

I know this works, since I did it the very day I wrote the first installment of this mini-series and felt a lot better about everything as a result.  So helpful: truth first, sorry second.

But still, telling the truth is a pain in the ass.

Yesterday I'm sitting at lunch on Day 1 of the Death Midwifery course I'm taking, sitting next to the person I refused to carpool with and, while eating my brown rice and salad (there was chicken too, but mentioning the brown rice is funnier), I'm listening to the conversation around me and simultaneously wondering what she would think, the Carpooler I Refused, about what I had to say.  I wrote about her before I even met her -- turns out she's awesome, of course -- and I wonder if she were to read what I wrote, would she be offended?  Would the woman facilitating the workshop (oh, I have LOADS to write about her), would she be offended?  Will she be when I finally have enough time to lay out my thoughts about this course?  It's tricky because I have a lot to say -- a lot of flattering, complimentary stuff truly, but also a fair share of ohmygodareyoufuckingkiddingme.  I'll tell it all, the flattering and the not-so.

Because this is the deal about telling the truth every day: it gets easier every day.  Every day that I sit here and write, I'm working on the muscle it takes to do this.  Same goes for the truth.  It gets easier.  Doesn't even elevate my heart rate that much anymore.  It also gets easier to deal with the consequences, to be able to hold my head up and be available to answer for my words, knowing I've taken great advice -- that I've edited for kindness and am prepared, when needed, to say sorry after.  But only after. 

Sometimes I wish I lived in a land without consequences, but that ain't happening anytime soon.  For now, I'll take it -- this minor pain in ass that comes with truth-telling.  I'll take it, no problem.

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