On writing essays

Last week on a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, writer Barry Lopez, who won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1986, explained why he wrote a particular essay about himself this way: “I’m just a writer. And the only thing I can do is…[to] say, This happened to me. I know many of you have experienced this. Here's what I've been thinking. What do you think?”

In those few short sentences, Barry Lopez has stated what writing personal essays is all about. It’s something that people ask me sometimes, both in the context of blogging and traditional print journalism, which are both channels of media in which I publish my own personal essays: Why do you, or why does anyone, write personal essays? What is the function of this particular form?

As Lopez said, we write essays to state what happened to us; in the hope that some note in our writing will strike a resonant chord with a reader who will then say “Yes, that’s how things happened for me, too.” But it’s more than just a search for common experience; it’s the wish to open a dialogue about how the experience felt and perhaps what it meant. Or, as Lopez puts it, “Here’s what I’ve been thinking [about this experience]. What do you think [about the similar experience you had]?”

Once in a while, I’m invited into classrooms to talk to students about writing. I always tell them to consider two opposite stances as they cast about for a topic for a personal essay. “First,” I always tell them, “readers are interested in reading about you doing something they too have done, so they can see how your experience was similar to or different from theirs. And second, readers are interested in reading about you doing something they haven’t done, so that they can find out what it was like.” When I visited my son’s fourth grade class several years ago for a day of personal writing, one child wrote about camping. “I used to go camping when I was your age too,” I told him. “I’m curious whether you feel about camping the same way I felt about it.” Another girl wrote an essay that started with a memorable pair of sentences: “Have you ever gone waterskiing in Mykonos? I have!” I most definitely have not, I told her, but I can’t wait to read what it’s like to go waterskiing in Mykonos.

Since I write essays both for our small-town community newspaper and for the Boston Globe, it’s not unusual for me to run into someone who says “You know what essay of yours I really loved, because I knew exactly what you meant?” I usually have a few seconds to try to guess what essay they’re thinking of – and I’m always wrong. Last weekend this happened twice. In one example, the woman was referring to an essay about why it’s fun if you live in the country to vacation in the city; the other reader mentioned an essay about getting bad news from far away while dealing with a hurricane at home. In neither case could I have possibly guessed which essay either woman was thinking of when she said she knew just what I meant.

There are long, complicated ways to describe the writing process, but what appeals to me about Barry Lopez’s words is their simplicity. “This is what happened to me. You might have experienced the same thing. Here’s how I feel about it. What about you?"

Exactly. That’s all we’re doing when we write essays. My experiences are a lot different from Barry Lopez’s – only starting with the fact that he has received a National Book Award and I have not. But both of us write in hopes of striking a resonant chord with a reader. Essay – the word comes from the French verb essayer, “to try.” That’s just it: we’re trying. And sometime we succeed.

 

Before anyone has hurt your feelings

I almost skipped right over the Fresh Air interview with legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola when it came up on my podcast list. Filmmaking isn’t a major interest of mine, and I knew there were other podcasts in my iPod queue that would be of more immediate interest to me: a conversation about Thanksgiving cooking with New York Times food writer Mark Bittman; a discussion on the shortage of drugs to counter ADHD; a review of Tom Perrotta’s newest novel.

But the Francis Ford Coppola interview was what came up when my run began, and sometimes it just seems like too much of a hassle to take my iPod out of its armband case and start fiddling with the controls to get to the next podcast once my run is under way. Besides, I reminded myself, even if I wasn’t particularly curious about the topic of filmmaking, I’d almost certainly learn something about it. And even when I don’t leave a Fresh Air podcast retaining any information about the subject, I always learn something new about the art of interviewing.

What I didn’t expect was to find it laugh-out-loud funny, but laugh out loud I did when Coppola was discussing the importance for filmmakers and other artists of practicing their writing with great frequency, and gave this specific instruction about daily writing: “The important thing is: choose the time that's good for you. For me, it's early morning because I wake up, and I'm fresh, and I sit in my place. I look out the window, and I have coffee, and no one's gotten up yet or called me or hurt my feelings.”

What made me laugh was the ingenuity of Coppola saying he needs to write before anyone has hurt his feelings. I too write first thing in the morning every day, as soon as I get out of bed, and I never thought about it that way, but he’s right: at that hour, no one has yet hurt my feelings (though sometimes I’ve already been mocked a little, given my tendency to talk in my sleep and my spouse’s propensity for teasing me about it in the wee hours). First thing in the morning, my emotions are still as untainted as they are likely to be all day, and I suppose in some ways that’s the best time to write.

Of course, it also tends to be the most innocuous time to write. Sometimes, as I sit in the comfortable arm chair in the corner of our bedroom at 5:30 a.m. with the house dark and silent around me, I find myself at a loss for what to say in my journal: nothing’s happened yet, and the events of the previous day have faded into uniform banality.

But most of the time, this isn’t a problem. Most of the time, the events and emotions of the previous day are still present in my mind enough to record, even if my brain may feel a little fuzzy at that hour.

Still, no one has yet hurt my feelings at 5:30 a.m., and Coppola is right: that counts for a lot. I am indeed best off writing in the grayish drowsy haze of early morning, when no one voice takes precedence in my writing only because it is the voice of the last person to have spoken to me.

In an ideal day, of course, no one hurts my feelings at all, and I don’t say things I regret, and I don’t make bad decisions, and I don’t take out my iPhone while running and accidentally drop it on the pavement and crack the screen (not to dwell too heavily on my weekend).

But these things happen, sometimes, in the course of a day. And it was somehow reassuring to hear from someone as highly accomplished and highly regarded as Francis Ford Coppola that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to do your daily writing when your thoughts and emotions still seem to be your own, in your voice, freshly hatched, before you’ve been distracted by people hurting your feelings.

Easter and the Barrymores

Growing up in a household that combined Jewish observances, Unitarian ideals and a generally secular humanist mood, I was never entirely clear on Easter’s meaning.

Christmas, I understood. Observers of all nature of religions and sects can still agree – though admittedly not all do – that Jesus was born and that his presence in history is significant, regardless of where their beliefs fall in relation to the Holy Trinity. So the meaning of Christmas was always clear to me: a celebration of Jesus’ birth, whether you consider Jesus the son of God, a prophet, or a fine and eloquent teacher.

But Easter is different. Without adhering to the idea of the Resurrection, how do we justify our right to observe it? While the oft-repeated secular idea of a holiday, whatever its name, honoring rebirth and the new life that springtime symbolizes is appealing, I’ve never understood why Easter should be specifically identified as that day.

As a child, I barely knew about Good Friday, and only last month did I finally familiarize myself with the meaning of Palm Sunday. That was because I had to teach a Sunday School lesson on it at the Unitarian church that my children and I attend. There, we make an effort to understand and educate our children about as many different forms of religion and personal belief as possible; in Sunday school, after we discussed Passover, Palm Sunday and the Spring Equinox, we made a poster showing all the different symbols associated with springtime and the holidays, from eggs to rabbits to the Christian cross to the Passover matzoh.

None of which quite explains why my discussion with my children yesterday afternoon centered on Drew Barrymore.

It was yet another one of those conversations with my children when if I take so much as a split second to step back and listen to myself talk, I can only ask with figurative dropped jaw, “How did I get myself into this?”

We were driving home from my in-laws’ house, where we’d had an Easter feast that included both an egg hunt and Grace before dinner: traditions both secular and religious. My 7-year-old looked out at all the cars with families returning from similar celebrations and asked why so many people celebrate Easter.

"Because no matter what your religious beliefs are, it's a good day to spend with your family," I said. "Major holidays are a nice time for everyone to take a break from what they normally do and get together with family instead."

“I feel sorry for all the American Idol finalists," she mused. "They had to miss out on spending Easter with their families because they’re still in Hollywood.”

“Not everyone spends Easter with their families,” I amended. “Some people spend it with their friends.”

“Well, I guess that’s what they did, then,” Holly persisted, still fixated on American Idol, “because by this time in the season, all the finalists are friends with each other. So they spent Easter together.”

Though American Idol finalist is one of the last roles I can imagine holding, I can hardly feel too sorry for them for their Easter logistics. I’m guessing they’re perfectly happy to be holed up in their practice sessions and wardrobe appointments this weekend. “Besides, some people consider their friends to be family,” I continued. “For example, Drew Barrymore.”

This spontaneous comment was the result of an interview I heard with Drew Barrymore on Fresh Air last year, in which she told Terry Gross that she no longer has a relationship with her mother but she has friends who are just like family to her and so, she assured Terry, it was okay about the rift with her famously problematic mother.

“Who’s Drew Barrymore?” both kids wanted to know.

“She’s an actress.”

“Why are her friends like her family?”

“Because she doesn’t get along with her mother.”

“Why not?”

As a journalist, there is no one in the world I hold in higher professional regard than Terry Gross. And once I start recounting things I heard on Fresh Air, I’m pretty much on automatic pilot. “Well, because she was very successful right from childhood, from when she was your age. And I think that now she feels like her mother didn’t necessarily help her or give her good advice.”

“Like about what to do with the money she made?” my eleven-year-old asked.

“Yes, and what roles to take. But she told Terry Gross that she has such good friends that they’re like a family to her.”

My husband shot me a look at this point. “Remind me again of what the rift between Drew and Jaid Barrymore has to do with Easter?”

Okay, nothing. That’s what happens when you try to explain things to kids. You get so sidetracked that you end up not quite able to believe what you hear yourself saying. We’ve all done it at some time or another. My mother once found herself actively competing with my then five-year-old niece and my niece’s friend over who knew someone with fewer limbs, and I famously once defended Tim by telling another mom that Tim was much more like a girl than her son was.

The kids didn’t have any further questions, though. Not about the Barrymores and not about the Resurrection. Which is fortunate because I didn’t have any more answers. Although if they want to know anything about Palm Sunday, I’m all set.

Running at the start of the evening on the first day of fall

Running with Tim over the course of two years was such an enriching experience, but on days like today I can’t help but acknowledge how great running alone can be. Once again, I didn’t get out until after dinner because of everyone’s schedules, but we had an early dinner so I was out the door at 6:45, when there was still plenty of light, albeit grayish, in the sky. The temperature was mild; it was ninety minutes past the official start of autumn. Belle and I ran for 30 minutes, looping through the Center and then up to the soccer fields and back.

Two nights ago I was frustrated not to get out until evening, but today it seemed like the ideal time. The kids had a half-day at school and my workday was shortened even further by a volunteer stint at the school library and the need to bring a casserole up to the teachers’ luncheon before dismissal time, so I didn’t want to cut into my work time for a run. And then the kids and I spent the whole afternoon together with what could best be described as a mercurial ambience. Holly had a friend over for a while and they played together very happily – they sang and did art projects – but the friend ended up in tears when it was time to leave. Tim woke up this morning seeming utterly exhausted and didn’t shake off his air of melancholy weariness all day – I know this because I saw him during my volunteer time midmorning – then at 2 PM fell into a sound sleep from which I had to wake him for his 3:00 trumpet lesson.

Later in the afternoon, I suggested both of them do their homework in the kitchen while I start preparing dinner, which sounded like a cozy plan and for a while it was, but then at some point Holly flogged Tim with her blanket, which infuriates him, and then he teased her for counting window panes instead of windows when the assignment asked how many windows our house had, and then Holly dissolved in tears when I told her that since the assignment said “Use a lot of colors in your drawing of your house,” she had to use some colors, and also that if she didn’t know today’s date she had to research it rather than put a question mark on the date line at the top of the paper. As I said, mercurial.

All of which is why I was guiltily delighted to take off right after dinner for a run, and it was such a good run, too. Not just because of the solitude but even physically it was great; my breathing was very steady, for some reason, and my pace felt just right. I listened to a “Fresh Air” podcast, first an interview with Lebron James and then a story about a Palestinian filmmaker. Terry Gross is such an inspiration to me; I learn so much from listening to her interview people, especially those with whom she seems to have so little in common like Lebron James. Her interview over the summer with comic Artie Lange was one of the most interesting segments of radio I’ve ever heard.

Belle and I didn’t pass any other runners or even any drivers we recognized; we just sailed along through the gathering dusk, happy to be out alone in the cooling air as the day, and in fact the summer of 2009, drew to an end. Running in the midmorning has been great lately, but sometimes the end of the day is best: for the peace, the solitude, the closure it brings on whatever has happened during the course of the day.