SAY WHAT NEEDS to be said, I heard once in a writing workshop. Speak with a “subjective curiosity,” I learned. And so I do, as Anne Lamott encourages, try whenever possible to own my stories. (These are quotes so influential to me that I’ve taped them to the wall above my desk as a reminder whenever I sit down to write).
But I’m also learning (and relearning) the difference between writing from the wound and writing from the scar. Words are powerful, from either place. I don’t have to fully understand or agree with alternative versions of events to know how I experienced and understand them and that’s what I consider the courageous work of writers of memoir and autobiography, we must find ways to work with the situation—and the story.
One of the best books on writing I’ve ever read—The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick—is a guide to writing personal nonfiction that distinguishes between the facts (situation) and the emotional experiences or insights the writer uncovers as she reveals them (the story). Most of the time, we get stuck with the situation but never discover—or create—the story.
I’m currently reading When We See You Again, Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s accounting of the tragic murder of her son Hersh, a hostage taken on October 7 from the Nova Music Festival. She says outright that she’s writing from the wound, not the scar. Her heart has shattered into a million pieces, she says, and she’s given each of her readers a piece with a warning—they’re sharp, they can cut you.
I’m also reading an interview between two women, one Palestinian, the other Israeli, who have agreed to speak into the wound, under a temporary contract to sit with each other’s discomforts, and stay—stay longer—when either wants to flee. The interview, between renowned therapist Orna Gurelnik and Christine, one of her former clients, is a masterclass in staying with the utter dissonance of two radically different points of view and tolerating each other's pain as long as possible.
“How do we keep talking when we feel hurt, afraid, victimized, murderous?”
But the pain eventually becomes unbearable to them both and eight months after the initial conversations—neither has changed the other’s mind—yet both have become more sensitive to the possibility that we don’t have to fully understand another person’s pain or grief in order to stay kind and compassionate toward them—to want what’s best for them—even to express love.
I’ll be returning again to this interview—I haven’t read anything quite like it in all the writing and literature that’s come out since October 7 on the intractable nature of conflict in Israel and Palestine. I think we’re all desperate for lessons on how to write, speak, and listen into each other’s heartbreak.
But I’m also learning (and relearning) the difference between writing from the wound and writing from the scar. Words are powerful, from either place. I don’t have to fully understand or agree with alternative versions of events to know how I experienced and understand them and that’s what I consider the courageous work of writers of memoir and autobiography, we must find ways to work with the situation—and the story.
One of the best books on writing I’ve ever read—The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick—is a guide to writing personal nonfiction that distinguishes between the facts (situation) and the emotional experiences or insights the writer uncovers as she reveals them (the story). Most of the time, we get stuck with the situation but never discover—or create—the story.
I’m currently reading When We See You Again, Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s accounting of the tragic murder of her son Hersh, a hostage taken on October 7 from the Nova Music Festival. She says outright that she’s writing from the wound, not the scar. Her heart has shattered into a million pieces, she says, and she’s given each of her readers a piece with a warning—they’re sharp, they can cut you.
I’m also reading an interview between two women, one Palestinian, the other Israeli, who have agreed to speak into the wound, under a temporary contract to sit with each other’s discomforts, and stay—stay longer—when either wants to flee. The interview, between renowned therapist Orna Gurelnik and Christine, one of her former clients, is a masterclass in staying with the utter dissonance of two radically different points of view and tolerating each other's pain as long as possible.
“How do we keep talking when we feel hurt, afraid, victimized, murderous?”
But the pain eventually becomes unbearable to them both and eight months after the initial conversations—neither has changed the other’s mind—yet both have become more sensitive to the possibility that we don’t have to fully understand another person’s pain or grief in order to stay kind and compassionate toward them—to want what’s best for them—even to express love.
I’ll be returning again to this interview—I haven’t read anything quite like it in all the writing and literature that’s come out since October 7 on the intractable nature of conflict in Israel and Palestine. I think we’re all desperate for lessons on how to write, speak, and listen into each other’s heartbreak.
