Survival Writing
Peet’s is making a fortune as friends call to say, “OMG I’m so sorry; this is unbelievable; let’s have coffee and talk!” I’m always game, understanding this is what you’re supposed to do. It’s Divorce 101 – “Allow friends to offer support.” Except the friends, mostly writers like me and thus capable of coming up with dazzling plots, just go all deer-in-headlights across tiny metal tables. “This is horrible and doesn’t make any sense!” they intone sadly, wide-eyed. “But you’re okay, right?”
“Sure,” I answer in lieu of shrieking, “FUCK, NO!” amid three guys with pony tails and laptops and a young woman in a black lace corset and a tattoo of what could be a map of Kentucky curving around her neck. An unwritten-but-universal rule of coffee bars precludes all behavior that doesn’t suggest intensely silent rumination. I conform.
But then yesterday at the pool a friend who isn’t a writer but a reader actually offered a suggestion. “You have to write a breakup memoir!” she said as we pushed foam barbells through the water. “I just love those, reading about all the juicy affairs, the betrayals! It’ll be good therapy for you.”
Nobody had an affair, at least not the regular kind, but maybe I could embellish that a bit? Researching breakup memoirs online to see how it’s done, I learned that these are always written by women. Cool, I’m a woman, maybe this will work. Women reeling from betrayal by a man. Rats, I don’t qualify, but really, what difference does the sex of the hand holding the knife make? A hemorrhage is a hemorrhage.
Listing further detail, I noted that the following are breakup memoir essentials:
The Philosophical
Leave! Go somewhere else. Visit a college friend who barely remembers you, your high school Latin teacher or an aged aunt who collects ceramic anteaters. These people must live on a foggy, rock-strewn seacoast, preferably in Maine or Washington State. There you will come to understand the irrelevance of your personal pain as you accept your place in the cycle of time or something.
The Practical
Take up a life-threatening hobby. Skydiving, bungee-jumping and scaling Everest are guaranteed to reset your trivial self-absorption as you recuperate from real injury in an intensive care unit. And if you don’t survive, well, everybody at your memorial service will know exactly whom to blame!
The Inspiring
Walk around incessantly reciting positive affirmations. Like, “I’m leaving to pursue my dream of not being here, or, “Everything that is happening now is for a reason nobody on the planet can figure out,” or “My ability to conquer this challenge is surpassed only by my distaste for aphorisms.”
After hours of research I concluded that nobody would believe the breakup memoir I’d write. In fact, it would only drive readers to experience dizziness, nausea and a sudden aversion to Julia Child. I can’t even think about writing the next Blue, the sequel to Ultimate Blue, that will be out in August from Bywater Books. So it’s gonna be the sequel to An Unremembered Grave, Grimaud and Danni in Hollywood! Why not? Maybe he can hang out in Madame Tussaud’s? Stay tuned.
I adore the way you make words dance. Your biting wit is a joy to read, even when it describes the deepest pain and existential angst.
But, "A hemorrhage is still a hemorrhage," even though you may make it a humorrhage.