Uncovering Skeletons

Write to me of loss, I said. I'm interested in loss. Tell me about the first time. What did it feel like?

I wrote about losing my wisdom tooth, I've written about losing contests, I asked you to write about your losses. Succinctly, freely, instantly, 250 words or less. Some of you did, and it was fantastic.

Deb at Kicking Corners wrote about an old loss that somehow uncovered more recent losses.
Michelle at Buttered Toast Rocks wrote about the good kind of loss - the little loss of selfishness that comes with being a mother.
Larissa at Papa Is a Preacher wrote about the necessity of loss for growth, the divine plan in loss and even used a parable.
Masked Mom wrote about a loss of something indescribable as a child, but clearly a loss.

Jane In Her Infinite Wisdom sent me this marvelous link. It's a project driven by loss, to uncover the commonalities across the board in all kinds of loss.

Casey has a whole blog dedicated to dealing with cyber losses. Check it out here.

I had a few other responses, too. A fellow blogger commented on the BlogHer version of the post and wondered if it was necessary to examine losses.

A friend of mine told me this in an email: "I apologize, but I'm not gonna write about loss. I'm trying to explain, but I'm having trouble getting the words right. So simply put, I'm not gonna write about loss cuz I don't want to."


Only a very small part of this whole exercise comes from a creepy voyeurism on my part, I promise. I have been pushing my writing (obviously not my blog writing) to its limits and beyond lately. I've tried to stop being so polite, so proper. It has been the sweatiest of exercise for me. I don't like to sweat, but there is the hope that after I'm all showered up, I'll feel better for having done it. Not feel better for the sake of a kind of therapy, but that the writing will feel better - healthier, more toned, leaner, stronger. I believe in writing for therapeutic reasons; I don't necessarily believe in publishing said writing. I do, however, think we can use these intense emotions, these moments in our life that take our breath away (for good or for bad) to enrich our writing, rather than skimming merrily along the surface.

There is a price, though. It's sweaty. It's uncomfortable. It's exhausting. It sometimes takes you places you weren't quite prepared to go. Sometimes it frightens small children (this is why I write after they've gone to bed.) If you've read my blog for any time at all, you may have realized that I like to examine things. I appreciate so much all of you who chose to examine along with me. You are my comrades, my co-conspirators, my fellow travelers through the madness that is writing. I have nothing but the utmost gratitude and respect for all of you. As always, if you don't see your link or if I've overlooked someone, LET ME KNOW! I want to include everyone. Thank you.

So, my 230-some-odd words on loss. I wrote four different pieces to get to this one. I had to peel back several layers of defenses and I probably could stand to peel a few more. But I wanted to get this done, so I could share the lovely work you all have done.

It hurts in the center of my chest, and when I breathe around it, it leaks out my eyes.
I can't write this. It cuts to the quick and it hurts.
It divides muscle from bone and leaves me a lifeless, spineless heap.
It exposes my useless mask and the skeleton it hides.
We hide our skeletons, not in the closet, but right under our skin.
They prop us up, they keep us walking, keep up the framework of our appearances.
These skeletons aren't hanging out forgotten, underneath out of season clothes, dust bunnies, defunct vacuum cleaners and the shoes I forgot I had. That's not where our skeletons live.
They walk around just under the surface, always there. They hurt and they break us when we bump up against things unexpectedly. Like a picture. Out of the blue, just pops unexpectedly where there was nothing before and you bark your shins or stub your toe.
I didn't stub my toe. It hurts just behind my ribs, that skeleton that covers my heart. Protects it and other soft and vulnerable things. It hurts. The bruise is from the inside. It threatens to burst.
All unnatural, unnerving to see the skeleton on the outside. The little bit of bone, out of place, poking through flesh. It sickens. It must be addressed. It must be healed.
I don't want to write this.
It hurts.

The Price Is Right

One of my favorite things about staying home sick from school when I was a kid, was watching The Price Is Right. I loved Bob Barker's way with the ladies, I was fascinated by his long skinny microphone, the sets and the prizes mesmerized me. The blinking lights and shining teeth. The "New car!", the dinette set. They were what glamour was made of. I always wanted to do the game with the punch wall. You know the one with the paper circles you could punch through and then Bob would take out a slip of Price Is Right paper and read off the prizes? I could tell you the price of a can of tuna and that it was definitely less than the hand mixer. The box of laundry detergent was the black horse, though. The price could go either way. It always cost more than I thought it did. Lower! Lower! I'd shout with the crowd and watch the contestant sadly kiss Bob on the cheek and head off stage; or else jump up and down and hug him and bump his microphone and go dance on the red spot near the Big Wheel.

What I loved best about the show, though, was when it was time for a new contestant. All these schlubs, sitting in the audience with their great big price tag name stickers waiting for the big, disembodied voice to shout their name: "And the next contestant is... Come on down!" I loved the idea that one minute you could be sitting there, a hapless spectator, and the next you are tripping through the aisles, hyperventilating, high-fiving and shaking hands on your way to your brightly colored spot on Contestants' Row. You start your day an average person and then someone, somewhere decides you're ready for the show. "Come on down!"

Right now I'm reading The Lie That Tells a Truth by John Dufresne. It is his book on writing. Add it to your list, if for no other reason than to read the introduction. I promise you won't be sorry. If you're unfamiliar with John Dufresne, I suggest picking up a copy of his novel, Louisiana Power and Light, first. Then you'll know the man knows a thing or two about writing. He focuses primarily on the writing of fiction, but it's helpful for other kinds of writing too. Most memoir is a form of fiction anyway. It's full of ideas and exercises and admonition and encouragement, all written in his earthy, conversational, and often hilarious prose. Even if you don't write, it's an interesting read.

I was plowing my way through when I discovered this quote from Joyce Carol Oates which resonated with me:

"What one has lost, or never had, feeds the work. There is a chance to make things right, to explain and explore, and aided by memory and its transmutations, find a new place where I have not been and did not wish to go."

I have been intrigued by loss these last few weeks. No particular reason, just an idea my hamster has bedded down in. I wrote a little bit about loss last week. I will probably write some more in the coming weeks. But I want to know what you have to write about loss. Think back to the first time you can remember feeling that sense of loss? What was it about? How did you feel? Did it change you? If so, how? Now here's the dinette set: Can you bid on this in up to 250 words without going over?

I'm no Bob Barker - not by a long shot - but isn't that why we write? That hope of one day hearing your name called and being able to run, giddy and bouncing, to Contestants' Row? Dufresne says this: "... there is a cost. You have to pay for the privilege of writing with your time... You pay with your time, your patience, your passion, your persistence."

Is the price right?
So, you there! Come on down!

I Want to Be a Hamburger

"There are only 40 people in the world and 5 of them are hamburgers."

How magnificent is that?! I stumbled across this quote from Captain Beefheart when I was in junior high. It really makes no sense at all, but leaves me with the impression that the hamburgers are something special.

Not this one. Definitely not this one.

Maybe I've misinterpreted. Maybe the hamburgers are the duds. Maybe they're the ones just masquerading as the precious few real people in the world, but underneath they are a ubiquitous fast food staple that invariably gives you heartburn. Maybe they're the people who make you hold your gut in the middle of the night and say "never again". Maybe they're the sort of people who seem like a good idea at the time, but then later leave you with a bad taste in your mouth and a mild case of diarrhea. On second thought, maybe I don't want to be a hamburger.

But what if he meant one of those luscious, right off the grill on a homemade bun hamburgers? A leave the back door open while you're cooking so you can listen to the children play in the yard and smell the raspberries by the steps kind of hamburgers? What if he meant the kind that you have on those summer days that last forever, suspended in a moment of the yawning sun stretching and easing its way back over the mountains? The kind of hamburger that you talk about long after it's been eaten? The kind of hamburger that you'd drive across state lines for? The kind of hamburger that you remembered that you tasted once and it makes you a little sad because now you know that moment has passed and you'll never be there in that moment with that hamburger again? What if that's what he meant? Maybe I do want to be a hamburger.

Or maybe he was just talking random nonsense and never realized that not only would it be recorded someplace, but that an unsuspecting 13-year-old girl would step in that and get it stuck on her shoe and carry it with her the rest of her life as something to ponder when she didn't feel like thinking of other things.

Still. I think I want to be a hamburger.