First Person Singular

The Urge to Purge

Alright, this is going to be disgusting. You’ve been warned.

Anyway, I’ve been getting a bit braver in some the writing I’ve been doing privately. But even though I’m progressing, I find I can still only be so brave.

I have written a lot about my fear of revealing things about myself and people in my life through my work. This morning my internal tug of war around this – the urge to purge nearly as strong as the determination not to – reminded me of how I felt when I had a 48-hour stomach bug recently.

Several times in those two days, I had on overwhelming urge to throw up. My skin got clammy, the room spun slightly, and I started to heave. Better get to the bathroom, I thought. But if I did, then I’d have to let go and do the thing I hate most in the world. Throwing up is terrifying. You lose your balance. It’s hard to breathe. You are completely vulnerable and out of control. And it’s hard to know when it’s over. Just when you think you’re done, there’s another heave - another moment when it’s hard to breathe, when you think you could die, right there, on your knees in front of the toilet. But in most cases, afterward you feel better.

In each instance during my two-day affliction, I refused to bring myself anywhere near the bowl. Instead I vigilantly avoided thinking about purging, and alternated between deep and shallow breathing, as seemed fit, minute by minute. Again and again, I kept it down.

As the hours wore on, I regretted not giving in to the urge to just fucking release the bug. I was prolonging my own misery by holding onto it. Yet when a subsequent wave of nausea would overtake me, I’d resume basically doing Lamaze so I wouldn’t have to endure the horrors and indignities inherent in puking.

Back to writing. I think it’s Natalie Goldberg who makes the analogy of the importance of “vomiting on the page.” But the prospect of releasing certain ideas and stories is even scarier to me than retching, even though avoiding it is clearly keeping me uncomfortable for longer. I’m working on this…

More on “Congratulations On Surviving Your Very Interesting Life”

A few people have emailed me in response to my post, “Congratulations On Surviving Your Very Interesting Life.” For the most part, the reaction has been, “WTF!” although one person reported feeling conflicted about the whole which-is-more-respectable-novel-writing-or-memoir-writing debate. 

I think it’s a stupid debate, one of the stupidest ever. They’re just two different genres. You can be a novelist and call yourself a writer, and you can be a memoirist/essayist and call yourself a writer. They are both writing.

They require different skills, although not entirely. And they appeal to different readers. I personally prefer memoirs. If I’m going to read fiction, I’m more likely to enjoy it if it’s pretty damn close to the author’s life, and heart. With some exceptions, that’s just the only way I can buy it. I have friends who write entirely dreamt up novels that receive great acclaim, and I honestly just can’t be moved by them. I trudge through them to be a good friend.

On a certain level, I can understand why someone who went to all the trouble of getting an MFA in fiction writing and then a Ph.D. in literature and then spent six or seven years writing a sweeping novel would take issue with some neurotic like me – who dropped out of two MFA programs and likes to ponder the meaning of life through the lens of her own experience – calling herself the same thing he calls himself. I haven’t achieved what he has achieved. I admire what he has achieved, and I am not vaguely interested in competing with him. I didn’t start the conversation. 

But “writer” is a broad term. I’ve written a lot of shit in my life just to make a living - articles on cardiology and farm raised salmon and vegan shoes and whatever, and I’ve written gossip, the work I’m least proud of.

But I’ve also written a few things I am proud of. And pretty much other than a job in the local health food store in high school and college and a few temp jobs, I’ve made my living solely from writing since before I graduated from college. That’s, like, 26 years. And I will not call myself anything but a writer, because that’s what I am. Not a novelist. The Celebrated Novelist can distinguish himself from me that way, if he chooses. It’s an accurate distinction.

Congratulations on Surviving Your Very Interesting Life

Recently, I met a Celebrated Novelist. He asked me whether I write fiction, too, and I said, no, non-fiction was my thing - more specifically memoir and essays. 

“Oh, then you must have had a very interesting life,” he said more smugly than I was able to acknowledge internally in the moment. I realize I’m defended against noticing when people slight me, or condescend to me. It’s too painful to accept, at least as it’s happening. If I were to do that, I might reveal my displeasure with the slight, and some pain. I have issues with revealing displeasure and pain. I’m working on it.

The Celebrated Novelist tried to probe a little to find out what I might be writing about, but I deflected as best I could.

“You see, I didn’t have a very interesting life, so I don’t write about it,” he went on. There was a subtext of “Novel writing is a far superior endeavor - and achievement – to memoir writing.” I hate that shit. And I read waaaaay more memoirs than novels.

“You know, it’s not so much about having an interesting life,” I said, “as having an interesting or relatable perspective on common experiences in life.”

“Hmm,” he said, pretending to consider that thought. I could tell he wasn’t really considering it. 

When the Celebrated Novelist had enough of the conversation, he said, “Well, congratulations on surviving your very interesting life!”

I said “Thank you,” but I think I meant “Fuck you.” I wish I’d said that instead. 

Here’s something weird: I lately can’t find a place in my house that feels comfortable for writing. I have a whole office upstairs - second biggest room in the house - but I haven’t been able to station myself there for some time. I may have let it get too messy, and I’m not up for the nine million little decisions about what to keep, what to throw away, what to put where, before that space feels clean and clear for me, mentally.

I keep bouncing between the kitchen table, the living room, the den (there’s a fireplace in there, so I go there on the super coldest days and burn some wood).

(I’m making the house sound way bigger and fancier than it is. It’s neither big nor fancy. Very simple and kinda boho.)

Today I’m at the Kitchen table. It feels kind of okay - but kind of cold and lonely. it makes no sense, though, for one spot to feel more lonely than another, because wherever I am in the house during the day, there is no one else here with me.

The coziest, I think, is the den. Tomorrow I might bounce back there.