I started the Vein of Gold this week. I love that Julia Cameron (JC) starts things off with a bang. Just my style. Why save the challenges for the end? The first assignment is to write your life story. She says it may take you 50,000 words. That's the size of a small novel. It doesn't have to take you that many words, she assures. Some people feel they are complete with 10,000. I'm hoping cause I'm young my requirements will be fulfilled on the smaller end of the spectrum. I've given myself three weeks to complete it.
It's not supposed to be a literary work of genius. Just get the facts down. The point is to rewrite your own life. Blocked creatives are notoriously rife with everyone else's opinions about them, and everyone else's version of the events of their lives.
Exhibit A: When asked about my scholastic performance during my junior year of high school, my parents would probably cite the B minus I got in Calculus. I, however, would focus on the fact that I won the Shoreline Writing Awards and had my piece performed before an audience.
Know which one sticks with me more? The B minus in Calculus.
The point of writing your personal narrative timeline is to tell the events from your point of view. Not your mother's. Not your instructor's. Not your friends'. As JC says, you may find that the loss of a pet parakeet registered more intensely in your life than the birth of a baby brother.
I started my timeline last night by writing out a list of each year and the age I was, as well as what grade I was in -- during my school years, or which apartment I lived in -- during my adult years. I don't remember numbers in my history. I don't know off-hand what year it was that I lived in room 818 in Myles Standish Hall or how old I was, but I could tell you that the window overlooking Kenmore Sq. had twelve panes of glass and the wood was worn, pale paint flaking off onto my bed. That the window ledge had a smiling sun made out of wire, and when I photographed my favorite portrait ever -- Kara with two fistfuls of daisies -- the sun was immortalized in the back of the picture. I could tell you that the room smelled like sandalwood, because of a candle I bought at Quincy Market when my parents came to visit, and the rug smelled of Herbal Essences because my ferret Pez dragged the bottle out of my closet and ate the top off while I was in class. The conditioner sank into the industrial carpet and semi-masked the overwhelming smell of Parliament Lights. But I can't tell you, without consulting some written record, what year that was.
I do have a selective memory. Last night, staring into my computer screen, I simply couldn't believe I remembered the name of the first horse I rode (Flying Saucer) but can't recall the name of my roommate from a couple of years ago. Not even her first name, for chrissake. And she lived in my house for a year! I remember the license plate of the car belonging to the family of the boy I had a crush on in seventh grade (845-EAV -- it was a champagne Honda Accord), but damned if I can remember the name of my college advisor. I don't know if it's a quirk unique to my mind. Despite hours of racking my brain and performing Google searches, I can't recall my third grade teacher's name. I do, however, remember the black bathing suit I had when I was four that said "beach bum" in fruit-flavored colors all over it. And I can smell the fresh chartreuse paint on the big letters my dad cut out and hung on my bedroom wall when I was six: K R I S. I remember that I used to rearrange them so they read R I S K, which sounded infinitely more exciting, even then.
What was striking me most last night as I began the skeletal outline was the revolving assortment of friends I've had throughout my life. Every school year, it was a new group of people because the old group had screwed me over big time. Growing up, my family insisted it was my fault, that I was a bad friend, or didn't play well with others, and I grew up believing there was something inherently wrong with me on a social level. Meanwhile, my "friends" stole things from my room and then lied about it, started vicious rumors about me and a boy I liked and then proceeded to date him just to irritate me, and a long list of other mean teenage girl accusations. I can rewrite my personal narrative so that I was the one who was sane, who was a faithful friend, who was right. That these unhappy people who relied on ridiculing others to make themselves feel worthy of love had nothing to do with my own self worth.
Yes, a lot of these wounds are decades old and totally inconsequential to the life I lead today. But it is interesting to look back on some of my old mishaps with the eyes of an adult. Truths that were hammered into my head don't apply. I was not an irresponsible student who was just plain stupid when it came to math. I was elected parliamentarian of the honor society. I graduated fourth in my class. It's curious that I remember Mr. Ciocinne embarrassing me endlessly in front of the eighth grade algebra class because I was in the gifted and talented program and had to miss his class once a week. But I often forget that in fifth grade, Mrs. Lovelace enjoyed my novel so much that she spent a month reading it out loud to the whole class, one chapter at a time.
The project of writing out my narrative history is going to be interesting, I can tell already. I have to be sure to come at it from a different angle than that of, say, a substance abuse counselor. Because it could easily disolve into a grocery list of my misdeeds and impropriety from ages 18-25. And years ago when I did a fourth step, I had to do just that. I'm not really interested in those details. I want to know what music I was listening to, what books were moving me, when it was that I started my insane quest to document each day of my life via words, pictures, audio, and video. I want to know who my creative heroes were at 14, and I want to remember vividly the sound of crickets in my backyard in Connecticut. I want to permanize the emotional outpouring that occured yesterday while putting together a memorial of my childhood cat Fig, who just died a couple of weeks ago. I want to remember what it was like to actually believe that anything was possible.
I have an unusual source of information taking up a seven foot tall bookcase at Wishville; I have documented every day of my life since sixth grade -- age 11. It began when I saw a copy of Memos To Myself When I Have a Teenage Kid by Carol Snyder. I never read the book, but I thought it was a brilliant idea. My very first journal entry ever starts, "Memo: to myself when I have a kid: I hate when parents bug me about boys." It has a New Kids on the Block sticker on the front.
Mortified really brings this kind of experience to life. Literally. This American Life featured a few inspirational pieces from Mortified. I almost peed my pants. I could see myself up on stage reading the entry in which I swore to god and the angels above that I would never have children so they wouldn't have to endure a childhood plagued with the evil genes that made me six feet tall in the eighth grade. "Take my ovaries away!" I wrote in red block letters. Along with the day that The Jessicas snuck over in the middle of the night and hung a 20 foot banner across the front of my house that said "FUCK THE FLUFF CHICKS!" -- the name of our stupid little clique. Actually I never found out what prompted one of my former close friends to do such a thing. I should go ask her. I'll let you know what I find out.
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