Dear Afraid of Cringing: Can Something Be And Not Be At The Same Time?
Lit Salon addresses "writer regret," or the awful fear of writing something now that will make us cringe later when we're older, wiser, and more honest (and hopefully a better writer, too)
Scientists say our cells hold everything forever. But, also, cells are constantly dying and regenerating. Sometimes cellular regeneration hurts, but not always. Scientists say the body replaces itself with an almost entirely new set of cells every seven to ten years. Some important parts are renewed even faster. Other important parts are never renewed. All these facts are true.
The above is a quote from my memoir, The Part That Burns, during a scene where the narrator is giving birth to her son, and wrestling with questions of memory and healing, and how much her past experiences will continue to shape who she is and will become.
This scene takes place in the early 1990s, when I was an at-home mom of a toddler and then, also, an infant. I was writing a lot about the one thing that was turning me inside out in the most sublime and eviscerating ways: motherhood. I started out publishing first-person essays in various publications like Parents and Ladies Home Journal and eventually landed the editor in chief role at Minnesota Parent Magazine, where I wrote a monthly column for three years.
Again, what I mostly wrote about was motherhood and family life. I said a lot of interesting things. Like, for example, in 1995, I wrote in an essay for Parents that my then-husband and I were not having any more children. In 1996, our third child was born. More impactful was how, during my editorial stint at Minnesota Parent, I wrote a poignant tribute to my children’s father. He later submitted it as evidence when he fought me for custody of our children (I am not the only writer who has experienced that, either).
My point? Well, simply that the words we write today can look very different later, when we look back five, ten, or fifteen years down the road. That’s what this week’s Lit Salon letter writer wants to talk about, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with this in the comments!
Lit Salon
Dear Afraid of Cringing: Can Something Be And Not Be At The Same Time?
Dear Jeannine,
If I had tried to write the book I’m writing now 13 years ago, when I first conceived of it, reading it now would make me cringe. I would want to rewind, take it back, ensure no one else would read it. In fact, many of the essays I’ve written on this topic read as only partially true now; they read as the rosy view of a story that has serious thorns.
I know that many well-known writers—including Dani Shapiro, Mary Karr, Cheryl Strayed and plenty of other memoirists—have spoken to the fact that the work you put out there today may not ring true for you a decade down the line. We all see things differently, and often more clearly, with age.
As an author, how do you deal with that sea change?
Signed,
Afraid of Cringing
Dear Afraid of Cringing,
That quote from my memoir—the one about how the body replaces all its cells every seven years—isn’t exactly factual. It’s something the narrator heard—just like we’ve all heard that at one time or another. But as lovely as it sounds, the truth is a lot more complicated (as the narrator acknowledges and as this short explanation in Discovery makes clear).
For writers, this is good news and bad news. Good, because it means that although our lives will change over time, and so will our perspectives, we will not likely gain so much distance from our past selves as to no longer recognize—on some level—the work we created. Bad because it means that even though we’re likely to transform a lot in seven years, we’re “never really a whole new” version of ourselves.
This complex process of inevitable transformation may indeed be the scariest aspect of making anything at all, let alone writing memoir: we’re going to change, and we’re going to view things differently over time. Hopefully we’re also going to get a lot better at our art.
So what do we do?
We press on anyway, and we cultivate as much compassion and patience for our past selves as we possibly can. Dr. Kristin Neff, a leading expert in self-compassion, describes it on Madeline Polonia’s blog as a process of:
[T]reating yourself the way you would want to treat a friend who is having a hard time.” Dr. Neff believes that self-compassion is being patient, kind, and understanding when faced with personal failings instead of “mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings.” As a result of practicing self-compassion, “we become an inner ally instead of an inner enemy.” … In summary, Dr. Neff believes that another way to describe the three essential elements of self-compassion is loving, (self-kindness), connected (common humanity) presence (mindfulness). “When we are in the mind state of loving, connected presence, our relationship to ourselves, others, and the world is transformed.”
What does this have to do with writing? Everything, I think, because compassion is linked to empathy, which emerges from curiosity, and curiosity is the cornerstone of any dynamic, effective writing practice. And it allows us to write the best book we are capable of writing now, even knowing it’s possible we would write a different, and better, book later. Instead of being frightened about the gap between the two books, we can accept our present self and welcome our future, transformed self, trusting that the future self will be compassionate and kind toward the past self.
And for me, it’s not just about my perspective changing. It’s about my craft changing. I wrote a children’s book called Mama Moon in 1995, published by Orchard Books and beautifully illustrated by Catharine Stock. I am glad it is in the world, but I would never write that book again. It’s sweet, but a little bit too didactic for my current taste. However, I won’t cringe at it, because I feel so tenderly toward that young woman, that passionate new mom who was recovering from a lifetime of rejecting her own body and now wanted all little girls to love themselves, see their own power, and know that babies grow in wombs, not stomachs. I refuse to harshly judge that past self. I love her. She wrote the book she needed to write.
Ultimately, we cannot ensure that the memoir (or any book!) we write today will feel, ten years later, like the book we would write if we had it to do over again. This is why it hurts so much to finish any piece of writing. It’s a heartbreaking thing to let it go, to settle for the reality that this doomed-to-be-imperfect thing is the best our current self can do. This is why there is grief in finishing our work, and why some people who set out to write avoid finishing anything forever. They simply find it too painful to embrace the inevitable flaws of the future thing they could, but won’t, complete. For me, though, that heartbreak—the heartbreak of avoiding heartbreak—is akin to never loving anyone for fear of getting hurt. Love is always going to hurt, because people are flawed and clumsy. But I’m still going to love. A book is similar.
All this said, there are some concrete strategies I use—above and beyond self-compassion—to protect my future self from feelings of genuine regret when I look back on my work later: