Sorrow Into Story
Several years ago I designed and taught a graduate course
called “The Resilient Spirit; Art out of Adversity.” Like the best classes, the preparation of the
course was its own gift: for months I read books and researched artists, I
watched documentaries and dance performances, listened to symphonies and
lectures, attended shows in galleries, tracked down interviews with artists
who’d found a way to transform loss.
From public suffering to private trauma, I studied artists across
disciplines whose art had helped them heal.
The Danish writer Isak Dinesen is quoted as saying, “All
sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story or tell a story about
them.” As a child-writer, who turned to
language as a way to process loss, I hold this notion dear: “All sorrow can be borne.” For me, whether it’s in poetry or fiction, or
most recently a lyric essay I wrote on family illness, there’s a way in which my
writing has nurtured my resilience, has consistently delivered me from adversity
to hope.
The real mystery for me is how this transformation happens
sideways in my fiction—that is to say without intention, by chance--because
I’ve never written fiction to heal a wounded heart. And still there it is—hidden somewhere in the
text—the promise of redemption, a small bright light in all the suffering, the
assurance in the end that goodness will endure.
And it’s not autobiographical—I wasn’t an orphaned child
selling pony rides like Pride in Keeping Safe the Stars, or a stroke survivor
like Old Finn. I wasn’t a girl who never
knew her father like Raine in Sparrow
Road , I wasn’t a reclusive troubled composer like cold
Viktor, or a recovering alcoholic like Gray James. I wasn’t ever any of these people and yet
their sorrows were my own. And unlike in
some of the worst suffering I’ve witnessed in my real life, in my fiction my
characters can triumph.
And triumph is enough to keep me writing through the tough
times. If I tell the story well I get to
believe it—and if I’m lucky someone else does, and in this way I’m building my
own resilient spirit, making art out of adversity, letting the imagination find
a way to help us heal.
I do believe in the power of imagination and creativity to heal... and I would love to take your class, Sheila! xo
ReplyDeleteI am halfway through SPARROW ROAD and absolutely mesmerized by it! Started it this morning, then had to go to work, now will finish it tonight. So hauntingly beautiful. (Hope her mother ends up with Diego! But I'll wait to find out!)
ReplyDeleteWhat a powerful last paragraph. Love this post.
ReplyDeleteI would sign up for your class in a heartbeat. The analogy of sideways transformation is perfect!
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