Ernest Hemingway once said "write hard and clear about what hurts"
now for the Hemingway reader this quote comes as no surprise, Hemingway did this often, maybe always. He was a messed up guy, broken(i'm just as broken), and wrote about the things that hurt. I personally think that Hemingway had a unique way of twisting everything into something painful. I mean it worked for him, the beauty of his writing comes through the honesty with which he communicated pain. now i wouldn't say that i'm the biggest Hemingway fan, I'm more of a Fitzgerald girl...i mean yes i was an english major and yes i've read loads of his writings and own loads of his work, but i also am in the camp that thinks he was a misogynist. i mean, you're probably lying to yourself, or have poor reading comprehension, if you try and disagree with me. the facts are there. the man hated women.
anyway, that's not the point of this post. really i just wanted to quote him and say that for the last 9 months that quote has been like a scratched record, going over and over itself.
there's this episode of Dexter's Laboratory that i used to watch when i was a kid in which Dexter has a french test and doesn't want to waste his time studying. instead he buys a "learn french fast" record, dons headphones and attempts to master the french language while he sleeps. the only problem is that the record gets stuck and repeats to him the same phrase all night long. "omelette du fromage". if you're no linguist...or a bad guesser, that means cheese omelette. he learns one phrase for his test. cheese omelette. he walks around the whole day, making the girls swoon by saying cheese omelette. cheese. omelette.
that's what this Hemingway quote has been like in my head.
write about what hurst. write about what hurts. write hard and clear about what hurts.
hurt.
hurt.
hurt.
and so i did. i swore to myself that when i felt the weight of all that had transpired in the past 9 months. the past 11 years. i would write about it. and it would be hard and raw and clear and painful.
i promised myself that if i cried i would make myself feel the fullness of my tears. that i would give them their space. that i would allow them to dig in their heels and make tracks down my face, until they one by one dropped off my chin and reached their final destination on the neck of my shirts. if i needed to be mad, i would be. if i needed to be yell and punch pillows with imaginary faces, i would. if i needed to be hopeless and helpless and desolate, i would.
i hadn't ever let myself feel real, raw pain. and all of a sudden i had a lot. i had a storage unit full of boxes packed tight with new and different and unique pain. and i was going to open each box, one by one and feel the contents individually. i was going to allow the pain to become my own.
and i did it.
but there comes a point where what was once productive and filled with purpose, turns into obsession.
it's just like Dexter. not the pseudo vigilante, serial killer. the short, red-headed, genius cartoon character. sure there was purpose in the whole french phrase thing, and he passed his french exam and the girls swooned, but suddenly all he could say was "omelette du fromage". he could remember no other words, no other phrase, only "omelette du fromage". and all i knew was pain.
Hemingway is not my idol. not my role model. in fact if a genie said "you can stay anonymous and poor for the rest of your life, or you can receive all the fame, money, talent, etc you could ever desire if you will just be the reincarnation of Ernest Hemingway" i would probably stay me.
but when all i let myself feel "clear and hard" was pain, i started to turn into a ghost of Hemingway. obsessed with pain and the vanity of entertaining my pain. the glorification of pain. and the subsequent anger, bitterness and fear that accompanies the over-indulgence of pain.
there is pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning. the over-indulgence of pain is like living in endless night. don't stunt the light because you are obsessed with the new found darkness.
xx.
