PuddleMonkey

One of the greatest college courses I had the pleasure to take focused on the art of autobiography, and it was the best course, the best learning experience I’ve ever had. We students read a number of very well-written and fascinating autobiographies, most of which I would simply characterize as “damn good stories” (Frank Conroy’s Stop-Time is the first title to come to mind). In conjunction with our reading, we also completed a number of writing assignments–we wrote chapters from our own autobiographies.

Even today, most of my writing is autobiographical, not because I think my life is particularly fascinating but because it allows me to explore my character as a person and close the gap between the ideal I want to be and the person I really am.

A graduate professor once asked me to explain to her the difference between autobiography and non-fiction. What do you think?

So with that in mind, you’ll discover that probably 95% of the creative writing I include in my blog is autobiographical in one form or another.

Here’s what I’ve been working on recently.

Self Help

My father died late last year. People who don’t know anything about my father say, “I’m sorry. It must be hard.”

I say, “Don’t be sorry. It isn’t hard.”

The last time I saw my father, he was in a coma and breathing with the help of a respirator. A thick plastic tube lay across his chest, sucking gravy from his lungs. Only two days before, a coworker found him slumped over the wheel of his Dodge Dynasty, one foot and one hand hanging out the door. Week after week leading up to his hospialization, he suffered from flu-like symptoms, and the bed sores he developed three months earlier still hadn’t healed. His teeth fell out, and he developed difficultly breathing because his lungs and the muscle around his heart began to fill with fluid. He was septic.

“Prepare for the worst,” the doctor said to me. “I’ve seen healthy 25-year men die from sepsis.”

“The worst,” I replied, “is that he’ll live.”

Twelve days later, my father woke from his coma. Nearly 50 pounds lighter and white as a cotton from months of illness, he looked like he’d already been embalmed.

The next afternoon, I met my brother outside the hospital entrance. Jason had three books in his hands: two James Patterson mysteries and a self-help book that I didn’t really bother to look at that closely. Jason planned to give the books to our father, but I knew immediately that the self-help book served another purpose. It was our segue, that frightening bridge between polite conversation and the real reason for our visit.

There’s nothing quite like using a self-help book to tell your father you never want to see or speak to him again.