Ye were injured and that means memory… – Percy Bysshe Shelley, from An Ode written October 1819, Before the Spaniards Had Recovered Their Liberty
What writer has not felt injury? Who of us has not tried to dull or forget a painful memory? Those efforts have never worked for me. Instead they have driven the memory deeper, into a shadowed place in which the pain waited – and grew, and altered how I moved through my life. Talking couldn’t fully release the past. Therapy brushed close to it. Working in recovery began to scrape away the layers of time – and denial. Writing allowed me to move at healing’s pace into the unbearable.
I’ve found that often when a writing student comes up against a block, it’s because he or she is writing toward a truth that has been buried. It may not be the truth itself, but a childhood prohibition against telling. If you have found yourself stuck, you might find it valuable to write for ten minutes (It’s best to go gently with this.), beginning with I won’t remember…
I’m happy to read what you have written – though it’s often best to read your refusal to remember to a trusted friend. And do remember that no matter how slight you might think (or were told) that the injury was, you were wounded. The degree that you have forgotten may be the degree of the injury.
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