Have you seen Maria Bamford perform stand up? She is hilarious. I have never seen any other comedian perform in the way that she does. Even if I didn't know what it is like to experience anxiety, I would think she is hilarious. The fact that she makes her experiences with anxiety so funny makes me like her even more. It lifts the burden of shame a little to be able to laugh with her. I just love her work.
I listened to a podcast of the New Yorker Radio Hour (episode 18) that she was featured in and was struck by how she responded to a question about her work and how it reveals sometimes embarrassing things about her family. I'm paraphrasing, but I understood her response to mean that she and her family understand that her portrayal of her experience of being in her family has everything to do with her and not really very much about them. It is easy for her family to laugh with her because they know they are not being laughed at by her even when the material seems very personal.
This is what I wish I could ask for somehow and receive from my family. I have never been able to write anything that didn't in some small way draw from my own experiences. This doesn't mean I am some Harriet the Spy with her little notebook trying to capture and record embarrassing things about other people. I studied English in school because it was the only thing I could really focus on over any length of time. I kept taking Creative Writing courses because I got good grades in them. I graduated and veered away from submitting any writing anywhere because the stories that were fiction and somehow got published in my school's literary magazine made people in my family feel bad. I felt really ashamed. There wasn't a whole lot that connected the stories to anyone, but there must have been enough. Nobody said I couldn't write anymore. I just put it all aside.
Each time I sit at the computer to write something, it is because I feel buoyed up by some remembrance of praise from people like my husband or my good friend, Meg or former teachers who told me, "You have so much talent. You should be writing!" and each time I back away from doing so it is because a louder internal voice is saying, "YOU are a jerk. You will hurt people. You can't write without making other people think you are criticizing them. You can only see things through a lens that nobody wants to look through. Just be happy to be a mom. That should be enough."
So I am thinking of asking in some sort of love note for permission from the people who are close to me whether by birth or by choice to write what is in me. Yes, that means some of the things we experienced together may look like something a character appears to experience in a story. However, at no time would it be to exploit or harm anyone.
Does that sound reasonable? I mean, chances are strong that nobody actually reads any of this. Chances are strong that nobody ever will. I may never actually finish anything I have started outside of these unstructured blog entries. It isn't like anyone has a whole lot to lose. It is something that helps me to feel like I have some purpose other than filling up facebook with daily posts (sometimes hourly posts) and pictures of my kids.
Maybe if I did that, my family would understand that I love them. I know that whenever I write anything, the person I am leaving exposed is me. I wish they knew that. It would have been great if I could have been a different kind of daughter, sister, niece, aunt, friend, wife or mom. For whatever reason, this is all I've got. Just this. I wonder if I wrote that kind of a letter if they would agree in advance to remember that whatever mirror I'm holding up in front of anyone else ultimately reflects me.
I imagine that Maria Bamford's ability to work with so much freedom has a lot to do with the support she receives from the people she loves. I wish I knew how to ask for and receive that. She's a very talented comedian and probably would be as talented and successful either way. It's just different when you are given permission. Maybe I need to give that myself. Maybe that's really the only way it works. Maybe I need to write that kind of letter to myself. "Dear me, just write, dammit. Who cares if you aren't any good? So what if people don't like what you have to say? They won't like you any more for keeping quiet. Do what you were put on this Earth to do. It's not about making people happy." Just feels so selfish and scary. Am I ready to do that?
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