This is an unusual Raw Reading, because it is deeply personal.

It is also unbelievable, too much, horrible, and a perfect metaphor.

But it is all I have.

Published in Under the Sun, journal of creative nonfiction and nominated for Best American Essays.

Raw Reading

Reflection

There are two things that amaze me about this essay. First, that it is written. And second, that it is being read.

As I say in the essay itself, the story I am at last telling is one I’ve carried around inside me for over two decades. So, why now? I suppose it was time in that quasi-mystical sense we either believe in with a sort of holy reverence or a shrug, as simple as it is secular. Either way, it’s a mystery to the rational mind.

Why now? Because its time had time.

Why now? Because I finally had the ability to tell it.

And tell it I did. I held nothing back. This essay was written over a handful of mornings in front of my fire. There is nothing glamorous about my writing routine. I roll out of bed, make coffee and feed my dog, let her out and in, then sit cross-legged on my couch with a clipboard and stack of looseleaf paper on my lap. Mechanical pencil, if you were wondering. In my pajamas, of course, and fireplace weather means big, terrycloth robe weather. It took a handful of days and came to thirty-four pages, that first draft.

I wrote in that bug-eyed, barely breathing way we get when the hand is in pace with the words. Synchrony. It is utter, perfect concentration with no effort; it just is. I wrote in sections that declared themselves. After a couple of hours or so, I would breathe, blink the world into focus, and set down my pencil. Each stopping point felt like I had accomplished something meaningful.

I don’t mean the writing. I mean the remembering. Those self-defined sections, they weren’t about the literary movements of the essay, but the emotional movements of me.

When it was done, I let it lay around the coffee table for a while, a binder clip of 34 sheets of looseleaf. I got it typed up, tweaked some words, like you do. And it lay around a while longer. Until one morning, I rolled out of bed, made my coffee, fed the dog and let her out and in, and asked myself what I wanted to do with my morning writing time. The answer, more a feeling than a thought: submit the essay.

I gave it a final spit-n-polish read and sent it off. Then I forgot about it, because any writer knows these things take time. Months.

It took hours. The editor, Dr. Martha Highers, at Under the Sun, offered to publish my essay within hours. Amazed and speechless are good words. Grateful is another.

The response so far has been kind and appreciative. I’ve been asked several times if I was afraid to write this, to put it out into the world. The answer is no. Not because I felt brave, but because I did not think about what kind of response it could get or what kind I would like it to get. One morning, I followed an urge to start writing down a personal story, and another morning, I followed an urge to send it out into the world.

Of course, it might be more interesting to say I was breathless with courage when I hit send on those submissions. I do not mean to downplay the degree of vulnerability and risk in “The Stun Still Shines on the Worst Day of Your Life.” It is there. I do feel it.