I am not a giver. Lamott speaks of
the world as an orphan’s home that she feels compelled to fill with beautiful
words and communion. I see myself as a soapbox preacher perched on a street
corner, belaboring commuters as they rush home, pleading for a moment. Maybe
hurling some wafers and wine as they pass by. Or I see myself as a gypsy nomad,
wandering up and down the city streets with a dozen suitcases on a string, like
my donkey caravan. I drag them along the sidewalks and beg passersby to take
one home with them, carry one of my burdens.
I am callous to the cry of my
reader’s heart, bringing only pain and no redemption. How can I bring peace to
my reader’s heart and wake her from her trance when I can’t quiet my own heart?
Can’t wake up and walk into the light? I don’t know how to tie things up. I can
hand you a mess, but the brown parcel paper and string to bundle it up neatly?
I don’t own it. Is a gift still a gift without the wrapping paper, without the
trappings?
Lamott’s sermon on giving reminds
me of the children’s book The Giver
in which Jonas receives and bears the weight of all the community’s forgotten
memories—memories of snow, colour, sun, war, family, love. For each burden he
must bear, he discovers a new joy as well. That’s the pattern: pain turns to
joy, suffering refined into peace, weakness becoming strength. That’s the
evolution of any novel, essay, that elusive narrative arc I’m hunting after.
Poems are easier, because you can
end with a question. I suppose a question is a gift as much as an assurance,
but it’s far less tidy. In memoir and essay, I feel the need to provide an
answer, a foundation, a silver lining—anything but unresolved heartache. For
what mother would give her daughter a stone when she asks for bread?
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