In Search of Lost Writing
“Have you read it yet?” my wife asked, again. A smidge of flour rouged her cheek, a rubber mallet in her hand. “It’s good,” she said, “not kidding, you should read it.” She drove the mallet toward the granite top – Blam! Blam! Blam! The dog ran from the room barking as the next plump breast waited innocently for its turn.
She wanted me to read a short personal essay I’d written twenty-five years ago. Her father had unearthed three of my old stories, typed, on paper. They had not survived my electronic upgrades, lost to obsolescence. Her dad wouldn’t have saved or read them. His reading leans to capitalism, biographies of great men like Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet. His wife, prior to raising four beautiful, successful children, had taught grade school. We may share a fondness for service in less lucrative sectors. She kept them all these years, I like to imagine, in a box with a printed pattern.
These stories, personal essays, began as writing exercises, stepping stones on a path to something more serious, maybe, like science writing or adventure journalism. These days the stepping stones are submerged. The motive to write remains, not with some alternative, dream career in mind, but simply to clarify or deepen my eternally shallow thinking. But I was reluctant to read them. It is difficult to return to an old piece without cringing, alert to melodrama or untruths, wanting to change this or that. I’m hyper-judgmental, but not alone. Here’s Neil Gorsuch, Supreme Court Justice, in an interview in the Aug 3-4 weekend WSJ regarding his own legal writing, specifically, drafting rulings:
Then comes the work of drafting rulings, where Justice Gorsuch says his colleagues shine.
“I think we have an unusually large number of very gifted writers on the court right now,” he (Gorsuch) says. “I’m not patting myself on the back. I put myself kind of in the middle of the pack, frankly.”
Asked if he has a favorite of his opinions, he answers without pausing to think:
“Nope. I hate ’em all. Do you like reading your old writing?”
Sometimes the job requires it.
“Inevitably I think, ah, I wish I’d said this differently, ah, I didn’t explore that enough.”
Unexplored ideas might be the best I could hope for: self-aggrandizing, incoherent, mundane ideas inevitably lurked. I was touched that Cheryl’s mom had saved my pieces, but still. The worst part? What if I liked it? Was it possible, twenty-five years on, rising at 4:00am to journal an ingrained habit, that my skills have regressed?
I decided to be proactive. I gave my wife the first paragraph of a piece I’ve been wrangling with, reworking for over a year. I was proud of the paragraph, felt it set a thematic course, finally, I was getting somewhere. She wiped her hands on her apron, taking longer than expected. “Don’t read past the first paragraph,” I reminded her, “the rest isn’t ready.”
She returned my computer with flour fingerprints and said, “It’s descriptive.” She knows to start positive.
“But,” I said.
She cracked an egg in a bowl, pointing her elbow at a quart bag of bread crumbs, “Hold that open,” she said, “Don’t take this the wrong way. Do you mind if I give constructive feedback?”
The question reminded me of my dentist, novocaine in hand, telling me I’d feel a pinch. Only one way to take it — eyes closed. “I’m ready.”
Dropping a buttery breast in the bag, she said, “Sometimes you try too hard.”
Ooh, more than a pinch. When the only tool you have is a mallet, everything looks like fresh meat.
The stages of critique: First stage, denial. I dismiss her view, intent to conserve energy, move ahead, unchanged. Second stage, reconsider. A ray of light slips in, an egg pip emerges, could she have a point? Third stage, acceptance. Her past advice has never not been helpful. Fourth, re-read with fresh perspective. Consider the reader, pointedly, this time. My paragraph painted a scene, not much action, even that, slowed to a snail’s pace, written with a fine-tooth level of description that only Proust, master of ten thousand words on the joy of remembering the smell of a French pastry, could love. Fifth stage, re-write.
In the very same weekend WSJ, a few pages beyond the interview with Gorsuch, an article titled, Your Gen-Z Employee Isn’t Fooled by Your Compliment Sandwich. This Gen-X husband wouldn’t be fooled either by a critique finishing on a positive note.
“Seal it before you shake it,” Cheryl said, “Drop it in the dish. Now it’s ready to bake.”
I had work to do, un-seasoning that paragraph. But first, I’ll read my lost piece. Sometimes the job requires it.