The Useless Days Will Add Up to Something

I made my way to the Harvard Bookstore Wednesday night for a reading by Cheryl Strayed, promoting her new book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. Although I could undeniably use such advice (considering I spend most Saturday nights alone on my couch), I mainly went hoping she would talk about Wild, her memoir on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (and her spinning-out-of-control life that compelled her to do it). I wasn’t disappointed; she read and discussed both books, and it was definitely worth standing in the hot and crowded back room of the store for an hour and a half.

She first greeted us by saying Boston holds a special place in her heart. I immediately assumed she said this to every city she visits, but I think I actually believe her now. To begin with, she was in Boston on her spring tour when she first got the call that Wild landed on the New York Times bestseller list. I can’t speak from experience, but I’m guessing that’s a moment not many authors forget. And then later that day after she completed her reading and opened up the floor for questions, an older gentleman in the front row shot his arm in the air. “Have you ever had sex in exchange for food?” She said the audience went silent (unlike ours), not knowing how she would respond. She answered, “No, but do you want to get dinner tonight?” Turns out he already ate. So now she begins each reading with this little story, and she said being back in Boston feels like she’s back at home.

She managed to read from and talk about both of her recent books because, as she explained, both address “all the different things we grapple with: grief, love, confusion, kinky sex…”

Perhaps I should explain. For those of you who have not read Wild (you should), it’s a brutally honest, humble, humorous, and charming memoir on a twenty-six-year-old’s adventure of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and all of the reasons she decided she needed to try (her beloved mother’s sudden death from cancer, her desire and decision to sleep with men other than her husband, her subsequent divorce from her husband, her experimentation with drugs, her lack of direction in life, etc.). She needed to get away and clear her head—and what better way to do that than to literally almost kill herself by backpacking 1,100 miles with absolutely no previous hiking experience.

Tiny Beautiful Things, a collection of articles from her advice column “Dear Sugar” on The Rumpus, also grapples with the list of things above. As she read through a few articles, the one that struck me the most was her answer to one reader’s question What would you tell your twenty-something self?

• “You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat but who gives a shit?”
• “Understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again.”
• “The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs… The long meandering walks—” (this is where she paused to tell us all 336 pages of Wild were summed up in this phrase) “—the hours…wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not…”
• "...you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You're wrong. You do."

Strayed admitted she was surprised to find this book in the self-help section, but I can see it serving that purpose. And I will definitely be adding Tiny Beautiful Things to my “Currently Reading” list (because hey, a little humorous but down-to-earth self-help advice never hurt anyone). 

I had to opt out of getting my copy signed... seeing as I bought the Kindle edition
and didn't want to ruin it with a scratched-in signature of some sort.
But she was extremely kind and friendly to every fan.

On Honesty

Honesty should be black and white, right? You're either honest, or you're not. It's a virtue, a quality, a characteristic, a myth... The truth is that honesty is swirls of gray.

Honesty is like a pane of glass, or a window. It lets you see through to the other side, to the reality and truth. But sometimes it’s distorted or smudged or cracked. What then? You can still see through to the general outline, get an idea of the full picture, but you can’t make out the crisp details or the complete story.

But what’s more important anyway: the nitty, gritty cold facts, or the way you feel about them? When recalling memory, should we be honest to the events or to our emotions? And what is more honest anyway? What is more real? Our reality is made up of our experiences—our understanding of how things were, are, will be. Honesty is personal to each of us, and we therefore all have our own versions of the honest truth. So how, then, can there be any universal truth? Ah, but truth and honesty are two different things, aren’t they.

Maybe honesty is what comes from us naturally, unavoidably. How can we live a dishonest life? Our very being is the honesty of our self. Every breath begins honestly. But we twist things to please ourselves, and in the process turn them into lies. Honesty is easy, even if blurry at times. But through the blur, honesty should be ever present. 

This was an exercise for my Nonfiction Workshop on Memoir: Simply write "On" at the top of your paper, then add an abstract noun. As I've worked on exercises throughout the semester, it was nice to remember that the word essay (as in a personal essay) comes from the French verb essayer, which means "to try."

Oh, The Memories

I hate that I have to start every blog post with something along the lines of I’m sorry I fail at ever writing blog posts.* But c’est la vie.

I first have to give myself a shameless pat on the back for surviving almost a full year living with my sister and her boyfriend. Living with any couple is hard, as I’m sure you can imagine (or perhaps know from experience). But I feel it’s safe to say this particular couple is a special case. They are unbelievably corny and weird and lovey-dovey (and all of the things you hate to witness in your roommates). And yet I really like them and enjoy hanging out with them… so I have no choice but to put up with the torture. Who else would I watch back-to-back-to-back How I Met Your Mother episodes with? But I’ve made it, and I’ve even learned enough from my experience to craft this handy little how-to guide for other third wheelers out there. You’re welcome.

But Hallelujah, the Zs have stopped. Or at least have been drastically reduced. They informed me of a meeting they held the other day (meetings, apparently, will continue) where they talked about their use of Zs and realized it was annoying each but thought the other liked it. They still slip with an occasional “foodz” or “sleepz,” but I’ve learned to let it go.

I fear what The Sister and The Boyfriend will become once I unleash them to live on their own, though. In less than two weeks we’ll be parting ways and moving into two separate apartments in Cambridge. And although I’ll undoubtedly miss the mice** and noise and traffic and stabbings in my current lovely neighborhood, I’m mostly pretty freakin’ excited for the move.

I’m finishing up my summer class, a nonfiction workshop on memoirs. And despite one of my friend’s observations—“aren’t you a little young to write a memoir?”—I have come up with nearly forty pages of solid gold writing material along with countless ideas for future musings. And by solid gold I, of course, mean eh, it’s okay. But it has been fun wading through my memories, deciding which ones are real and which ones were manufactured, and talking over my pieces with classmates. If any of you out there are aspiring writers, I highly suggest taking a class or meeting with a supportive group of like-minded people; it’s very rewarding and motivational.

I love this quote from Willa Cather:

"All my stories have been written with material that was gathered—no, God save us! not gathered but absorbed—before I was fifteen years old."

I believe my own memories were absorbed, too. Some things I don’t want to remember (like the day I came home from school and found my cat dead on my bedroom floor). Some things seem to have happened solely to entertain me all of these years later (like the time I thought I was going to die from eating baking soda). But all of my memories have been absorbed and tucked away, ready to be dug out and explored when I’m ready. Or when I have fifteen pages due in 48 hours. You know, whichever comes first.

*Yes, I realize it's really pathetic that I only have 7 posts for the year and a half that I've had this blog.
** "Guys, we really shouldn't leave the bread on the counter because the mice might Aahhhhh!"