People often ask if what I write is true, sometimes even about daylogs. I am astonished thinking about this. What would be the point of writing from my anguish or anger, if it wasn't the truth? Believe me, if I told the entire truth, all the details, the seemingly pointless details, the Monster would just get larger. It is hard enough sometimes to write about my mother, but that is what is happening in a large part of my head and heart, my life, at this time. If I did not have the gift of dark humour, the ability to see how awful and absurd this thing called truth is, there would be no delight in my life.
So I take this monster, this truth of my life, and I dissect it, for lack of a better word. Think of frogs or worms, dead cats and the old stench of formaldehyde. Now that was a class in school I feared, biology, especially the half year spent dissecting. Last name starting with Z, guaranteed a seat at the back, where luckily I was flanked by two guys who loved this stuff. Probably grew up to be serial killers, are rotting in some godforsaken jail, not even their mothers visiting them, both named Walter. Most of the previous paragraph is true, although I have no idea what the Walters grew up to be. They saved me from getting a D in biology because they couldn't draw to save their skins and I could.
Even what little fiction I write is based upon truth because that to me is one way of dealing with monsters. This is in keeping with my taste in books, my taste in movies. I just watched K-19: The Widowmaker and puncture, both based on true events, both devastatingly well done. Totally different film techniques and budgets, but the same monster lurking underneath. I once wrote film reviews for the local newspaper with my husband. We got free tickets and saw the same films, but could not talk about what we thought or felt. Had to write our reviews separately, then submit them. Our sons were young; we thought it would be a free night out. We thought it would be easy. How wrong we were. We didn't see each others perspective until the paper came out the next week. One of the movies was a remake, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, which I disliked compared to the original and the book. My husband gave it a glowing review; he wept through most of it. Another movie was The Crying Game, which I raved about and he hated. Truth. Monsters.
In a court room, where they now take out every version of the Bible, plus the Qur'an, the truth is so heavy I worry the clerk will have back problems. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God? The monster gets distorted and twisted, details are emphasized or left out, irrelevant. Hearsay. It's impossible to tell it all, too burdensome and sordid. Like the ending of a summer scavenger hunt, not told because the entire truth would have had terrible things that really happened, like bobbing for apples and no parents are watching while a child's head is held down under the water by a bully. Or a game of musical chairs where to get a prize, you must sit on balloons until they pop, and one balloon is filled with water, soaking your dress, as if you wet your pants. Everyone laughs. Not so funny, this truth. And yet, I believe in telling the truth or writing it. Just a monster and doesn't everyone love monsters?