The Channel

Passage East, just outside Waterford, Ireland.

Even—and perhaps especially—if you don't read this post, please scroll to the postscript at the bottom for a question I have for you.—k.

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I had an email from a good friend of mine who saw the film about the Irish literary tour we both participated in last winter.

He said some very kind and reassuring things about my appearance in it, and added that I made some very good points.

I've been ever since trying to recollect what those points might have been. It was a long interview, and what I remember most about it is that it was freaking windy out and my hair kept whipping across my mouth. I expect I look like I am sporting a fake moustache throughout. Trying to stay incognito.

I do remember pausing for a long breath while I decided how much I wanted to go on the record about what Wikipedia tactfully refers to as my father's "lengthy illness." I wanted to be honest and direct, but I was also sensitive to the fact that my mother and sister (and my young niece and nephew) have to live, work, and go to school in the very small town where my father lived and died. I have the buffer of geographical distance to serve as a privacy screen. They don't. And I'm a writer, which means I've willingly signed on for a certain amount of transparency and risk. They haven't (although the adults in my family are pretty well innoculated with it by now).

Thinking back on that deep breath, I realize I was inhaling for more than that one soundbyte. I was getting ready to dive into the memoir. The tension between my need to tell a story and my desire to protect the people I love is going to be ratcheted up for a while.

I often joke that I have an artistic license, that lets me get away with stuff. To some extent, I really believe this is true. Years ago, a friend and I had an argument about the obligation of artists to "give back." My position was that artists turn their whole lives into a vessel that serves society. To borrow the title of a work by a favorite painter, "we are free, we owe nothing to no one."

I do allow gifted people a small handicap in the social skills department. Many don't need it. But if you are a brilliant composer, I do not expect you to be preoccupied with timely handwritten thank you notes and matching your socks. And when your child or spouse comes out with a book about what a terrible person you were to live with, I am going to feel sad for them, but still grateful for the beauty you were able to channel into the world through your music.

Paradoxically, I also believe that to whom much is given, much shall be required. I think if there was a point I was trying to get across about my father's legacy on that windy Waterford day, it was that he understood and respected his position in society; the privilege of a gifted person. I once heard the poet Gary Snyder saying that those who are called to be the storytellers for their own community, however it is defined, must never underestimate the power and worth of that role. My father got that, and he instilled it in me. Everybody—everybody—has a story that needs to be told, wants to be heard.

If an artist is obligated in any one regard, it is in this holy charge: to hear those stories, to recieve them, and let them become part of you. And consequently, part of what you pour back out.

This morning as I was dropping my son off at preschool, an older woman stopped me and said, "I hear you are a writer." There was a tone of urgency and need in her voice.

I told her that I am, and she told me that her family home is about to be torn down for development, and she wants someone to know what is being demolished; the building, her memories, a community, or an era—I'm not sure she knows herself. But she needed to tell her story to someone, could I find the time to hear it?

I answered her as my father taught me.

"Of course."

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I go through phases of wanting to talk about creative process, like right now, and I don't really know if it belongs here, or on my other blog. What do you think? Do your eyes glaze over when my "writing life" label pops up, and you wish I'd get back to slice-of-life stories? Or is too big a part of my identity to keep tucked away on the side? Not that my content is up for a vote, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.