Notes on a Tail Spin

• DateMarch 21, 2014
• AuthorMary Heather
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Suppose you have just graduated from your MFA program, and you’re all aglow from people’s response to your work, feeling a sense of confidence — a currency with which you’ve never quite been familiar.  Suppose, on the crest of this high, that something you’ve written has received some attention, is published on real, tangible pages — pages you now turn and read over and over again, in disbelief of their existence and connection to you, like the hands of a newborn infant.

And suppose you went to AWP, that big conference for writers, which you’ve attended before, except this time you actually felt like a writer —not someone who wants to be a writer or is thinking about becoming a writer— but someone who is, someone who’s done the work, the ditch-digging, pipe-laying, solo barn-raising work of writing stories and sending them off like wishes or prayers or feathered seeds blown from a dandelion stem, hoping to God that some will take.  Now suppose you return home, elated and exhausted from the work of knitting yourself into this community, hoping your newly-woven confidence doesn’t unravel from the act of fledging, from the act of flying home.

Suppose when you got home, you found a package from someone important to you, who has decided to rid him or herself of your existence because of something you have written.

It’s your Mark Doty moment, and if you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, you must stop and read (or at least Google) Doty’s “Return to Sender” now.  If you’re not wondering, then you know what I mean and you are groaning with sympathy, or empathy, depending on where you are at with your own work.

Such moments in a writer’s life are not to be taken lightly, but in truth it feels as tragic and cliché as a scene from a movie.  Like that scene from Top Gun, where the dueling egos of Maverick and Ice Man during a training flight cause Maverick to fly through Ice Man’s jet wash — the turbulence sending his plane into a tail spin, whirling Tom Cruise’s cocky character into a desperate plea: “Eject! Eject! Eject!”

Blue ocean, sad music.  Something has been lost.

I want to crawl into my bed, bury myself under the blankets, keep the shades drawn tight.  Sometimes I wish I’d never followed this stupid dream of becoming a nonfiction writer.  Should have stayed with geology.  Should have kept myself occupied with unearthing our layered history, of investigating contamination, of remediating our mistakes.

Except — isn’t that exactly what I’m doing?  Examining the road cut of an experience or a life and trying to understand?  The difference here is that I’ve decided to share my notes.  I’ve forgotten the sharpness of my tools.  Forgive me.  I haven’t made anything up.

A few years ago, I went to a nonfiction writing workshop with Alaskan author Seth Kantner, whose work is acclaimed for its honest portrayal of the native culture, the tension between wilderness and modern society, between the members of his family.  He’d taken a risk and told his story, even though native Alaskan culture regarded such acts as hubris, indulgent.  I had asked him: “How did you get past that anxiety? How did you find the courage to tell your story?  Weren’t you worried about what they’d think?”

He said, “Do you want to be a writer or not?”

Here is what I want:  I want to reconcile this impulse to share my story with the sense of betrayal if I do.  I want to tell the truth without feeling like I’m doing something wrong.  I want to acknowledge joy and searing pain and everything in between.  I want to understand.

I want my confidence back.  I feel stuck in this cliché — at the edge of the ship, contemplating the deep and endless blue.  I’m leaning into my motorcycle at dusk, watching from a distance the other planes taking off.  I’m fingering the silver dog-tags of this person I might have lost.

Do I want to be a writer or not?

Forgive me.  I haven’t made anything up.

Image credit: Andrew Holt/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images

From http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/airplanes6.htm

About Mary Heather

I am an East-coaster and a West-coaster. I am an academic and a creative spirit. I am an environmental scientist who always wanted to write, and a writer with a nagging nostalgia for the complexities of environmental science. Above all, I am a mother — so whether I’m writing about the natural world, family, or place, I like to consider my work as environmental advocacy in the broadest sense.