Writing about writing

Writing the paper for my independent study is an incredible process. I am combining so many different types of sources, including stuff from all those aformentioned interviews, that I feel more like a journalist again. Although lit reviews take up a necessary amount of space and require the intrusion of awkard citations at times, I am not doing a piece of "academic" writing.

I am mixing psychology and philosophy with the interviews of "regular" people, and then spicing all of it up with quotes from the literary arts (and one refrain of lyrics from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"). I don't know if I'm doing *good* writing, but it is at least readable and interesting. I'll have to remember Michael Cunningham's admonition to "over-write; then edit harshly."

But I am at least having fun. It is the first time in a LONG time that I have been obsessed with a piece of writing. I have so much to synthesize about what I've read and encountered, and my brain keeps noodling, revealing and changing what's revealed.

It's quite the process, this independent study. It's a good thing the school limits the number of credits you can do of this type of study because I would have been inclined, at my own peril, to do more of them. It is a BEAR to be disciplined and get the work done, but the process -- the reading, studying, considering, questioning, all of my own pursuit -- is highly enjoyable.

One of the sources I used was Isabel Allende's memoir, "Paula," which is the story of the year she spent caring for her comatose adult daughter before she died. I call it a memoir, but it is actually a long letter she wrote to her daughter while sitting for hours by her bedside. It is a book about the suffering of that seemingly endless pause one experiences when loved ones are in comas. (I know this from personal experience.) It is also an autobiographical book about Allende's life and her family history.

I read it while my youngest brother was in a coma. He died after four years of that. But Allende's book, well, perhaps it saved my sanity. It still remains the only thing I've ever read that comes close to describing my experience, and especially at the time, it was important for me to know someone else knew that particular pain. It was a validation. To have it come from a writer of Allende's power was most provocative.

Yesterday, when I pulled it out of the depths of my cabinet so I could find a quote from it, I was surprised when pictures of my brother -- face scarred, eyes vacant, mouth agape, wearing a fraternity baseball cap and, most oddly, a 1993 Hood-to-Coast t-shirt -- fell out from between some pages. There are so many ghosts in my home. So many ghosts.