Calling it Like You See It

Struggling to tell the truth? Most artists are. We want to capture the world as we see it, but it's so hard to get it out of our head and onto the page. At times it seems impossible. This excerpt from an Amy Friedman interview of Amy Ferris (which appears on http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blog/list?user=04l7b52ioy9kx) says so much about what it takes to tell the truth in art. Ferris' answer is full of passion and energy, and her line about what we each see in clouds is a gem, so I bolded it.

Q: Besides sharing with you a first name, a complicated relationship with a brother, and menopausal symptoms, I’m also the daughter of a woman with Alzheimer’s, so naturally when I stopped laughing, I discovered tears pouring down my face. Did the sadness within the pages of Marrying George Clooney evolve out of the stories themselves, the truthfulness, or were you striving to inspire the reader’s tears? The book reads, like the best of literature, as effortless, so beautifully honest, it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t simply flow. Was that the case?

A: I have to say the pieces about my mom were just so sad and profound for me, I was very emotional while writing the epilogue. I wasn’t going for the reader tears (well, that’s not completely true, I am going for three to four million reader tears now), I just knew that I had much pain and sadness in my relationship with her, and I knew—I knew—she was going to die. I think the hardest part for me was finding the truth for myself with this book. When I spent time with her, and visited her, I was completely torn. I didn’t want to betray her. And I didn’t want to see her scared, incontinent, disconnected. I wasn’t sure I wanted to expose that, share that, but I knew in order to write about this time, this experience—these moments that I had with her—then I had to not worry so much, I just had to find a way that felt authentic and true and turn the poison of our relationship into medicine. I wanted to convey the truth and managed to do just that while falling in love with her. But as she slipped deeper and deeper into dementia, I saw her own fears so much, and it was because I was able to see that—the very same fears I have—that I could pour tons of love into the epilogue and honor her the way I did.The writing itself, the physical writing, was absolutely joyous. It did flow, and it flowed effortlessly, and I didn’t want to cheat myself out of any of these experiences worrying too much if how I conveyed my point of view would rock the boat a bit, or a lot. At some point I realized if I wrote my truth, if I stayed true to myself and shared that experience from my point of view, many, many women would feel liberated. I don’t feel I owe anyone anything other than a completely unobstructed view to the side of the street I live on. Memoirs can be somewhat challenging, because inevitably someone will say, “Hey that’s not how I saw it, or that’s not what went down.” Everyone—depending on where you’re seated—will see a cloud formation differently. Trying to convince someone that how they see or feel something is inaccurate because it’s not how you see it—is both selfish and controlling. The very, very best you can do is tell your story, your side. And hope that you can inspire and encourage others because of your journey. Give them the courage to speak up.