The Creatively Written Life (or Lil’ Mo stalks someone and scores a dinner date :)

In college I took a course called ‘Philosophy & Literature’. We covered lots of ways these two topics interact, including one week on the way humans interpret and remember their lives as literature. During this class, the professors asked us to divide into two groups: those whose lives are poems and those whose lives are novels.

Last week I had an experience during my visit in Beijing that was poetic. My date was an insightful and witty blogger named Amy Young who I have been following since her mother’s day post went viral. I asked her rather creepily via blog comment if she’d meet me. Before we chomped into the pizza she prayed, “Thank you God for the sound of Chinese all around, and the delicious taste of pizza.” The moment was overflowing with meaning, both narrative and poetic. Two Americans from different generations meet in Beijing be encouraged by hearing small snippets of each others’ stories. And eat pizza.

Life as a Novel

In a memoir I’ve been reading the author quotes Leonard Shengold, ‘ “We weave our memories into narratives, from which we construct our identities, despite our faulty registration of what goes on around and within us.”….Shengold believes human beings have an intense need for psychic synthesis, continuity, and causality. In other words, a need to create narrative.’ (Raine)

As I listened to Amy, I was struck deeply by just how hard I’ve been working recently to read narrative arcs into my past that I can watch stretch into the future. First, I look to see synthesis, continuity, and causality in the chaos of memories that crowd my head. And then, I try to use this to guess how the heartbreak of my complicated romance with Shakespeare will drag me to much greater opportunities. Or to predict the ways my tragic flaws will be burned out of me. Or make elaborate plans of how God can use me here in China.

The thing is (as we can see in the hilarious reaction of TV audiences to the third installment of RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series) narratives are much better when they are unpredictable.

Life as a Poem

Poetry is often paradoxical or antithetical, a union of agony and bliss, the simply transcendant and the supremely mundane, or any opposite you care to think of. I like to think of poetry as chaotic thought and feeling crafted into a careful structure of words on a page, which then pierces chaotic thought and feeling into the core of the reader.

We live poetically when we, as Amy says, catch a glimpse of our soul. Or when we taste eternal significance in a cup of sour plum juice. Or when a strong a strong wind gets all up under our clothes and reminds us just how palpable and intimate the Holy Spirit is. Or…*insert your own poetic moment here*

What usually makes a good poem? For me, it’s some combination of emotional power, layers of meaning, and some kind of challenge presented to the reader. Dinner with Amy was a challenge to stop trying to snatch the pen away from the real author of my life.

The By-line

In my college course, the professors automatically assumed that the primary author of the poem or novel of life is the liver — but I think we’ve got a few more options here. In my case, one is indeed a rather chubby hand with thoroughly chewed-down nails and shredded cuticles. But I also need to consider what could be described as society, or the metaphorical fingers of human power relations. And a third option is a mystery — an alluring and powerful mystery that calls itself Love.

It was amazing to listen to Amy relate her narrative from a few decades down the line from me. It made me a lot less worried, and a lot more excited. There’s a lot of literary genius, both in the realms of poetry and narrative, chugging towards me along the tracks of time. Thankfully, I am not writing my own story.

To close, here’s a picture of Amy with me outside the drum tower after our dinner. Boy am I glad I decided to be extra creepy and ask to meet her by commenting on her blog! Also, I think many of you would enjoy checking out her funny, honest, and penetrating writing right here.

p.s. What do you think? Is your life more of a novel, or a poem?

Referenced Book:

Raine, Nancy Venable. After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back. Broadway Books; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (August 3, 1999)