Resolve to Be Kind to Yourself (Dorothy Intro) (12/14/2019)

Resolve to Be Kind to Yourself, Start Here | The Weekly Atticus

December 14, 2019

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Introduction by Dorothy Bendel.

Winter is drawing near and I’ve been feeling a bit stuck—at least, as far as my writing is concerned. I have excuses aplenty: major life changes, a full work schedule, and shorter days that leave me feeling exhausted by 5pm. But, to be honest, I think one of the biggest challenges I’ve been dealing with is the question of whether I should write about experiences in my life I haven’t written about before, events that previously felt untouchable.

It’s bound to happen to anyone who writes nonfiction. Some readers assume that a person writing primarily nonfiction is an “open book” of sorts, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a sprawling haunted house of closed doors I have yet to open and reveal, and I suspect some of those doors will remain closed for eternity.

I’ve been following  Sabrina Orah Mark’s “

” column on The Paris Review, which “focuses on fairy tales and motherhood” and the most recent entry (“

”) arrived at just the right time. In the essay, Mark delves into writing about experiences some might hesitate to explore, the silences thrust upon us, and what that silence does. When asked by a student if exposing oneself in writing is “worth it,” Mark responds: “I tell her language is what I have, and I think without it I’d grow tentacles, and sharp little teeth would poke through my skull.”

I can feel those “sharp little teeth” pushing through when my writing days wane and worry stops me from moving forward. They are the teeth of monsters creaking doors open in that haunted house, just a little, announcing that it is time to flood decrepit rooms with the light of day. I’ve kept some of those doors under lock and key because I’ve worried myself sick thinking about the ghostly people on the other side, but mostly I’ve kept them closed because opening those doors invites reckonings that scare the hell out of me.

Still, Shakespeare’s words rattle in my head: “truth will out.” I just don’t always know when, and I’ve been writing long enough to know that good can come of facing those fears, by not allowing my anxiety to censor the life I’ve lived. After all, to write of our lives fully and honestly involves everyone who’s touched our lives, and evading those truths fatally infects the work we set out to do. So I’m sweeping away the cobwebs and opening a few doors. And I’ve made peace with knowing some doors will stay shut, at least for now. I don’t typically make New Year resolutions, but I’m making a resolution to be kinder to myself, more forgiving when the words don’t come when I want them to, more trusting that the truth will out when the time is right.

I hope you too will resolve to be kind to yourself.

Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.

 

Dorothy Bendel

Managing Editor

ATTICUS NEWS

ANNOUNCING THE 2019 ATTICUS REVIEW FLASH FICTION CONTEST WINNERS - selected by Danielle Evans:Kyle Teller, Kate Felix, Jen Fawkes, and Rebecca BlondinCongratulations & thanks to everyone who entered!

Submit to our Second Annual Videopoem ContestJudge: Marc Neys (aka Swoon)Entry fee: $10 for three films. First prize $250 and publication(Not to mention international acclaim and adoration)

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

BOOK REVIEWLIFE ONLY AS WATER CURRENTA review of TO LOVE THE RIVER by Siham Karami Review by Nicole Caruso Garcia"To Love the River asks readers to hear the pulses of delicate things, to behold and marvel at the smallness (and resilience) of humanity against larger forces in the river of life. To love the river is to inhabit moments joyfully despite the erosion of the self in the tide of time and space, to acknowledge but not surrender to sorrow." GET THE BOOKREAD THE REVIEW

FICTIONSTARFISH GIRLSby Kyle Teller"I tell my friend who is not my friend but a girl from school whose mother knows my mother all about the starfish."READ ON

POETRYTHE NATURE OF ANIMAL LIGHTby Meghan McClure"Magnify a drop of ocean water 25 times & you could find any number of things:fish eggs, crab larva, diatoms, worms, zooplankton, dinoflagellates. Of course, not all of that..."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONWINTERby Sobia Ali"You at last submit to it when icy blasts hit you unaware and shivers run deep into your bones, and your heart becomes a chicken leg in the refrigerator."READ ON

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