Embrace the Strange

 

      Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

     Turn and face the strange

Some things in life just come to a close. It can’t be helped and nothing can be done. But there is a saying that, when the old car leaves the garage, there is finally space for a new one. In my life that has been true but I’ve also discovered that the trick is, to not just face the strange, but embrace it.

My entire MFA in Creative Non-Fiction at Baypath has been an exercise in embracing the strange. The classes are challenging and instructors, experienced. What is strange is what has flowed from my fingers to the page in the last two years. I started with Nature Writing because that’s what I love to do and the instructor, Sister Karol Jackowski, is a spiritual woman in the deepest of ways. She set the tone for writing anything, and was the first person who actively encouraged me to embrace the strange.

“If it’s real to you, then it is real and considered non-fiction,” she coached when I asked if writing about my experiences in non-ordinary reality was allowed. What a relief! And so, I dove in and wrote about everything that sparked my imagination. 

I wrote about Thunderbirds,

Of a wild bearded Bard of the Loch.

 

I wrote about dogsledding,

Remembered Dutchess, Dancer and Dory.

 

I wrote about family,

About cancer, pain and love.

 

I wrote about addiction,

Gave voice to my sanity and my lunacy.

 

I wrote for my stepdad,

For the lost who need his truth.

But I am not done writing, or learning. I am simply nearing the end of my priceless time as a student. One more year to go. A year that will be spent taking all that I’ve learned, all that I’ve written and creating something lasting and I’m learning how to do that in a strange way.

Today marks the end of 10 months in the study of publishing. It has been ten months studying trends, publishers, indie bookstores and the innerworkings of literary magazines. It has all culminated in an internship with a small hybrid press. The press specializes in memoir and historical fiction/romance. I didn’t think I could possibly learn what I needed to in that space, but the strange prevailed.

Editors learn what good writing looks like, and so I learned. I have discovered how to craft a story and all that is necessary to entice you to read it. But the strange of it all is the fact that the job of reading and editing fiction, is a job of pleasure. It allows me to surface from the dark places I have written about and bathe in joyful endings. And, like anything joyful, my time spent supporting writers of fiction has lightened my mood, and my mind. It’s literary self-care. The Strange knew exactly what I needed.

And so, as my class comes to a close and I look forward to publishing more of my own work, I will embrace the strange because it has served me well. I hope it serves you well too.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
                Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
         Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time 

- David Bowie