Isis

 Week Twenty-eight: Iris


And I don’t want the world to see me

‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand

When everything’s made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am


I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am



--Goo Goo Dolls, Iris, from the album City of Angels: Music from the Motion Picture



For some time I have considered writing a memoir, but besides the fact that I had no idea how to do that, certain essential questions blocked my road. Why would I? Why tell my stories, and if I did which stories would I tell? To whom would I tell them? What things deserve to remain private? Elie Wiesel once wrote “I will say with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.” But by being truthful might I cause injury? I might reveal things that could damage essential relationships or at the very least my reputation.


William Faulkner once wrote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” I think that’s true. I live with my memories, some pleasant, some not, some cherished, and some cringe worthy, but as Lois Lowry (The Giver) once said, “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” And as I am committed to sharing my story, I am reminded over and over that, as Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) said, “Tears are words that need to be written.”


As it turned out quite some time ago (maybe 2017?) I got the idea to use the lyrics of random songs to prompt my memories. All these years later I listen to every song I hear with the overarching question, "Is this a lyric I can use?” During a recent text conversation regarding my weekly blog, This is Where I’ve Been, our twenty-something granddaughter said, “I’m learning some things about you that I didn’t know.”


I told her, “Just wait. I haven’t figured out how to tell you half of it.” I then explained my intention to post 52 weeks worth of entries and publish them in one volume because “I want you to know who I am.”  


And then as if right on cue, Iris started playing on the radio.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdYWuo9OFAw

Comments

  1. Ol' BruzJuly 30, 2024 at 6:18 AM

    A song the Bruisers actually know! And ..If you could autograph your book at some point, Ol' Bruz would love a copy!

    ReplyDelete

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