Fully Alive

I read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild prior to interviewing her after that celebrated memoir’s release. I enjoyed it very much. It was compelling and honest, and Strayed did a great job painting a vivid portrait, not just of the challenges of hiking the entire Pacific Crest Trail, but of the frame of mind that compelled her to do so. She took the reader into her grief after her mother’s death, her ensuing heroin use, promiscuity, and abortion. She spared no detail, and reading it I felt as though I was walking right along with her, or standing beside her in her mother’s hospital room.

And yet, as with every author I’ve interviewed, I learned more about Ms. Strayed when I shook her hand as we were sitting down to chat than I did from that entire story. In that instant, I could feel the quality and direction of her attention, and how that attention related to the world around her. That is to say, I met the person, the full person, the one I’d be talking to and who would be answering my questions, and she was not really the same character I met in the story. As good as the book was, Cheryl Strayed the person was still more interesting to me.

I was reminded of a documentary I’d watched about Charles Schulz, author of the Peanuts comic strip. A private and introspective man, he said to a friend once, “If you want to know me, read those cartoons.” As a writer, I fully understand this perspective. I feel like I bring my best self to the page. To write, I have to be patient, curious, open, and accepting. Away from the desk I will fall down, will snap at loved ones and despair. On the page, I can edit out those blunders, leaving only what I actually want to share with others.

Except, what I leave behind isn’t me either. After all, it now belongs to the reader, just like Peanuts and Wild and every story I’ve ever read or watched or heard. I can’t belong to anyone in that way. The stories I read need me to bring them to life; until I do, they are just lines on a page. A story animated by my imagination will always be unique in some small way to me. But Cheryl was already fully alive when I met her, was unique unto herself, as are we all.

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Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com