What are you afraid of saying?

0. Confessions

Confession: the act of disclosing one’s faults so as to unburden one’s sins or the state of one’s conscience to God or to a priest.
Confession: a formal statement of religious beliefs
—Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (the paper kind, believe it or not)

Photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash

What does it feel like to confess? The moment the words of damnation and freedom vibrate from their vocal chords, does the confessor lie down in defeat? Or does he sit up a little straighter, lighter in the shoulders, finally unburdened from the shame of a hidden secret?

In my imagination, as I confess the sins that separate me from myself (to God or to man), the sun finally breaks through the window and illuminates the stone grey room, piercing the ghosts of ignorance and doubt. There’s an almost biblical moment as my back straightens, my arms — firm with the conviction of this new freedom — rip me from the grasping tentacles of my lies’ shadows. Before I was Jacob Marley, damned to walk forever in a hell of my own making. Now I am Scrooge offered redemption. At least, that’s my imagination. My heart fills when I walk by the confessional, wondering what it would be like to simply participate. But I never have. 

When was the last time you unburdened yourself? When was the last time you admitted your inner doubts and questions and struggles? And most brazenly (my palms are sweating simply typing this) when was the last time you admitted that inner drama to another person?

If you’re like me, I would guess the answer is never. For even though I like to imagine biblical freedom, I still fear the power of those words.

You see, for too long I was afraid to voice the truth. I internalized advice like “don’t stand out.” I learned that the wrong words, said at the wrong time and with the wrong intonation, could hurt. Rather than risk a sharp retort, a rap on the knuckles, or a never-ending replay of a scene when I might have hurt someone, I silenced myself. And with every promotion, every recognition, every complement, it became easier to stay silent. The mask worked. Until it didn’t.

*

Alice LaPlante, in “the making of a story” asks if writing can be taught. In the very next line she answers with a resounding “sort of.” Because writing: honest, true, moving writing, is a magical mixture of equal parts craft and madness. And that madness part is fascinating. That madness, that inspiration, comes out of some unknown place deep within us, and then we work with it, we wrestle with it, we play with it until we’ve gotten to what

Jeannine Ouellette

calls “the center of whatever it is we’re trying to say.” 

I don’t have a formula for how to develop that madness. If I did, I’d package it into a bestselling book, with success beyond even James Clear’s wildest dreams (if I write it, maybe I’ll call it Subatomic Madness – or Crazy Quarks, I kind of like that)¹. But I do know a successful way to keep the inspiration of madness away.

Silence yourself. Hide behind a mask. Like I did.

*

I think the Catholic idea of confession hit on something. Imagine sitting down in solitude, out of view of any person in the darkened enclave of church, connected to the divine. I sit and I start talking, slowly at first, and then quicker until there’s a wave of my deepest doubts and fears reverberating through me. I’m taking the mask off. And not just removing it for a moment, but removing it as a statement of my belief: in God, in Truth, in the power of great storytelling. Because back to the definition of confession, it’s a statement of belief. It’s absolution experienced. I can only imagine what that experience is like, but I think I need it.

I’ve never been to confession (I’m not Catholic), and I haven’t found anything resembling it. Which meant I’m having to recreate it for myself the only way I know how. On the page. And so this is my experiment, my attempt to court the muse of madness.

I am here to write to the best of my ability, to leave everything on the page and create the most honest, moving, powerful writing I can. I spent the last year and a half diving into the craft, but somehow I forgot to remove the damned mask. It’s time to take it off. It’s time to write those things that scare me. My hope is that by writing the things that scare me, they’ll lose their power over me. And once that power is gone, then there will be room for that madness to express itself. 

Which is why this series is called Confessions. I’m practicing taking the one inch frame² and pointing it towards the shadows I hold in my own heart. These are my way of admitting the things that scare me, of writing into them and about them. 

Before you read on (and I hope you will), I’d like to leave you with a Henry James quote. Because on the other side of this experiment isn’t fame and fortune and riches. It’s hard work. As James wrote:

“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

I confess these and all my sins in service of passion. In service of truth.

Confessions

1. Sorry for the physics nerd jokes. I was a physics undergrad, and sometimes it just comes out before I can censor myself. Given the nature of out discussion, it seems appropriate.

2. A wonderful practice from Bird by Bird that I’m grateful to

Eleanor Anstruther

for reminding me of.