Hiding Out in the Open

My sisters and I have embarked on a challenge this year to read 50 books. I don’t know if I’ve read 50 books in a year before. Maybe I have but didn’t keep track? And I’m someone who is usually reading 5 or 6 books at once, all of different genres. Some books, like the Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk, I’ve been reading for 2 years because there is so much I want to integrate. Other books I devour in 24 hours because I can’t stop. So far that book this year is My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Florin. I put my life on hold and read the damn book and felt like I was temporarily transported back into college in the late 90’s.

Now, my sisters are blowing me out of the water. We follow each others’ progress on Good Reads, and since I’m the oldest I keep tabs on them like a little mother hen to

1. See how bad they are beating me

2. Try to read some of the books they are reading because if they like it, I probably will too

3. If they hate the book, I might pass because see #2.

With that said, it’s the end of April and I’ve completed 18 books! 3 books ahead of schedule and about 5 books behind sisters A & B. Sister K isn’t visibly tallying her count but I’m sure she’s up there too. I don’t mind being the loser in this challenge because we are all winning in the long run!

The book I finished this week has truly moved in and taken up real estate in my mind. So much that I am stubbornly avoiding reading because I want to bask in this author’s headspace. Some books are so well written that you feel like you actually know the author along the way, and the story they are telling is so clear and crisp it is hard to separate it from your own reality.

‘Stash: My Life in Hiding’ by Laura Cathcart Robbins is a memoir written depicting someone who appeared to have it all together on the outside, while dealing internally with crushing self-doubt and exhaustion leading to an addiction to the prescription sleep aid ‘Ambien.’ As I was pulled further and further into the author’s world, I became entrenched in her story and desperately needed to know how she was going to overcome her demons. The book not only delved into the seldom written about addiction to sleep aids and other legally prescribed drugs (and it’s a real problem) but also what it meant to be an African American woman in the very white, very affluent society she found herself in, married to a successful film producer who expected her ‘fit in’ with the other wives and moms in the community.

Don’t we all find ways to fit in by hiding in plain site? I related to this deeply, as a woman musician who has long experienced being asked if I’m the ‘merch girl’ or ‘dating one of the guys in the band’ or accused of not knowing how to plug in my shit or any number of other things. My friend Buick Audra writes about this a lot in her book “Conversations with my Other Voice” as well. And as women, how we cope with trying ‘to fit in with the guys.’ Sometimes that means drinking more excessively or finding ways to take the intensity down a notch with a pill or joint or shot here and there. It’s a slippery slope and soon our escape routes become habits that we cling to so we can get by. It might turn into a full blown addiction or at the very least a dependence that requires attention or therapy to break free from. Only to come back around to face it all over again. Oh, and as our fundamental rights get taken away at every turn and there is a slew of things we have to insist on fighting for.

I’m so thankful to have friends that are books. And authors who inspire me to find that inner voice in my own writing. I’m getting closer and closer to having a draft of my own memoir and right now I’m delving into the parts that scare me, which is an experience in itself to look at my own inner workings under a microscope, to discover how I have ‘become’ who I am and continue to evolve. When does it end? Where do you decide to end a story so your reader wants more?

xoxo mp