Did That Really Happen?

April Otto
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read

While driving home I think I will wash my car and then write about washing my mind, the bugs like smudges on my eyes. I will write about my smudged life.

I am strategizing, while pulling into the driveway, about how I can connect the mundane that I am living with the state of my mind in order to make a story. It’s an interesting image, and I think it serves well to illustrate a mental state.

But as I wash the car, I think does my mind really need to be scrubbed clean? Are the bug carcasses on my windshield really a reflection of the contents of my brain? I’m feeling pretty happy, so I suspect that I am forcing the connection for the sake of poetry, but still, I like the image, and the metaphor feels true.

As a writer of creative nonfiction, I find myself facing this question:

Is my life dictating the content, or is the content dictating my life?

Sometimes It can seem like I’m forcing a mood or a feeling just for a story, making something more significant than it really was. Or, in this case, I had an idea for a story that led to me having an emotional response. So if the story came before the feeling, does that mean it’s still a true, factual story about me and my life? Or is it just fiction that I’m responding to emotionally?

The thing is, writing about myself means reflecting on aspects of my life, and reflection leads to connections and meanings that we don’t always feel in the moment. Maybe while in the car I was feeling pretty good mentally, but the dirty windshield reminded me of all the cobwebs in the corners of my brain. Whether those cobwebs were making me feel bad in the moment doesn’t matter. As long as they do sometimes, the windshield metaphor rings true, and I can write about my drive home and use the metaphor without feeling like a liar.

So, when facing the question of which dictates what, life or content, I tentatively rest on an answer that some may find unsatisfying, which is that it doesn’t matter. I hold that as long as I am expressing some kind of greater truth about myself and about life, then I don’t need to worry about the particulars too much.

I said that the windshield/brain metaphor feels true, and feeling is what I fall back on when I’m unsure. It’s good enough for me, but others may find my philosophy problematic, especially if I’m writing about them. I’ll get into that can of worms next week.

April Otto

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I’m over it. (the bullshit)