SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue 1 - Journal - Page 33
SINE QUA NON
Epiphanies are rarely singular, rarely complete. Our insights can be clunky or imprecise.
What can feel like a clear, bright truth on first viewing often becomes murkier on closer
inspection. Growth can involve major setbacks and regressions; moments that seem like
progress can later reveal themselves to be missteps. Shouldn’t our writing reflect this? When
we are carving away the parts of us that are irrelevant to the narrative of a particular piece, we
need to consider whether we may also be sloughing off parts that are simply messy, weird, or
uncomfortable.
This was certainly true of me in my graduate school years. I started my creative writing
MFA in the midst of disentangling myself from an abusive relationship. My professors advised
me not to write about it, that it was too soon, that I wouldn’t have anything meaningful to
say. But it consumed me, an experience so glaring that it made other aspects of my life feel
pale and fuzzy. So, I tried taking the advice of Emily Dickinson via Brenda Miller and “tell it
slant.”6 I wrote fictional stories from my ex’s imagined perspective and essays that folded our
narrative into classic fairy tales. When I submitted these pieces for workshop, I received a lot
of feedback that I “wasn’t taking responsibility” and was “being a victim.” These comments
were a harsh expression of a painful truth; my stories were too flat, too tidy. I was telling them
with a version of myself that was over-simplified and lacking self-reflection.
Once the sting had lessened, I returned to these pieces, asking myself about the role I
played in the relationship. What kept me with someone who terrified me for over two years?
What parts of me lived in that relationship besides the scared victim? I kept writing until,
to my surprise, I reached some compelling insights. I realized that a big part of the appeal
of being with my ex was the comfort of feeling comparatively healthy and normal. I realized
that even in moments of surface-level cowering submission I was still rebelling internally
and plotting my escape. A successful narrative persona needs to balance self-awareness with
self-compassion. And although there must, of course, be some careful pruning of unnecessary
aspects of one’s life and identity, there must also remain enough complexity and even
contradictions to retain authenticity.
In my own work, I’ve explored various methods to highlight the constructed nature
of neat epiphanies and expose messier realities. In an essay published in HuffPost about my
lifelong struggle to define my gender and sexuality, I described early memories like movie
scenes as a way of highlighting that these recollections — though they are the most accurate
depictions I can conjure of what happened — are also highly constructed. I recalled:
My early experiences of queerness could have been scenes in a cliché coming-of-age
story. Open on the interior of a dim bedroom. Two preteen girls — one with a
mop of dark curls, the other, me, in a crisp bob with thick bangs — negotiate who
will be “the boy” in their kissing practice.
Fade to the interior of a Jeep five years later. Outside, rain is coming down in
sheets. No Doubt’s “Tragic Kingdom” plays on the stereo. A blond girl with glitter
in the corner of her eyes sits in the driver’s seat. Beside her is one of the girls from
the previous scene, hair longer, but with the same heavy bangs. The rain makes
beautiful slippery patterns on their bodies. They grip their knees to keep from
reaching toward each other.7
6
Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola, Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Non昀椀ction (New York, NY:
McGraw Hill, 2005), iii.
7
Laura M. Martin, “I Was ‘Straight,’ Then ‘Gay,’ Then ‘Bisexual.’ Now I Know Who I Really AM.,” Hu昀昀Post,
May 13, 2024, https://www.hu昀昀post.com/entry/coming-out-queer-40s_n_63c81252e4b01e92886097b2.
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