I’m reading Jami Attenberg’s memoir, I Came All This Way To Meet You.1 It’s a lovely book, but I find myself having the same reaction to it that I often have to listening to Joni Mitchell, which is to ask myself, am I too boring to be a real artist?
In the case of Joni Mitchell, it’s more a feeling that clearly I have not fallen in love or had the requisite number of love affairs. I adore Joni Mitchell, but when I’m listening to her, I often think to myself, “She’s in love again? Really?”
Jami Attenberg has led a nomadic life that sounds so much more like what writing should be, working one job after another. Moving from one coast to the other, repeatedly. Getting dropped by publishers, but still writing book after book. She has many writer friends, lots of them famous, and she hosted salons in New York. She ends up in New Orleans, one of the funkiest, artiest cities in the world. Not everything that happens to her is pleasant, but a lot of is, at least, interesting.
Meanwhile, here I am, in a town I have to meticulously map out for anyone who’s not from Indiana and, even then, hope that they have the vaguest idea where Louisville or Cincinnati are. Spoiler—most of them do not, especially if they’re from New York or California.
I’ve worked the same job for over twenty years now. I love it, but it is not particularly exciting. The biggest city I’ve ever lived in is Birmingham, Alabama. I can count on one hand the number of relationships I’ve had and I’ve been ecstatic to be married for the past twelve years because it means I never have to go out again if I don’t want to.
Does this sound like the life of a writer to you?
I’m mostly kidding. Of course you don’t have to have led a fascinating life to be a writer. It’s quite easy to steal other people’s stories, after all.2
Also, scratch at the surface and everyone has some strange tales just waiting to jump out of the closet. In 1965, a plane crashed on my grandparents farm, killing 58 people. One of my grandfathers was murdered in Carroll County. When I was a junior in high school, I got the flu, took a bath, passed out and woke up in the hospital with short-term memory loss that lasted for three days.3
Or as Flannery O’Connor famously said, “The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot.”
She’s right—you can make quite a lot out of a little experience. One of my favorite stories I’ve ever written is about nothing but the time when I was little and decided to eat the inside of a peach pit because it looked so much like an almond and then worried I would die. There’s a lot of drama in that. Spoiler—I did not die.
In the end, I might be too boring, but boring people have stories to tell, too. Maybe especially about the places no one can find on the map. And at any rate, what else would I spend all my time in the coffee shop doing?
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Seriously, I will steal all of your stories. I sometimes think I should have a warning tattooed on my forehead—”If it’s really a secret, do not tell the writer.”
As if that isn’t a good enough story, years later when I was talking to my sister about my hospitalization, she said, “Oh, I just assumed you were faking.” Readers, I was not.
Viva el aburrido!