Memoir

This week I found out that an excerpt from a memoir I’m writing will be published this winter in the Canadian journal, Prairie Fire. The story is about my experiences in Rishikesh, India. It’s part of a larger work called Searching For Rob, about falling in love with this guy named Rob, going our separate ways, and then spending the rest of my trip trying to find him again. Spoiler alert: Reader, I married him.

Although I’m excited about publishing a memoir excerpt, I’ve also had to think a little about what it means to write about myself. While the book details my spiritual and emotional development, it’s also one big booty call. While I’m not worried about exposing myself, and Rob approves of the story, I decided it was it was a good idea to send the excerpt to my parents before it was published. My poor parents! When I was traveling around India I gave no thought to their anxieties. I emailed them regularly, but gave them no details about what I was actually doing. At all. For example, I never told them about the day I rode a motorcycle without a helmet, or hiked alone in the mountains, or the time I arrived in Nepal without a guidebook or any Nepali money. As an adult with kids of my own (whom I of course worry about), I feel just a wee bit bad for my parents reading about my adventures on motorcycles with tattooed strangers. 

Another challenge of writing a memoir is that you have to believe that your story is interesting and worth saying. When I write fiction I make up the stories and I get to craft a compelling narrative. With non-fiction, I’m working with the conceit that I’ve lived an interesting life. I do think I have had some exciting adventures, but I also worry I’m a terrible bore. Imagine being stuck in an elevator with someone who thinks their life story is fascinating and wants to tell you the whole story in minute detail for hours on end? That’s what writing a memoir sometimes feels like.

Hopefully there’s balance between these two, and , and maybe more importantly, a really good story to tell. I didn’t just chase Rob across India, I also learned about Buddhism, met interesting people, struggled with my idea of self, and saw some amazing sights. This is what I have to imagine when I’m writing, otherwise I fall into the chaos of self-aggrandizement and self-hating. It’s odd how closely connected these are.

I’ve accumulated a list of books for reading and re-reading about India to help me write about my trip. Before I went to India, I read some fantastic fiction about the subcontinent: Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and Tales from Firozsha Baag; Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy; Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh and Midnight’s Children; and VS Naipaul's A Million Mutinies Now.

In contrast, most of my reading during my trip was unplanned and spontaneous, the kind of reading I rarely do these days. Finding books to read in India in 1998 meant trading with other travelers or perusing used book shops. Everything I read was gift. I stumbled upon Lolita while waiting for Rob in Nepal. Toni Morrison’s Beloved helped me through a bout of illness in Varansi. Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury made a very long train ride feel shorter. 


I'm hoping to re-read a few books specifically about India that I discovered during the trip to help remember my experiences. Herman Hesse’s Siddartha reinforced everything I was learning about Buddhism and meditation. Along with this, I think it’s high time I re-read Goenka’s The Art of Living. Goenka is the founder of the Vipasanna meditation method I learned about India. To balance these out, Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola should throw some cold water on any enlightening thoughts. Her book details the pitfalls of Westerns descending upon India to find the spiritual guidance that was lacking in their own lives, and explores the devastating impact that foreigners had on rural Indian communities as their lives became commodities for Western consumption. I remember reading it in shock and dismay. I just wanted to meditate and learn, but the book changed the way I viewed myself and traveling in India. 


Although I don’t have the massive guide book I traveled with, my book-loving (hoarding?) friend Ada has lent me two 1990’s guide books to India. They are in good shape, but slightly dirty. I handle them tentatively, as if they might still bare some of the illness and dirt I remember from the trip. The grubby cover of Ada’s Lonely Planet India reminds me of my friend James’ copy that he accidentally dropped in the muddy and very polluted shores of the Ganges in Varanasi.

Lastly, I have my journal from the trip, a remarkably pristine spiral ring journal with a Miffy cover that I bought at the Japanese book store Kinokuniya in Kanazawa, Japan. In the front cover is a list of the books I read during the trip, and in the back is a list of Japanese and Hebrew phrases I picked up from other travelers, important words like "samim," Hebrew for drugs, and "oshaberi," Japanese for chatterbox. There's a also list of the US traveler cheques I exchanged into rupees. (Apparently I lived on less than 500 US$  per month!)  Mostly I wrote about things that seemed unimportant to what I remember from the trip, but one thing is clear: I was hopelessly in love with Rob.