Story Telling

     Over several blog posts I've written about how writing has helped me with my grief work. Two features have been mentioned in that regard. First, writing helped me recognize and name what I was feeling. That's not always the most natural situation for me. Second, posting my writings on a blog created an online community in the land of grief.
     "By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths."  P. 152 The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien   Perhaps that's part of the explanation for the healing I received from blogging about my grief. In some way the grief was objectified giving it less power over me.
    Many years ago I read O'Brien's Going After Cacciato and had long intended to read The Things They Carried. MJV kindly sent me a package of books including The Things. Published in 1990 and called a novel it's more a 'war diary' of O'Brien's experience in Vietnam. MJV called it "interconnected short stories" and that's an accurate description. The book is a powerful witness to the banality and senselessness of war.  But, then, I'm perhaps the last person to read it but I recommend it.

Takk for alt,

Al

A study in blue and green.