Universal Table

Narrative writing is of particular use when we are trying to absorb certain dimensions of illness and trauma because it both bounds our experience and unites it with the experiences of others. If we write those narratives down, we do so because we are fed by the idea of lasting words—their meaningful flow, their shapeliness, their common nature. If we write, we can read ourselves, as we have read other authors, back into the flow of life. We can rebel against the deep inhuman quiet that has come to surround us, this place where we believe deeper than believing that no one knows the trouble we have seen. Absolutely no one at all. We begin to write ourselves back by becoming our own first reader. Or perhaps we hear ourselves clearly at last only after our words have been absorbed by many other eyes and ears. We may be the very last to hear what we are really saying. But hearing is where it’s at. For that we need to return. Written words allow us to do so.