On Black Bears and Mangosteens

You can’t be an impostor at your own experience. That’s what a friend in my writing group said.

So write about what you know, what you’ve lived, what you’ve done, where you’ve been. What you’ve tasted and smelled and touched and heard and seen. Write about what you learned. Write about what it meant.

These experiences are yours. And only you can tell us about them. Because it was only you who was there with goosebumps in the gray, air conditioned room where the Goo Goo Dolls were playing while you watched the flesh being stitched up. You were the only one at the breakfast table with dark black coffee that wasn’t doing anything to cut the jet leg or improve your dexterity in dismantling the mangosteen. You were the only one close enough to hear the black bear ripping patches of grass from the earth and it was only you who looked over your shoulder and saw the fear in your grandmother’s eyes that you were getting much, much too close. 

W.H. Auden said that, “Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.”

Attempting originality is a hotbed for inferiority. Excavating experience and sharing your point of view -- that’s the place to take aim.

[ Photo by Megan Maria Belford on Unsplash ]