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These are Life and Death Times
If You’re Going to Write — Be Brave
Facing my inner wimp
“It’s not autobiographical,” I say slyly when I share the plays that I have written (wink wink). Japanese-American dancer hungering for approval from her emotionally distant father. Artist from Guam living in Los Angeles with artist who is using her as a model for his erotic paintings of islander women. Single Okinawan-American mom of a mixed-race millennial caring for an elderly mother. Not autobiographical.
Because they’re plays, and presumably fiction, it gives me cover so that I am not naked to the world. But in non-fiction opinion essays, the only cover from exposure is to wimp out and not go to those scary, controversial places. Am I am a (wo)man or a mouse? A writer or a wimp?
There is a pervasive sense of death in the air. In Hawaii, today there have been three fatalities, and last count was less than twenty positive diagnoses on my island. Those small numbers don’t give me comfort. I feel the pain from all over the world. It’s heartbreaking. Our inner Pooh wants to tell our inner Eeyore to look at the silver lining. We feel guilty and cheesy for the Pooh-ness of our impulse. But there it is. My silver lining is that I decided to face my inner wimp.
