SHIPWRECKED

A Patchwork Memoir originally began:

In boxes, bags, and bulging file drawers, I’ve stowed away my writing: stories, scripts, letters, dreams, and diaries. Out of all these bits and pieces, I wonder if I could stitch together a patchwork of my life.

Seely dreamed she was floating in an ocean with other survivors of a shipwreck. They were strewn out across the water as far as she could see—little flecks of orange, the color of their life jackets. Only hers had gaudy rainbow stripes and was noticeably waterlogged. It seemed to be losing buoyancy by the moment. She yanked off a huge tag sewn into the front seam in order to see it better. “Dry-Clean Only,’ it read.”

This passage is from the opening of a short story I started years ago and never finished. I mostly never do—my short stories, at least. Maybe because they’re too autobiographical—yes, I really had the above dream—and my own life still feels so unresolved. Or maybe they were never meant to be short stories in the first place, but chapters in the larger story of my life. I’ve thought about writing a memoir for many years now, sat down to work from time to time, but before I’ve ventured very far, I’ve always gotten bogged down in a quicksand of grief.