What is True?

 Do the things in your story really happen?

 Isn't that the question when it comes to life? 

Did this really happen to me?

~Lidia Yuknavitch  

I got home yesterday right before the skies opened up and the rain came down. That was the perfect invitation to lay down and pick up my book. The Chronology of Water is as heavy as the sodden air, and I'm okay with that. I like an afternoon storm and a broody read especially together. Memory is at the center of this memoir...the things we remember, the unreliability of our memories, the hold they have on us and the way we can harness their power. And then, of course, there is the whole discussion about what does it matter how or what exactly happened if it makes us feel a certain way.

This is the kind of story that must be taken in small doses. It's raw and painful, and provocative. I closed my eyes after a while and confronted a far away memory I know is incomplete. It's a pivotal part of who I am so many years later. Some missing parts came to me. These pieces brought with them a welcome wave of peace even as I still have holes. We are the sum of so many parts plenty unknown to us. We take what we can get.

I often ask myself what do I know to be absolutely true. This is an existential question that is worth exploring but almost impossible to answer...at least for me. Truth is absolute and so little in this life is unadulterated, pure, outright.