How to Set Your Childhood Monsters Free

I’m waist high into writing an emotional piece that manifests daily into a throat-clenching lump in my throat. I’m not a crier, but I’m one more childhood angst away from becoming one.

Writing, remembering experiences and crafting them into tangible words, revives the Frankenstein’s of our youth, bringing them back to life when we thought they were dead.

Painful experiences don’t rest easy.  They lurk. They yearn for resolution. They crave healing. They want, above all, to be free.

We all have monsters from our childhood. But my monsters are not your monsters. To you, they might not be monsters at all. Whatever they are, I’m glad I’m working to set them free.

Writing is healthy, but I am torn to reveal my most painful stories to the universe lest readers judge me—or worse—angels judge me. I must reconcile my truths without those who can corroborate, dispel or approve them.

But, I need to move forward.

And that brings me to Kurt Vonnegut, the American writer.

What if my writing, my words, could serve their purpose and then disappear? No judgement from anyone. I doubt even angels would mind discarded words, even painful ones.

Kurt Vonnegut suggested discarding words when in 2006 he wrote to Xavier high school students imploring them to express themselves, to “find what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”

Picture used under Creative Commons License. No changes made. Source: https://uncyclopedia.ca/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

Only he suggested the exercise as a way of learning. I’m adapting the exercise as a way of healing.

Here’s what Vonnegut wrote to a high school English teacher who had asked her students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Five students wrote Vonnegut, the “inimitable author of a number of hilarious, mind-bending darkly satirical sci-fi classics such as Slaughterhouse Five and Cat’s Cradle.”¹

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Vonnegut’s Actual Letter to Xavier High School (transcript below).

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In case that letter is difficult to read, here’s the transcript.

November 5, 2006

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!!

Kurt Vonnegut

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“Make your soul grow.”

“Write…about anything.”

“…discard them…”

Writing is art. But, it’s also therapeutic.

So, I will take Mr. Vonnegut’s advice. I’ll write my words down and then tear them up into teeny-weeny pieces.

I’ll discard them widely in separated trash bins.

I’ll make my soul grow.

And I’ll set the monsters free.

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Thinking of making art? You may find my post Learning to Watercolor Paint During Shelter-in-Place inspirational.

¹Make Your Soul Grow: 84-Year-Old Kurt Vonnegut’s Wonderful Letter to a Group of High School Students

Featured photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash.