I have not abandoned Redeeming Renato: A Memoir in Progress. I am merely pausing to mull over what I have written so far.
I’m also in the process of re-reading what I have penned so far and restructuring the narrative.
Back in December, I printed the manuscript for the work and found out I’ve managed to write more than 500 pages, double-spaced piece and it’s only two-thirds of the entire material.
The pages have been sitting on a coffee table in our living room, waiting for me to take a look at them.
Honestly, they’ve been sitting there since I’ve printed them although day-in, day-out they’ve been inviting me to sit down spend some time with them and keep the journey going.
I’d take Marley, our pooch, to our scheduled morning and afternoon walks in the park and I’d think about the manuscript waiting for attention. I’d come home, glance at the stack of white papers by the window and that was all I’d do: stare.
Sometimes, I’d sit and stare at the manuscript and think about the people and places I’ve mentioned in the piece, mostly people and places I’ve given new names and places I simply described with no names. I’d think and reflect how I’ve come quite a long, removed from the experiences and moved on with my life, think how I’ve forgiven many of the wrongs done to me and hoping I’d been forgiven for the mistakes I did.
One Friday evening, my spouse and I invited some friends for an intimate party, where I tested reading two segments of the work. I was humbled by the response and had fun answering their questions about the stories behind them.
I was nervous to read the work out loud even to a small crowd. They were my friends and they were kind, gentle and loving with their comments.
One of them encouraged me to share my stories to larger crowd, which resulted in me participating in the Fourth Annual University of Calgary’s Coming Out Monologues.
Yes, I will be sharing – not what I’ve written in this blog – some highlights of my life, before a live audience.
Performing before a crowd isn’t necessarily a new territory for me, but to talk about some intimate and delicate strands of who I am before hundreds of strangers can be a knee-shaking experience.
Heck, I’m sure I’ll come out of it unscathed and the worse that could happen is blank out and stare at them like I do at my manuscript.
My hopes, though, is that I stop staring at this body of work and start delving into un-stitching and stitching back the layers of my story so it comes out more useful and meaningful not just to me but to others as well.
