Freedom and Shame *Insert Yin and Yang Sign*

Hello, I am Tiffany. I am a fiction addict.

I feel as if there are several blog entries, or life conversations, that I should begin this way.

Anyway, one little pleasure Jeff and I allowed ourselves on our time away was to buy a novel and read it.  I LOVE buying novels in person waaaaaaay more than buying online or borrowing them from the library (our library had a mold problem and all the books smell moldy) and feel it is a pleasure beyond most to browse a book store and buy a book.  I am proud to say that so far, I have been pacing myself nicely through The Tiger's Wife.

That's not the book I am writing about today, however.  Sometimes I need a little time away from a book before I decide its worth to me.  As I was browsing for books on our date night, I noticed the book I had just read was sporting a sale sticker: $5.98. It felt a little insulting.

I bought that book for more like 20 bucks from one of my favorite bookstores in the world when it was in its former glory (Creekside Books in Skaneateles, before it merged with Creekside Coffee).  I purchased it as a gift for my husband because it was signed by the author, whom Jeff had just decided he really liked, and this was the author's next work.  Jeff liked it, not as much as the previous one but still enough to arrange for us to hear this author give a talk at Syracuse University.

Since then, this author has come under some fire and fallen from public favor.  I knew that going into reading the book.  I liked the first book too, but for some reason never picked up this one.

This is the book, and I decided it means more to me personally than The Corrections. When I heard Franzen speak, I really liked the way he talked about the process of writing for him, and found him to be authentic.  I understand why some might find fault with Franzen's writing, but there is something about his writing that to me, parallels what I appreciate about my favorite contemporary comedian, Louis CK: very smart, and very, very funny in a way that makes you squirm because of the way it peels back the veneer on human nature.

There are silly, fantastical things: it's fiction.  Conversely, there occurs a sensation, when reading Freedom, that makes you want to look away, blur the lines, obscure the truth just a little.  Very few humans I know would confess the sins in that detail, even to themselves.

It's Lent, always a season which causes more self-reflection for me and reveals a great deal to me about my human nature. I am in the process, also, of advocating for Anna at school again.  Doing some personal digging and soul-searching caused me to remember some events that happened in my past, or more correctly, things I did in the past.  Upon second examination, I know I did not tell these stories to myself in the way Franzen would have.  At the point I started squirming, I softened the edges and shifted the light in a more favorable way before filing into my memory.

In his talk, Franzen talked about the process of writing through shame. I found it fascinating.  And once you read a novel of his, you understand exactly what he means.  He describes it as a painful but necessary mechanism, a healing process of sorts.

I am a person prone to guilt, and I wonder if that's why I immediately alter my perception of things that cause me shame.  I do not think a person should wallow in shame: that is cruelly destructive.  But I do wonder if unflinchingly walking through shame, looking it right in the eye and feeling its weight and consequences without shifting blame or altering circumstance allows a person to leave it and therefore its power. And become free.

Freedom is a concept that we Americans, no matter what side of the political spectrum we identify with, have been raised on.  It is so much a part of our DNA that I don't think we realize how we expect it the same way we expect we will always have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I think that American Christians do not realize how much this concept is a foundation of our faith; whatever the term "freedom in Christ" means to us, that freedom part is pretty important.  And as vital a concept as freedom is to our world view, its meaning is as unique to each one of us as each one of us is to this planet.  It means something different to each person - how to go about getting it, what to do with it, etc.  It means something different to each one of us at ages 5, 15, 35, 55, and 85.  And I think the things that cause us shame are often somehow tied to our freedom, or concept of it, collectively and individually.  Also, no matter how badly we have managed our freedom, it is still one of the most precious things in life to us - the exact opposite of our shame.

Maybe you would like the book, maybe not.  And maybe I should consider re-opening Ourselves, Reinvented to spare those of you who just want to see pictures and hear stories about my kids.  And maybe its a good thing that Lent only lasts 6 weeks and that childhood only lasts 18 years?