Autobiography

From time to time i have written more or less directly about my own experiences, most obviously in "Robert Morrison," the third person autobiography i wrote at age 19 in the summer after my first year in college, when i was enthralled with Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." Other than changing my name, it was all a true account of my life up through the age of 15, which then seemed like a long time ago — four years! I'm personally glad i wrote that, but i would hardly call it art, and i never wrote much prose again.

The next overtly autobiographical work i wrote was "Grasping," in 1987, a screenplay about my divorce. Four years later i wrote "Mama's Boy," which included a play-within-a-play-within-a-play that took place while i was a graduate student in playwriting. And of course many of the poems i wrote every day for a year had a lot of stuff about me in them. But i must admit that most of the autobiographical writings were not that interesting, because my own life really is not, at least as far as i can see it.

Meanwhile, throughout my life i have always been keeping various journals, imagining that someday, when i'm old, i would want to read them. But i rarely even look at any of them, although a few years ago i started typing up 1968, which was sort of a pivotal year for me. I still haven't finished that project, but for a while i considered writing a whole memoir reflecting on that year as i reread each day of it. If i were famous, of course, people would be interested in all these details of my past, but i'm not.

It's a little sad to realize that, when i die, my life's work will not live on after me, but then i won't really care. I remember as a young man thinking that i would rather try to be an artist and fail than do something more practical and later regret it. And now that i am getting old, i realize my younger self was right, and i have no regrets about having chosen the way of an artist, even if it did not lead me to immortal glory. For however foolish it might seem in retrospect, i did what i wanted to in life, in my own way, and regret nothing.

in my garden, 2012