Intro to Gary Kline's Autobiographical Brew



When my daughter was born I started writing a brief autobiography so that when she was old enough to want to know why I was in a wheelchair, she would be able to read what I had (hopefully) thoughtfully constructed.

In August, '96 when Allyson was approaching her first birthday, in a few hours of furious writing one weekend I wrote up my first thin-sliced story that covered the best-of my story, omitting large chunks of the ugliest parts of the tale. It was published on one website, and over the years went into a ink+paper magazine as well as being republished on other web-zines.

After a few years I had a hodgepodge of stories from my growing up on the farm and driving my wagon all over the place to when my piano teacher was preening me to be the next Van Cliburn. Plus when and how my disability began and the unspeakable grief I went through over eight or nine years. --And, of course the many bad and good experiences every life story entails.

Several years ago one book on memoir-writing cautioned to “keep your story to one theme; don't wander off on what happened with your Aunt Jane no matter how interesting you think it was. Your readers, including your children and grandchildren, won't stick with it!” This by a prof somewhere in SoCal. Everything this writing teacher said made sense and her advice burned in. So: the full story (probably to-be-softened somewhat) for my daughter--Her Eyes Only; but then, that left the miscellaneous stuff. The Aunt-Jane events.

Well, I take the advice of this author seriously. 99% of you don't care about my Uncle Phil having served as Admiral Nimitz' aide, or that he use to make me laugh so hard that I'd spit food all over my aunt's kitchen. More to the point, I do not want to admit to my childhood biases or how my classmates beat me up for being different--plus being a card-carrying nerd. I cannot and will not share the horror of the years when my disability twisted me into a hideous pretzel and worse, nor the unspeakable misery of the first six brain surgeries--awake. I've had more than a few emails from people calling me a nitwit for not having just killed myself after the seventh (crap-out) brain surgery. I wrote this story "Responsibilities" in '96. (If I hang on to this ugliness, I'm tumbling before too long.)

What I'll include in this section are the conglomeration of incidents that I've been through that are interesting-but-not-horrific. Like my years of Zen study before I lived at Zen Center. And even the 19 months I spent there. And the times I went camping with my best Zen buddy, Jim; we camped all over the state of California. Maybe my affair with this stunning ---- ...no, maybe not. If they're still married, her husband would hunt me down and shoot me with his 30.06. The first of the bunch is about when I [helped] save the life of my baby-sitter. Really, all I did was -- well, read the story if you're interested.

Other quasi-interesting events may include Jim's and my rafting trip down [well, heading West] the Russian River. And once just after Christmas when a California State Ranger damn near threw us in jail for making a small morning fire. When camped out on the high desert (Mojave), but I can't remember exciting there ... . --Other than it was a break from my studies; and I think Jim was still an apprentice iron worker.

I might tell about Okusan's (Mrs. Suzuki's) inviting me to a tea ceremony because I crawled up three stories to honor her husband, Shunryu Suzuki. ---That might be a bit prosaic, tho. Nothing much of interest happened at Zen Center. Let's face it: zazen is not that interesting. Consider this various slices of a life that's been more than 97% caffeine-free, dull and dreary. What's here will be a motley bunch of clippings. In other words, this is a collage or scrapbook that won't make you feel like throwing up or sending snotty emails.

gary kline

the Ides of June, 2008