JENNIFER MARSTON: Diaspora Dialogues Emerging Artist in Fiction 2010

When I was a child, I liked to dress up. My parents tell a story that goes like this: It was the early 80s, and I was in kindergarten. My mother had an appointment, so my father was responsible for getting me fed and off to school. Instead of choosing an outfit for me, he sent me to my bedroom to dress myself while he made breakfast. When I emerged in a colourful ensemble of dresses and skirts layered over pajamas accessorized with belts and sashes and beads, my father stifled a smile.

He asked, “Are you sure that’s what you want to wear?”

I knew without hesitation that it was.

Telling stories doesn’t come easily to me. I struggle to know what to put in and what to leave out, what’s implied and what’s really part of another narrative. Knowing what to say, like knowing what to wear, gets lost among the complex constructions that dictate our adult choices: external expectations both real and projected, the difference between wanting something and wanting to want it, the proper ratio of standing out to fitting in, the effort of making all effort look accidental, and the self-consciousness of knowing how transparent the whole operation is. It’s safer to keep quiet. It’s safer to wear beige.

But caution is not a thing I want to cultivate. I don’t want to want safety, and so I write. For me, writing is a practice of stripping away those constructions and listening for what’s underneath. It’s about finding that version of a story that feels true, where the details aren’t embellishments for their own sake, but a means of illuminating what was there all along. And it’s a process of trial and error. I don’t know which scarf or word will work until I try it on.

All I can do is keep going until I hit the combination that I know is honest, so that when someone asks, “Are you sure that’s what you want to say?”, I can answer with the same certainty I had when I was four.