"Still Life With Pain"

(the story of a short essay and searching for its title)

The pandemic had a surprising positive impact on my writing life, once I adjusted to the fact that I wouldn’t be doing any public readings or in-person workshops for a good long while. That shift wasn’t easy for me, a born extrovert and someone who’s done many books tours at home and abroad since the 90’s.

But the flip side was this: as the son of Holocaust survivors, my warning bells went off as soon as I heard about a virus spreading in a country as huge as China, at a time when international travel was known to spread disease. Before the pandemic was “official,” I cancelled all my out-of-state travel and all socializing, even with family. It was time to hunker down and not take any risks.

As Juliana Margulies recently wrote in USA Today, American Jews like me “grew up hearing about the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were deliberately and methodically slaughtered. And so we grew up knowing that we were lucky to be alive. This fact – a miracle in itself – was drilled into us from the day we were born. We are lucky to be here!” And our gratitude is matched with a keen awareness of threats to our safety.

In this dangerous new climate which very quickly started to feel apocalyptic, my “word hoard” unexpectedly opened, to use a phrase from the Anglo-Saxon poets. I found myself writing long and short essays about family, travel, writing, art, illness, disability and many more subjects—dozens of them. I often wrote a first draft very early in the morning when an idea demanded to be recorded and shaped, a flag planted somewhere on the hill that I would be climbing.

The stress of fear and uncertainty about COVID seemed to act as a catalyst for more introspection than usual. Many topics that I’d mused about became the focus of my writing life. “Still Life With Pain” grew out of that time of great ferment. But while the writing flowed and flowed during the pandemic, titles didn’t always come easily, and I accepted the fact, knowing that time would eventually bring the right one. At least I hoped so.

My late mother and my ailing very elderly father—who died just before turning 100—were often on my mind and “Still Life With Pain” is about discovering an unexpected link with my mother through pain.

It had a few titles over the three-month period of submissions before it found the right lit mag and the right editor. The first title was “Pain Log” which I knew was functional without being catchy, but I wasn’t going to wait for the perfect title before sending it out. After two rejections, I decided to call it “Painology” which I first thought might strike editors or readers as intriguing even though I didn’t think it was the ideal fit. At any rate, it seemed marginally better than “Pain Log.”

The piece starts with a memory of my mother, and after a handful of no’s and re-reading the essay, it hit me that what I was doing in this essay was painting a very specific kind of picture: a still life. I gave it the new title, lightly retouched the piece to work in imagery about art, and after another few rejections it was quickly accepted by the magazine put out by Knee Brace Press.

I found that lit mag on Duotrope, liked the focus on chronic illness, and the editor took it soon after submission. I wasn’t looking for publication in a famous lit mag; I was looking for an audience and found it. I’m happy to say that the editorial work on this piece was totally on target.

You can read the essay here: https://kneebracepress.com/2023/11/30/still-life-with-pain/

Happy Holidays!

(Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash )