My need for a creative outlet is matched only by my need for therapy. Creative expression, in all forms, is a different kind of therapy. Since 2018 I’ve taken two courses each semester, one of which was almost always a fiction workshop. Writing under the guise of fiction, I can express and explore my thoughts in ways I don’t even broach with my therapist. I write about myself, my fears, and my disappointments in ways I don’t want to relive in conversation. What is the truth, and what is fiction? I don’t have to answer that, and that is where creative writing gives me the outlet sans anxiety.
Something changed in the spring semester of 2022, though. I work full-time so I typically only took asynchronistic classes. I never intended to venture into unfamiliar territory, but by the time my registration was open, many classes were full. The result was a fortunate one: I ended up taking Personal Essays and Short-Form Nonfiction in the same semester. I’ve had the usual nightmares about school—missing deadlines, staring at a blank page for five days, posting something I love that turns out to be incoherent to all other readers—but the stakes seemed so much higher in nonfiction writing, so much more personal and everlasting.
I struggled with the prompts out of fear I would divulge something and regret it. Adding to my anxiety, Short-Form was on ZOOM, and I had only been in one other synchronous class. And yet, to this day, those two classes have been the most productive and most transformative classes I’ve had.
My breakthrough came in the form of pieces like “When Phones Weren’t as Smart as People (and Humanity Survived): A Look at Sindy in the 80s” and “Thirty-Two (plus Fifteen) Short Paragraphs About Sindy Gordon.” For the first time, I felt a comfort and a desire to write about myself. There was one caveat: I could only truly write about myself if I wrote in the third person…
…Sindy continues to write about herself in third person. It may not seem much of a disclosure, but to her it is bare and breathing. She has concerns that she’ll come across as presumptuous, or as Elmo. Yet, it allows her a healthy, creative outlet to express sadness, pain, and confusion, as well as to share the lighter things in her life. Sindy feels a freedom to be honest and understands that by allowing more complex accounts of her life to be explored she also unleashes the best of herself. She’s never written anything as a purely therapeutic exercise, but the benefits have been undeniable. Through her vignettes she has learned that even the most passing thoughts can be significant when captured and expressed.
Like, how Sindy believes that Law & Order plays 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If it does not appear on the Channel Guide at any given time it just means she doesn’t get the channel it’s currently playing on.
After a fabulous dinner party in the 80s, someone who Sindy was sure despised her described Sindy to a mutual friend as a “circus act.” Sindy was relieved by this until her sister convinced her it wasn’t a compliment. It took her sister two weeks to do that.
When she was a publicist, Sindy worked on the Canadian release of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) and did press with Terence Stamp for two days. He signed a production still, “for Sindy, with love.” Sindy does not believe he loved her. Sindy later worked on the New York City release of Original Gangstas (1996) and did press with Fred “The Hammer” Williamson for three days. He signed a production still, “to Sindy ‘Get a real job.’” Sindy does believe he meant it.
Numerous photos taken decades apart make the following statement plausible: Sindy does not know the purpose of a brush or comb.
Once, Sindy had a psychiatrist that lived two-and-a-half blocks away in a tall luxury building facing north on 57th Street. During a session, she told Sindy she sees her walking to the grocery store sometimes—and it’s not just that she’s not smiling, it’s that she looks like she could be the most miserable person in the world. “What do you think of that observation?” the doctor asked. Sindy didn’t hesitate to respond, “I think it was a mistake to go to a shrink that lives two-and-a-half blocks away.”
Sindy always hoped to do something extraordinary with her life. When an honorary degree bestowment wasn’t ever going to happen, she went back to school in her fifties to finish the degree she started right after high school.
University of Michigan scientist Ethan Kross notes that
“…using one’s first name minimizes social anxiety, the fear of being evaluated in a social context—the reason most people hate public speaking. It disables social anxiety not only before the stressful event but, significantly, afterward too, when people tend to chew over their performance and find themselves lacking—what scientists coolly call “postevent processing.”
Workshops are akin to public speaking, though the audience is undeniably supportive. Even so, it remains difficult for Sindy to share some of the more painful memories, but as a writer she knows it will prove both cathartic and creatively fulfilling.