In September 2021, I met with my memoir group. We had been meeting together for a year to get our first drafts written. The prompt was a familiar William Stafford poem, “The Way It Is.”
My writing that day gave me insight into what my memoir was about. The poem speaks of a thread that you hold on to as you go through life. Until I wrote my memoir, I didn’t know what that thread was for me. I didn’t know what thread got me through the roughest spots.
The poem’s metaphor helped me tease the connecting thread from the tangled skein. It was like the skein that Ariadne gave Theseus to help him in destroying the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. “Leave a trail from the entrance,” Ariadne said. “Then, you can follow the thread back after you’ve slain the beast. You can return instead of ending your days in the dark loneliness of the labyrinth.”
Symbols of the Story
Writing my memoir helped me figure out what the characters and symbols of the story represented in my life. Since I am the protagonist of my own story, I should be Theseus, but I am not a warrior. We were given warriors as role models through medical school and beyond, but that was never my destiny.
I am Ariadne. I learned from the clever Daedalus, who built the labyrinth. The building was made for cruelty and capture, but I held onto my thread, the thread of teacher, healer, and nurturer.
The minotaur is the antagonist, the villain of my story, the crushing burnout and workaholism that are the culture of medicine, the culture that silenced me when I internalized its rules. My thread helped me find my voice and to find a safe passage.
The End and the Beginning
Who is waiting for me at the end of my thread? Could it be one of the Muses, showing me creativity as self-care? Could I build an anti-labyrinth to help others find creativity? The thread is hard for others to see. Sometimes, I felt like the only physician who could see the thread, but I found community in writers and other group leaders.
Like embroidery floss, my thread is made up of one-ply strands. At first, the strands were separated by trauma, but they found their way together and formed one strong thread. As I get closer to the end of the thread, I see that it will take me past the end and into the next beginning.
