When We're Afraid to Crack Open a Memory

Is it safe to spend time tending each one to see what emerges, or would it be better off left untouched, untapped?

I was ten, maybe, visiting my friend Becky, who lived on a farm down the street where they raised cows, pigs, and ducks. She and I spotted a lone duck egg that had fallen from its nest into the pond. I held onto a tree trunk and leaned out to coax the egg toward us using a long stick, finally pulling it close enough to pluck it from the water.

Becky’s mom said I could have it, and when I asked my own mother if I could try to hatch it, she said sure. So I formed a nest from one of my T-shirts, tucked the egg into an old sock and lay it gently on the wad of fabric. Then I positioned a desk lamp nearby, moving it this way and that until the bulb was close enough to provide warmth, but far enough to avoid igniting the shirt.

When I left for school, I made my mother promise to watch it; I was afraid the duckling would hatch while I was gone and suffocate in the sock.

If I was home, I kept watch. Weeks passed. One, two, perhaps three. The egg showed no signs of life.

Eventually I asked my mother if she thought it would ever hatch. She said probably not. Not after this long.

“Should I crack it open?” I asked.

“You could, if you want to,” she said.

“What’s going to be inside?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it’s not a duck, will it be rotten?”

“I don’t know. You might want to take it far from the house, just in case.”

I cradled the egg in my hands and walked gingerly out to one of the fields in search of the right place. I spotted a big, flat fieldstone that could work. Whatever was in the shell could rest on the rock long enough for me to see it, study it...care for it.

I squatted, held the long-nurtured egg and apologized to the little life it might have been—might be?—and then slowly, lightly, tapped the shell.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry.”

I tapped, but still lightly. Tears came slowly. “I’m so sorry…” tap-tap. “I’m so, so sorry…” tap-tap-tap.

The shell gave way. I pulled it apart gently, as close to the rock as possible, to ease its contents onto the unforgiving surface.

Slimy yolk and whites slid out. It didn’t smell. A goopy, blood-colored spot made my stomach lurch. But…was it fertilized? If I’d regulated its temperature more precisely, might it have formed into a duckling?

I couldn’t bear to look at it.

On my way back to the house, I questioned myself, Should I have stayed home from school to watch over the egg? Should I have bought an incubator?

“What was in it?” my mother asked when I came in the back door.

“Nothing.” I looked at her. “It was just a regular egg.”

“Was it rotten?”

“No.”

I thought of the red spot and I felt a breaking—deep inside.¹

Some memories are delicate, fragile, painful.

Dare we hatch them?

Is it safe to spend time tending each one to see what emerges, or would it be better off left untouched, untapped?

Is the door to that memory best left closed?

Anne Lamott says:

We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must…Most human beings are dedicated to keeping that one door shut. But the writer’s job is to see what’s behind it, to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words—not just into any words but if we can, into rhythm and blues.

You can’t do this without discovering your true voice.²

Our voice lies within the quiet memories we’re not sure how to handle.

We’re afraid of what’s inside; we’re afraid of what we’ll find.

Anne says her students wonder why they have to do this hard, scary work of flinging open those doors and peering inside. Do they have to report on what lurks in those unexplored spaces?

She talks about the “liberation and joy” that comes from that action. “And,” she adds, “the truth of your experience can only come through in your own voice.”³

The truth is behind that door.

“You cannot write out of someone else’s big dark place,” Anne says, “you can only write out of your own.”⁴

So I cradle the eggs.

When I feel ready, I walk them outside and gently tap-tap-tap, fearful of what’s inside.

But ready to crack open the truth.

Dip into Your Story Hatchery

1. What “door in the castle” have you been told to avoid? Write about the door without opening it (yet).

2. Using the other analogy of the duck egg, think of a story that you hope has life in it. You’ve kept it safe but it isn’t emerging on its own. Describe the memory without reliving it, to document it for yourself.

3. If this story a traumatic memory, please check with your therapist to see if your trusted counselor feels you’re ready to revisit it. If it’s something you’ve avoided and you feel the time is right for you and for the story, set a timer for 30 minutes and write. NOTE: This version is only for you, not for the public to read, so write freely.

4. Now that the core story has been written, you can decide when, if, and how you want to return to it and develop it further, adding details and insights…connecting it to other stories in your life to arrive at a deeper revelation.

Want to dive into all the things I offer as a coach? Head over to my Everything Page HERE and discover all the ways we can work together, both free and paid!

1. This short memoir piece is a modified reprint, first written for The High Calling. Reprinted with permission.

2. Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1995 (198)

3. Ibid. (199)

4. Ibid.