What Becomes You

“How do you write about what cannot be said?”

Hilda Raz and Aaron Raz Link came to visit us at Wells this week. Aaron and Hilda were part of the Visiting Writers Series that Professor Bruce Bennett has been directing for many years with passion and dedication because listening to stories matters.

The book that Aaron and Hilda co-authored, What Becomes You, is the story of a daughter and a mother and then a son often at the window of the kitchen looking out talking and questioning.

At the reading from their book yesterday, they chose passages that they had not read before out loud in public. That is what they said before they began. I was all set to take notes.

Hilda began to read. I wrote a sentence. Stopped. I remembered that readings are for listening, not note taking. I remembered listening to Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde. I remembered listening to John Preston talking about his growing up working-class and trying to lose his accent, which he did. Leslie Feinberg. Minnie Bruce Pratt. Aaron read from their book. I remembered that readings are stories shared. Gifts. Don't take notes.

They stood and read. Sat down. Hugged each other.

Then Q & A.

This book took 10 years to write. How do you write what cannot be said? We used keywords and wrote essays from those: “vision” and “scars.” Curiosity was what made the book possible and patience that is not gracious and not giving up. Hilda had the sex change, not Aaron. Aaron waves his arms around to signal that he did not die, did not disappear, that he was the same person all along. Transformation belongs to everyone. Discontinuity belongs to everyone. How did we get here? Without pictures. Without words. The failure of the scientific method. How do you find what you need to know when there are no keywords to use for the search?