Words are magical!

Some years ago I learned that the Latin root of the word, assess, means to sit beside. Today I double-checked and it’s still true.

An online etymological dictionary states—originally of L. assessus, pp. of assidere “to sit beside.”

I’ve always loved that image of assessment for writing memoir, a genre that demands self-assessment and reflection. It’s a cozy and comforting thing to see myself beside myself, noticing and watching, learning with compassion and empathy from a particular experience.

It may be that I’ve just described an incident of my youth in a dramatic and vivid scene. The writing is clear and immediate; it tells what happened in authentic detail. I am reliving that moment as I recall it, but there is no reflection, no self-assessment.

Time to draw up a comfy chair and sit beside myself.

I begin to dialogue with the main character, me. Who am I in that scene and how am I feeling? What am I learning and how am I changing?

Let’s say it is a scene at my first real job after college, working for the telephone company in San Francisco. As the “me” on the job is busy acting the real life scene, the “other me” is watching and taking notes, wide-eyed and caring.

I notice how alienated I am, how confused, how I go through the motions and look around for clues to understand this new workaday environment. How am I changing as the days and weeks go by? How do I adapt and how do others perceive me? When I leave the company to enter graduate school, what have I learned?

Ah! The insights come and my young awkward entry into corporate America becomes more than a story; it’s a memoir—with a wider meaning for the reader.

Another way to describe this split in thinking that is central to memoir is to think of two different voices.

Sue William Silverman explores this dynamic in her recent article. “Finding Innocence and Experience: Voices in Memoir,” published in WOW-Women on Writing: April Newsletter. In Silverman’s analogy, the bare experience is the voice of innocence and the self-assessment is the voice of experience. Read her excellent article here.

But whether I am talking, murmuring, or just taking notes, I still like to think of “me” sitting beside “myself,” warm and cozy, perhaps sipping a cup of tea.