ENCOUNTER WITH SELF
by Joanna Gilman Hyde
The Hawk Deck 12:30pm
I am out of the literal
& metaphoric bed
of My First 52 Years
I have been shedding My 145 pounds
& am down to a proper 136
with two cups of tea
& half a banana left by Eliza
I have suffered a 24-hour fatigue
& wondered if I was not eating enough —
So What Will Become of My
Shredded Manuscript?
(need I remind You, My Audience,
that 2 copies may, with the Luck of God,
still exist)
& if They do not?
I must accept Their Loss
& shed Them as well
Joanna Gilman Hyde 
Are you still trying to track them down?
Funny you should ask — I am always eager to tell people, concerned readers like you, that I have written two letters of request to the holder of one copy wherein he developed into the main protagonist (that’s why I put a finished copy on his desk sixteen years ago). No reply to the letters, but now my husband says he will ask about it when he happens to see The Main Protagonist. (Dr David Hamilton Wilson)
The other possible surviving copy was my father’s, who’s since died, but my step-mother insists the manuscript is somewhere in my father’s papers in the upstairs of her old farmhouse in Vermont. I’ve had various family members offer to look for it, but no one actually has done so. (My step mother made only a cursory check for it, and cannot go upstairs where she thinks it might be found.) I would rather not cross the American border to have to look, but it’s certainly not out of the question.
With a little work you may even have the makings another novel here.
You think so? I get weighed down at the thought — I keep trying to write my self AWAY from my past.
Then please ignore my comment.
It’s just that I started imagining a film in which a woman has shredded a book she wrote and now wants it back. (Lots of allegorical potential here.) However others have their own motives for wanting it recovered, or else ensuring that any possible copy is destroyed. This plot outline could be developed into a great movie in the hands of the right screen writer and director, I think.
Well Ben, the thought weighing me down was if I tried to write it. If someone ELSE wants to, go right ahead. I don’t have any reason to say no (that I can think of offhand).
What about a docu-drama?
That would mean sticking close to reality, and I thought you wanted to not do that. The movie in my head was not about *your* life.
I try to deal with my past by writing about it, but with the book I shredded, even the writing was not enough (the poems help) so I shredded the book in a useless, self-distructive action which served no purpose. Film-making might be another avenue — where I could be somewhat objective about “my” life. (Or anybody else’s for that matter.)