The Great Lie
March 12, 2009
This week in my Creative Nonfiction class I asked the students to free write about a LIE they once told. We talked about lies– white lies, bold/blatant lies, lies to protect someone, lying to ourselves, lies to make someone feel better, hurtful lies, funny lies.
I was quite a liar as a child, though I like to think of it as more honing my story-telling skills.
I lied to my third grade class , telling them that I had a monkey (and this became an essay, “Son of Kong,” published in Pindeldyboz in 2006).
I had a penpal when I was in 4th or 5th grade (inspired by Big Blue Marble, no doubt). She was about the same age, lived in NYC and was an actress (I believe she was an understudy in “Annie,” or so she said…). I was so envious of her accomplishments that I wrote her and told her I was going to be in an upcoming episode of General Hospital. My sister, Andrea, found my penpal’s response in my bedroom and said to me one day: I’m looking forward to seeing you on General Hospital, Bobby!
Doh!
I asked my class to try to analyze, maybe at the end of their free-write, why they told the lie, or rather, what it really meant. Was there some deeper meaning? Some back-story?
Then a few of them read their piece out loud.
One student read a moving story of how in the 1960s his beloved teen-aged older brother was in a car accident that permanently debilitated him. In order to protect his brother’s tough-guy, ladies-man reputation he lied and told his classmates that his brother had been involved in a fight, protecting someone’s honor and that was why he was in the hospital.
Poetry is a Kind of Lying by Jack Gilbert
Poetry is a kind of lying,
necessarily. To profit the poet
or beauty. But also in
that truth may be told only so.
Those who, admirably, refuse
to falsify (as those who will not
risk pretensions) are excluded
from saying even so much.
Degas said he didn’t paint
what he saw, but what
would enable them to see
the thing he had.
(from famouspoemsandpoets.com)
What lies have
YOU told?
Posted in 
March 12th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I really enjoyed reading this. We tell ourselves we don’t lie, but we all do. For whatever reason, we all do baby!
March 12th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I used to lie about my parents. They died when I was 7 and I was tired and uncomfortable and often embarrassed with people’s reactions when they would find out-even when it would be years later…And also, as I got older I worried that my friends parents would think I was wild and irresponsible (that came later:) because I didn’t really have parents and then not let their children play with me.
An example of lying about this was the night I was at a boyfriend’s house for dinner for the first time. He was a few years older than me and his parents were well known and it just so happened that they were having their good friends over that night and they just happened to be our national news anchor and the anchor of another investigative show. I had warned my boyfriend to tell his parents about my parental situation before that night but in true guy form, he did not. So, when the “what do your parents do’ etc questions started i just made up stories (preparing for life as a writer perhaps:) like saying that my mom was a bohemian artist and modeled part-time (really, my mom was a hippy and led an alternative lifestyle and was photographed once for the fashion pages while walking down a Toronto street) and that my dad was an artist who loved to roller skate and record music when he wasn’t working in the ‘dead’ centre of town as a Chartered Accountant (some of that is true…:)
March 12th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I can so relate, Lola. I used to lie about my parents, too. Though more because 1. my dad worked for the government, so we HAD to lie about what he did. and 2. I was always (foolishly) ashamed that my mother had to work, that she wasn’t home baking cookies for us all day and wearing an apron. So I would make up stories about her, too.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
ahhhhhhh:)xoxo
March 26th, 2009 at 6:57 am
I often lie about my scars; though I’m sure I notice them more than other people do, if someone asks, “Hey, where’d you get that scar?” I’ll adjust my answer depending on the crowd, where we are, etc.
Though it’s also why I grew (and keep) a beard – it hides the scars around the corner of my mouth and chin, and reduces the number of people who ask. So I guess, my beard is a lie.