Poor Willie Gordon

Isabel Allende's husband, that is, the man whose being was filleted for the general amusement of those of us who gathered at War Memorial Auditorium last night. It worked; I was terribly amused, and my mom may have shed a laughter-induced tear or two as well.

Allende was in town as part of the Guilford College Bryan Series, the same program that brought us Toni Morrison at the end of last season. While Morrison used her platform to expound what seemed to be an anti-war message hedged in an analysis of Beowulf, Allende instead spoke of her life and her writing process, focusing particularly on the perforated line between privacy and story telling that most writers, and their families, face.

Rob has certainly taken more than his fair share of ribbing from friends after the publication of columns like this and this, and I happen to know that at least one family member is (wrongly) expecting some sort of public lambasting, whether covertly or overtly done. Indeed, there have been times that my mother, who proofs every column I submit, has asked if I really want to share that particular story with the 200,000+ reader of the News & Record: therapy, domestic abuse, personal vulnerabilities.

Last night, Allende said something to the effect of (and I wish I had written her exact words) our vulnerabilities lying not in that which we share, but the secrets we keep, and I couldn't agree more. The few topics that I have yet to broach with you, darling reader, are those which are too intimate, those about which I am unwilling to accept reader insight, commentary or criticism: kids, my belief system and my future all fall into that category, topics that I avoid in conversation as well.

Unlike Allende, the story matters less to me than the people that might be affected. My pensively waiting family member doesn't read my blog, so I don't risk giving anything away by saying that I have no interest in exposing the secret of those I love nor those who I don't love but would find too much gratification in being captured on the page. Still, I feel my own secrets pressing upon me like a warning: that which we don't share can do nothing but haunt us; there is no thunder stealing like honesty.