Feb. 06--I feel a little bad about how happy I was when Cheryl Strayed got the flu.
The phenomenally successful "Wild" author -- and inspiration for Reese Witherspoon's latest Oscar nod for the film of the same title -- was scheduled to appear at the Chicago Travel and Adventure Show last month. But she was too sick to board a plane from her home in Portland, Ore., so an event organizer asked if I would come to Rosemont and moderate her talk, which would take place via Skype.
This was a say-yes-now-figure-out-the-logistics-later moment. I adore Strayed's writing and consider her a personal hero for her honest, raw truth-telling and her enviable endurance, both physical and emotional.
So I did what any good professional does: Super Glued the heel of my only pair of sensible pumps and hit the road.
Several hundred people packed the auditorium to hear Strayed and lined up by the dozen during the Q portion, speaking patiently into a microphone wired to her home computer.
A few asked questions about her writing process and favorite travel spots, but mostly they thanked her for helping them heal -- from a parent's death, a divorce, addiction, self-loathing.
"You taught me to forgive myself," one man told her through tears.
I've attended and moderated a lot of author events. I've never seen an audience connect to a writer this profoundly.
"People tell me, 'I feel like I'm watching my life,'" Strayed told me by phone a week after the event. "Bruce Dern took me aside after the movie and said, 'I feel like someone finally made a movie about me.' I thought, 'Bruce Dern sees himself in me?'"
(Laura Dern, daughter of Bruce, plays Strayed's mother in the film version of "Wild.")
Could it be, I asked her, that we're starved for voices that are flawed and vulnerable? Images that have no place on Instagram? Quotes we never see on Pinterest?
"I've always been interested in the inner workings of the human heart and human mind," said Strayed, whose story of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail includes forays into heroin, extramarital affairs and other acts of self-destruction. "Not just the nice, public face we show the world."
Which may be what so many of us connect to: the unvarnished, unprotected version of ourselves that wouldn't mind seeing the light of day on occasion.
"I never felt like my job was to protect myself when it came to my writing," she said. "When I choose to write about something, I'm going to tell you the whole truth, even if it kind of mortifies me. I reveal the most private face I can bear to reveal."
Most of us don't. Real Simple magazine just launched a "Women in Real Life" social media campaign, challenging readers to stop putting their best faces forward.
"It's an attempt to keep us honest in a world where social feeds are often just a constant stream of expertly filtered images," RealSimple.com editor Lori Leibovich said in a statement. "We see this as a unique opportunity to keep us all in check and to reveal our real lives -- the mediocre meals, the whiny children, the lined faces, all of it."
An @WomenIRL Instagram account functions as ground zero.
What a fascinating time.
It's never been easier to share our stories -- in 140-character snippets and artfully cropped photos. But telling them truthfully is terrifying.
"My (writing) students are always like, 'I can't say those things about myself! People will judge me!'" Strayed told me. "But if you only show people your strengths, they'll always be looking for your flaws. When you're transparent -- not just as a writer, but as a person -- it's disarming. It cuts through the traffic."
It also opens you up to scorn and disapproval. Strayed knows; she gets plenty of both. But she says the outraged responses pale in comparison -- and quantity -- to the people who say she changed their lives. I believe her.
"I write difficult truths about myself," Strayed said. "But I'm also pretty loving about myself. I look back at my younger self and think, 'She made some mistakes, but she also did pretty well for herself.'"
Maybe that's what we're searching for, even more than truth: proof that despite our flaws and failings, we're still worthy of love.
hstevens@tribpub.com
Twitter @heidistevens13
