Truth or Imagination?

A friend of mine calls himself a professional liar because he writes fiction. He’s joking, of course, because we all know the difference between lying and storytelling is whether you present your story as truth.

Unfortunately, in the last few years several great storytellers have presented their work as truth and later had to admit they had been writing, if not fiction, at least embellished truth. In some cases it seemed that they had actually begun to believe what they wrote. That can happen. A story repeated often enough becomes indistinguishable from truth even by those who tell it.

And in my many years of observing people, I’ve discovered that truth is somewhat relative anyway. This happens when individuals perceive facts differently because we approach events from the perspective of our own lives and experiences. (If you don’t believe this, just try comparing memories from your childhood with your siblings.)

I remember being asked once if someone was tall or short, dark or light. But from my particular place in the world, pretty much anyone over 14 is tall, and anyone who isn’t a tow-headed blond is at least as dark than I am. So I described the person in question as tall and dark and was later chided because they were of average height and complexion. I had told the truth from my own perspective.

I observed another aspect of the relativity of truth when my mother started showing signs of Lewy Body dementia. Those who have Lewy Body dementia seem to have trouble telling dreams from reality and they tend to misinterpret stimuli. A dream about a power strip catching on fire was so real that my mother poured water on it and told me not to worry about the smell of smoke. (Try being awakened at 3 a.m. by that kind of “reassurance!”) A robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door became person to her—a person who failed to regain consciousness when she moved the robe to the bed. So she called 911 for help. Her reflection in a mirror became a stranger in a room beyond the wall. She couldn’t figure out why they were living with her, but they became an entire family who would leave the children with her when they went to work. She’d leave snacks out for the kids to eat.

I learned very soon not to tell my mother the people she saw didn’t exist. I just told her I couldn’t see them. To her, their existence was truth, and my inability to see them was a simple fact she accepted without question.

And sometimes truths change over time. Once people believed that trees were inhabited by spirits, that nixies lived in the rivers, that fairies danced in the garden under the moon, leaving circles of toadstools to show where they danced. They accepted it as truth. We still can see those circles. Maybe we can’t see the fairies because we no longer believe in the truth of their existence.

On Seeing Half a Fairy Ring

So, what prosaic modern faeries danced last night

On an open lawn beside a cornfield

In East Central Illinois?

Musicians who in olden tymes

Played harps strung with spider web

Must now play fiddle and steel guitar

While they sing wild haunting melodies

'Bout truckin and drinkin beer

Made from honeysuckle like their wines of eld.

Do they yet wear gauzy flowing medieval robes,

Or do they dress in Levis, cowboy boots and Caterpillar caps

And clog around the circle

Left to warn away nosy humankind?

And was the circle left unfinished

Because a few minutes after midnight,

They heard a hot tip

On grain futures and pork bellies to invest

Their hidden treasures in?

No matter. For the day after they danced

The farmer’s son rode by on his tractor

And mowed down all their toadstools.