Writing Through the Hard Stuff
Author Arune Savage shares a raw and honest reflection on survival, identity, and the power of writing your truth, even when it feels like everything is on the line.
Where Are You From?
It still stumps me when people ask me the question ‘So where are you from?’ and I float away into the corners of my mind flipping through pages of my childhood as if I’m watching a montage. I’m a pavement special if there ever was one, a cultural scramble where I don’t distinguish between my personality traits and imprints of whatever last place I lived in.
Having moved at 10 years old from Lithuania, post the Soviet breakdown to South Africa where apartheid had just been delicately removed, I can’t even begin to describe what my little kid brain comprehended of the experience and I’m not even going to get into my wild family dynamics at that same time.
Learning a new language at that pre-puberty age while you get used to things you’ve never set eyes on before as white bread and special paper just for wiping your butt – toilet paper?! is not something I’d recommend for every kid yet it did prepare me in ways for life that nothing else could have. As much as I struggled deeply with the circumstances I had to deal with without anyone bothering to explain to me what was happening, that’s exactly what made me as flexible and adaptable and able to deal with any random insane situations I find myself in now.
Coming to America
After a challenging childhood and living on the streets as a crack-addicted teenager on the streets of Johannesburg, I figured out an outrageous way to come to America. I won’t give away my entire memoir about how I made it happen but I found myself in USA where I really thought all my troubles would end, because well, it is better there in all ways compared to South Africa.
Less crime, more opportunities, happier people, freedom, etc., etc., but it’s exactly what I wanted to write this book about – the reality that you cannot outrun the lessons that have been set out for you to learn. You can move and you can travel and you can change your house, clothes, job, friends… yet you will still face the same hurdles until you take the time to sit and be with the hurdle and really figure out why it is you are there. Only once there is understanding, acceptance, true recognition of how you need to do things differently, you will end up at the same old dead end where the location might be different but the flavor in your mouth will be déjà vu.
The Story Behind Lost My Mind Here Someplace
In Lost My Mind Here Someplace I tell my tale about all the things I needed to set free, after I learned them, after I paid the price, some much too heavily, but all stemming out of my ignorance, delusional viewpoints and the idea that I could just go to a new place where my problems would melt away.
I share a story that I hope will help someone to leave a relationship that is irreversibly heartbreaking or not end up in that relationship in the first place. Or help someone to realize that the gifts that surround you are enough. To maybe help someone to believe in themselves when you see yourself as absolutely nothing. To know that even when you want to do nothing but take your own life, that there is reason to pause, just long enough to watch a sunrise and find something to giggle at.
Writing Through Hardship
When I completed the memoir I was being evicted from my tiny house that I built myself with my own hands on someone’s land. I had been living there for years off grid without running water or much modern luxuries.
I didn’t let the fact that I was sleeping in a car or tent with my daughter stop me from pitching the book to as many agents and publishers as I could manage at the local library where I could use their wifi. It was months and months before I heard back a ‘please send me the whole manuscript’ and that was the day which was one of the darkest and hardest days I remember and I didn’t believe in angels but maybe then I did. It took almost two years to get to the publication date and I can’t even express how it feels as if the weight of everything that happened to me has been lifted, burned and released.
The Work Continues
And just because I wrote this memoir, just because I’m a published author or that I was able to put my story down on paper from beginning to end, doesn’t mean that my work is done. I’m not at my final destination where my days are permeating with laughter and ease. No, not at all. I’m still facing difficulties that sometimes push me to question what the hell I am doing. But I’m so much closer to being at peace so much more of the time each and every day. I’m able to enjoy being a mother, I’m able to sip a cup of coffee and smile and hold myself with much more tenderness and care and not be so damn hard on myself as I was back in the day.
About the Author
Arune Savage
AUTHOR | COMEDIAN | ARTIST
Star of the HBO Max reality TV show
LOVE OFF THE GRID
Arune Savage, a Lithuanian-born artist raised in South Africa and now living off the grid in Missouri’s Ozarks, has a knack for turning life’s chaos into art. Her memoir, Lost My Mind Here Somewhere, is a no-holds-barred account of her immigration journey that tore apart her fantasy of the American Dream and shoved her headfirst into adulthood—usually with a shovel. She’s the brains behind the Uneven Lanes comedy show and starred in HBO Max’s Love Off the Grid, where she proves that living without running water or flush toilets is the ultimate form of rebellion. These days, she’s building an intentional community of modern-day hippies who prefer dirt floors and open skies over city lights, all while contemplating the absurdity of it all.
CONNECT WITH ARUNE SAVAGE!
WEBSITE: http://www.arunesavage.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/AruneSavageWrites/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/arunesavage/
YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD_ZWHUCS2xVR-FxEELBH0w
ETSY: https://www.etsy.com/shop/arunesavage