I love memoir, always have. Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, Annie Dillard, even Stephen King. There's something magical about the ability to transform ordinary circumstances into beautiful scenes that teach a deeper truth.
Photo by Christian Gonzalez
Twenty years ago, it seemed the only people qualified to write memoir were the incredibly famous and the I'm-so-disgustingly-rich-I'd-better-write-a-book elite. The rest of us had better keep our mouths shut… or turn our life's story into a novel.
But recently, more “normal” people are writing powerful reflections on everyday life. So what's to stop you and me from joining them?
This logic led me to write my second trade book, a memoir. While writing it, I learned a few important lessons about writing that apply to anyone wanting to communicate a true story.
For a complete guide on how to get started and finish the first draft of your memoir, check out our guide, Write a Great Memoir: How to Start (and Finish) Your First Draft.
Here are my three “rules” about how to write a memoir:
Memoir Rule #1: It Must Be Interesting
The biggest mistake you can make in telling your story is to tell it all. To expose every detail and explain every aspect of what happened. To tell us every word everyone said.
The problem is our stories are rarely as interesting as we think. As my writing mentor Marion says, “Just because it happened doesn't make it interesting.” Your memories always mean more to you than they do to other people.
So what do you do? Bend the truth? Change details? Lie? Of course not.
Instead, you must be deliberate. Cut every scene, every detail, every piece of dialogue that doesn't drive the story forward and isn't directly connected to your central theme.
Memoir Rule #2: It Must Be Thematic
All great writing is thematic. Behind every compelling story, every memorable movie, every interesting documentary is a theme. This is especially true with memoir.
What is a theme? It's a universal idea we all grapple with, something anyone can understand. Good themes remind us of what is right and good and true in the world — or at least, what we would like to be.
A few examples of good themes are:
- Courage in the face of opposition
- The conflict between mercy and justice
- A parents loving sacrifice
The thing you cannot do when writing memoir is tell a bunch of stories. On the surface, that's what memoir appears to be, but it’s more than that. Good narrative nonfiction always connects the reader's heart to a deeper truth.
Memoir Rule #3: It Must Be Personal
Don't make the mistake of thinking memoir is autobiography. It's not. Memoir is about something bigger than you. It's about a part of life we can all connect to.
Ironically, the way you accomplish is by focusing on the small, seemingly insignificant details. Where were you when you realized you were going to be a parent? What flavor of gum was your boyfriend chewing when he proposed? These are the details that mean the most to all us and what make us connect with you, so you can take us somewhere else.
Memoir Changes the World
A good piece of memoir begins with the author's perspective but doesn't end there. It leaves the reader—often implicitly—with a decision to make or action to take.
When millions of college students read Blue Like Jazz, they had a framework for processing their faith in a postmodern world. Thousands began living more adventurously after reading Eat, Pray, Love. And after finishing Same Kind of Different As Me, I was compelled to spend more time on the streets with the less-fortunate.
Good memoir is powerful. It can change lives, if you make it personal — not just for you, but for the reader.
Memoir Is Vulnerable
You know you've done your job when a reader finishes your story about growing up in the Midwest and tells you it reminded her of summers spent in Maine with Grandma.
Great writers work their way into our hearts by being vulnerable, sharing the ugliest parts of their story, the parts any normal person would prefer to hide. (Tweet that?) And that's what makes them so believable.
Ever notice how self-effacing Anne Lamott can be, how crude David Sedaris sometimes is? There's a reason for that. They know their first job is to earn our trust. And the best way to do that is to embarrass themselves, to expose their humanity. How else will we believe them?
If you are going to write memoir, if you are going to share a story that matters, then you must be willing to do the thing that so few people are willing to do. You must be human, at once whole and incomplete. And if you do this well and honestly, we just might let you share some deeper truth.
Need more memoir ideas? Get started with our 10 Memoir Writing Prompts.
What do you look for in a good memoir?
PRACTICE
It’s time for you to write your memoir. Now that you know good narrative nonfiction is about more than where you were or what you were doing, you must pick a theme and begin telling your story. So let’s start:
- Pick a theme for your memoir. What will it be about? Forgiveness? Justice? Redemption? Overcoming fear? Choose something that is true for you and will be for others.
- Choose a scene in the story that is interesting, that drives the theme in some way.
- Write that scene, sharing personal details but also universal truths. Shoot for 250 – 750 words (max).
Post your work in the comments section. And if you post, please be sure to leave feedback for a few other writers.
Check out Jeff's new book, The In-Between, a memoir about how to not waste our times of waiting. Find out more at inbetweenbook.com.
Great advice, Jeff! I’m going to work on writing something now. I’ve always hesitated to do it, but you’ve challenged me once again! 🙂 Loved the book.
Tammy, thanks for sharing this with us in the writers group. This is very helpful. And awesome job with your interview of Jeff Goins on your podcast today!
So cool. Thanks for always stepping up and going for it, Tammy.
Thanks for this post, Jeff – I feel as though I know you from reading your blog posts. Am looking forward to your memoir and will order today!
This post is near and dear to my heart because altho I never planned it, I wrote a memoir in the form of letters to a friend who was dying of cancer – I didn’t know what to give her so sent her pieces of my life, one letter at a time. The letters went around the world and Thomas Nelson published them in a book called “Dear Deb, A Woman with cancer, a Friend with Secrets and the Letters that Became Their Miracle”. Since it wasn’t a planned memoir, I didn’t have a clue about theme until I turned the letters into the book and learned that the theme is a search for love and the surprising ways and places I discovered it. Guess you can deduce now that I’m the one with the secrets…here is one of them:
In 1998, my friend Sarah and I were in England on a walking tour. Before we started the six-day guided hike of the Cornwall Coast, we spent a few days sightseeing in London.
“Stop!” I cried over the groan of the cheery double decker bus that had pulled up in front of us. I yanked on Sarah’s sleeve. “I have to go back. I forgot to do something, and it’s really important!” We had just finished a three-hour tour of Westminster Abbey, the famed seven-hundred-year-old Gothic cathedral in the heart of London. I left the tour tired yet hungry for more. Walking the floor of the Abbey was more exciting than walking the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bob Hope’s and Charlie Chaplin’s hand prints couldn’t compare to standing
over the graves of Darwin and Dickens.
“Did you leave your purse in the washroom again?” Sarah covered her mouth with her hand as the oversized bus coughed toward Big Ben.“No . . . I have to go back to light a candle for my mom.” I’d been lighting candles for Mom in every church I’ve visited since I was sixteen years old. Sarah was aware of her mood disorders and my roller-coaster relationship with her illness. She had seen me get caught in Mom’s web of pain and delusions more than once and how long it took me to free myself from it. For most of my life, I believed I could love her all better. But my love was a bandage that never stuck for long.
The first time I lit a candle for Mom was during a grade twelve field trip to Ste. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec. When the tour guide walked us through the massive copper doors of the town’s basilica, she began the tour by
pointing out the stained glass windows showering multicolored
stars on the pews. My classmates oohed and aahed over the light spectacle, but my eyes were riveted on the pair of towering stone columns near the entrance. They were adorned with crutches, canes, and braces. Hundreds
of them were piled on top of each other, left behind by people who walked away after being healed, each battered walking stick proof of a miracle. I thought if God could help people walk, he might be able to help people be happy.
People like my mom.
“Seriously, Sarah . . . I’ve lit candles and said prayers for Mom everywhere I’ve ever traveled. From chapels in country villages to St. Peter’s in Rome. I even lit one in that manger church in Bethlehem—remember I was there in 1982?” My stomach growled loud enough to hear over the London traffic. We had been on our way to a pub for fish and chips. “So go back.” Sarah plopped down on the bench in front of the bus stop. “I’ll wait right here.” She patted the bench like it was one of her treasured pets.
“Oh, never mind,” I muttered. “Let’s go eat.” I sat down beside her in the space she had patted. “When I think of all those churches and all those candles, it feels like such a waste now.” I looked up at the sky. The sun was making another attempt to worm its way out of the ashen ceiling that had hung over the city since we arrived. “I mean, what difference has it made, Sarah? You
know how she is . . .”
Sarah nudged my shoulder with hers. “Have you ever thought about how she’d be if you hadn’t?”
Nice dialog, nice details. The ending was moving.
thanks, James – means a lot!
Already I can tell Sarah feels like someone I could be friends with.
The easy, personable tone and character details make for a relaxed but vivid reading experience, leaving the reader thinking, ‘I’ll just read another couple of pages’ – that’s when you know you’ve hooked ’em.
thx! And you are right about Sarah, an incredible friend whose calm and wisdom I continue to count on…
Thanks, Margaret. I really appreciate that. Great essay!
This story tugs at the heart all the way through, Margaret. ” . . . my love was a bandage that never stuck for long.” Wanting so badly to help but finding it beyond your power.
The dialog between the two friends rings very true. Good writing.
Thanks, John. I appreciate your comments!
It was the laugh that did it.
It made the hairs prickle on the back of my neck and told my seven-year-old sensibilities something wasn’t right. I was to hear it often growing up and it was always a signal that things were headed in a bad direction; eliciting a Pavlovian unease deep within me whenever its duplicitous joviality filled the air.
It was lunchtime. On the farm we took our main meal in the middle of the day, the hard physical labor demanded substantial re-fuelling the likes of which a sandwich or plate of cold-cuts couldn’t deliver. The kitchen was warm and welcoming; the stove, nestled in her alcove gently heating the bottoms of the two huge steel kettles that lived on her hotplate, circulated the aroma of a hearty cooked meal like a binding promise. I eyed the door to the oven suspiciously – the memory of my mother’s explosive attempt at rice pudding still was vivid, the alarming BANG mid-meal the siren of a surprise gone wrong. I needn’t have worried. Today’s meal would be marked by an outburst of a different nature.
I took my place next to my father at the rectangular pine table that abutted the wall, fingertips braille-reading the scarred yellowed surface while I waited for my plate to be put in front of me. The scent of the outdoors still clung to his overalls and made me eager for the meal to be over so I could run out and play. My legs swung impatiently beneath the table.
My mother laid our plates before us, and sat down opposite me to eat. Quiet ensued and minutes passed as we blunted our hunger. I watched condensation fog the inside of the window-pane behind her as I chewed and swallowed. Comments were exchanged but I wasn’t listening – I was thinking of exploring the mound up by the paddock and visualizing the path I would take to scale it. I took no notice of the adult conversation until loud laughter brought me back to the table. I thought I’d missed a joke but the dialogue seemed at odds with the levity.
Oddly high-pitched and mirthless, my father smilingly cajoled my mother to confess to poisoning his food.
“Why won’t you just admit it?” he wheedled with a forced geniality that seemed out of sync with his line of questioning. Like someone wearing headphones, every utterance was abnormally loud.
“I know there’s something in it. Just tell me. What did you put in it?”
As I waited for the punchline that never came I was suddenly, brutally aware I was sitting next to a man I didn’t know. I didn’t need to look at him to know a stranger had usurped his body, indeed I intuitively kept my gaze fixed on my dinner plate. An animal instinct told me it was best to be invisible. His behavior was artificial; a saccharine coating, intended to mask something sinister, like the banana-flavored medicine with the nasty aftertaste I had when I got chickenpox. Throughout her repeated denials my mother kept her tone light insisting she had no idea what he was talking about, but still the atmosphere was uncomfortable, even to a child, the air heavy with tension the way it is when a thunderstorm approaches. I was glad when the meal was over and I could escape. I played on the mound all afternoon until it grew dark and I had no choice but to go inside for tea. I didn’t know it then, but I’d had my first significant brush with mental illness.
wow, this is an intense scene with a lot of tension – am unsure if the writing made it so fast paced or that I identified with the fear of the first line about the laugh, but I had to read it again because the first time I rushed through it. Some beautiful lines here like: “my fingertips braille-reading the scarred yellowed surface while I waited for my plate to be put in front of me” . Nice work. (btw – I can relate so much – my mother’s first series of electro shock treatments for multiple personality disorders began in the late 1950’s when I was six years old)
Margaret nailed it below. Though, I didn’t tend to speed through it, I did feel the tension. I loved the “banana-flavored medicine” detail. Well told!
This is a powerful piece seen through the eyes of a child. Wonderful phrases, “hairs prickling on the back of my neck”, “circulating the aroma like a binding promise”, “condensation fogged the inside of the window,” air heavy with tension like an approaching thunderstorm.” Thanks for sharing a poignant memory.
“….eliciting a Pavlovian unease deep within me whenever its duplicitous joviality filled the air.” Your words are powerful. I wish there was more.
I love how you describe everything!
Ooh… really good! I love the lede: “it was the laugh that did it.” I was immediately hooked!
Amazing detail! Definitely had me hooked from the start and the detail made me feel as if I were experiencing what you were experiencing. Good job!
You succeed at putting the reader inside the room with apt description of sights, sounds, smells. I like your designation of the oven as “her” — suggestive of the womb, and whose memorable expulsion in the past had been explosive. It helps to build the ominous mood, complete with outward attempts to “keep it light” by the mother.
This is good writing!
I was holding my breath on this one…it was triggering. Great writing!
Wow. Just wow. That is amazing!!
As someone who grew up with a father and stepfather both with mental illness I could immediately relate! I want to read more!
I just came across this site and am amazed….so much talent! Aisha…I loved your writing and I hope that you continue.
Detail really set the scene well and made me want to keep reading.
I want to know more! Good job hooking the reader…
So well said and engaging. Everything we want!
Beautiful writing…
This is awesome, Jeff. I’m in the middle of a memoir of my own and this will be very, very useful.
Very cool!
Excellent post on memoir, Jeff! I appreciate all your points, especially the willingness to embrace our vulnerability and humanness in a way that helps the reader connect their own story with our story. Therein lies the transformative power of memoir. I feel like you did that in WRECKED and I am looking forward to reading your memoir. Best wishes!
Thanks, Kathy! That means a lot.
Perfect advice – mine is coming! Thank you! #SuccessByChoice, my friend!
The Wake-Up Call
I had just typed 30 onto the bottom of the page on the
computer screen when my telephone rang. It was my mom. Dad had tried to hurt
her again.
She had managed to escape and run to the pastor’s house.
When she got back home, dad was gone, nobody knew where, and she was filing for
divorce after 32 years.
I just listened, not saying too much, stunned because the
fantasy world I’d built, the one that said I had had a happy childhood and
everything was fine, had just collapsed under the weight of reality. It really
had happened the way those haunting nightmares kept trying to remind me. My dad
really was sick. He really did hurt my mother and the fear I had grown up with
was just as strong now as it was when I was five, huddled under my covers
pleading for God to make daddy stop throwing mommy around the living room.
I had never told anyone about what had happened, not even my
husband. Every time I saw people on talk shows talk about growing up in abusive
homes, I was drawn to their conversations, but their tales were always so
dramatic and much more intense than I remembered our lives to be. I’d tell
myself, “that’s not me,” and move on with life.
Now, everything I thought I had left behind had resurfaced.
There was no hiding it anymore. When a friend, my editor, had written an op ed
memoir in the paper about her alcoholic father for Father’s Day, something told
me I could talk to her. Suddenly, the dam burst, and I found myself pouring out
to her everything that had always been hiding in my past.
When I was finished, I was surprised at the look on her
face. She was stunned. She said, “that was abuse and it was wrong.”
Not sure why the formatting is so strange, but, oh well.
Very poignant!
This was really vivid and gripping.
Directly and unflinchingly told. Which tells of the firm decision to face the reality. The friend’s words at the end are few but direct, and might have been the best thing she could say. It takes courage to face, and then write about, something like this.
I agree with John’s comments below. Well done. It takes not only courage to face the truth of a childhood like this but also a lot of heart work to let go of the shame that isn’t yours to own. I hope you keep writing like this. Sad to say, but there are many who are unable to stop pretending because the truth of the past it to painful…stories like this helps them let go.
Barbara, what you wrote reminded me of what I used to do to cope…compare my situation to situations worse than mine. I remember going to a therapist and having him ask, “Did he ever hit you?” I said, “No, not closed fisted.” I’ll never forget the knowing look on his face. I did not recognize it as abuse. Very well done!
wow, Linda – your comments stirred a powerful memory of how I used to play “at least” to help cope – at least I have my sisters, at least I had food today, at least I have money for bus fare…thx for the reminder!
There’s a difference between using this as a way to minimize our pain and just telling ourselves the truth, right?
you ask a great question, Linda. Through many years of therapy, one of the things I learned was the difference between sticking my head in the sand (denial) and putting the painful thing aside where I could see it, acknowledge it for what it was, but still wasn’t quite ready to deal with it. Took a lot of practice to rid myself of denial since it was a skill I learned to help me survive my childhood. BUT, like you, that skill helped me learn to be grateful as well – the trick is learning to lose the denial yet hang onto the gratitude. Time and practice…and accepting that all healing is a process.
Yes…thanks Margaret!
This is powerful and I wish I could read on. Very captivating
Details in the beginning were painting a picture, with childhood cries while your dad was sick that made me want to listen.
Great post as always, Jeff.
Thanks, Pilar. 🙂
Jeff–
You make excellent points about writing memoirs that I hadn’t heard before. Thanks for your insights!
Victoria–
You’re welcome, Victoria!
Thanks Jeff — this will actually help me as I prepare to preach a sermon in first-person (Joseph, from Genesis 37-50) this weekend!
Cool!
Jeff, awesome post as usual! I didn’t even realize I was writing a memoir until now. Here’s an excerpt:
In two days, my daughter turns 18 and the years of memories are flickering through my mind. Remembering when I found out I was pregnant at the tender age of 17. Remembering the confusion and concern because I didn’t know what to do. Remembering the moment when I told my mom because I was too scared to tell my dad his “little girl” had messed up.
I told my mom on my 18th birthday, and up until that day, it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life. My boyfriend was supposed to be with me to tell them but he chickened out at the last minute. It should have told me then what I would later find out – he was unreliable and selfish.
But young love (lust, really) knows no bounds and I ignored the feelings I should have listened to. Now, I sit here in a coffee shop quietly typing these words on my laptop. I’m a writer, as I have been since I could hold a crayon (to my parent’s detriment – think of walls, books, and even vehicles desecrated by my childish scrawls). But, for years I let life get in the way of my dream to be a
writer.
The funny thing is I’ve been a writer the whole time. I just wasn’t writing. I used to – a long time ago. I used to pour my heart and soul onto paper. I have never felt comfortable unless I have pen and paper handy, or nowadays a computer. But typing just isn’t the same as scratching a pencil or pen across paper, letting words flow from your mind, swollen with the desires and creations of your heart and soul – at least not to me.
But my choices and an unplanned pregnancy sidelined my dreams; dreams of traveling the world and writing about the interesting people, places, food, culture and so much more. It wasn’t even a conscious decision to let the dream go to the wayside. It just happened. But deep down inside there has always been an intense yearning to write – as far back as I can remember.
Wow! Tried so hard not to cry. Wish I got more on how you survived…how the experience really affected your life and what you’ve been able to do with your life. Guess that’s a suspense I’d have to deal with 🙁
Great one there, Rice!
Thank you! Your response means a lot to me because I wasn’t sure if I should even write this about my life. I really thought “who would care?” but I see now that maybe it isn’t true.
Awesome, Dawn.
My teacher reached out her hand and said, “You follow your heart.”
I was an 11-year-old fifth grader back then when I found myself in a dilemma. Should I take the acceleration exam or join in the journalism contest which would happen on the same day?
The acceleration exam was what my mother wants me to take. If I passed the exam, I would advance to sixth grade and be ahead of my batch. I’d be able to end grade school faster. Of course, I wouldn’t want to disobey my mother.
On the other hand, I’ve already loved writing. The journalism contest would give me an opportunity to share my writing to others and to learn more about campus journalism. When I sought for my journalism teacher’s advice, she smiled. She reached out her hand and said, “You follow your heart.”
In the end, I still took the acceleration exam. I wanted to obey my mother. Luckily, I got very high scores in the first two levels. However, I didn’t pass the third level of the exam and so I didn’t achieve the acceleration. My mother didn’t say anything. I finished fifth grade normally.
When I entered sixth grade, my journalism teacher talked to me again, with the same smile, and asked if I was in for that year’s journalism contest. Without hesitation, following my heart, I told her that I was in. I wrote my sample piece and submitted it to her. That year, I bagged the second place for the Feature Writing Category among the participants from our city’s schools. Although I didn’t win in the next level of that contest, I felt the happiest when I graduated from grade school.
That was 2003. Fast forward to 2013, my teacher’s smile as she reached out her hand and her immortal words still resonate to me. I continue to write, keep up a blog, attend writing workshops, and inspire others. I feel happy now all because of one thing—I am following my heart.
Fatherhood at Niagara Falls
Determined to utilize his free weekend,
Tedeau was up early Saturday morning with big plans for shock and awe. Major
Dad got his troops high and tight with only minimal balking for the early
weekend hour. With Pillowpets, maps, and coffee in tow, our great leader
plotted a course north to see one of the true wonders of America, Niagara
Falls.
The
approach to the falls area speaks well to the story of life. We were traveling
along in the car looking on at what seemed to be a peaceful river. There in the
water, a boundary of peacefulness gave way to turbulence. The farther we went,
the more turbulent the water became. In the distance, we could see the warning
of a great spray of water several hundred feet high where the fall begins.
Our
entire visit to Niagara Falls was a mixture of emotion. We were in utter
amazement of the massive, exhilarating power of the falls, yet nagged by
fear knowing that ultimate danger was mere steps away. I was taken in by the beauty;
Tedeau stood watch as protector of his family. He snapped photos with his phone
and sent them to my father, which drew an immediate response of, “That’s my
babies; don’t let them get too close to the edge.” He sent another message to
his son letting him know how greatly he was missed on this adventure. The
response from my daughters’ message was, “you all look so good!” apparently not
noticing the waterfall in the background.
Little
Bit was thankful that her Daddy had brought her to see the falls, and very
impressed with the pink sun visor he bought her at the souvenir
shop. Blondie carefully chose a snow globe, wanting to bring back
items for each of her siblings, wishing they had shared the day. Sonny enjoyed
the fudge, regretting we hadn’t gotten a larger hunk.
As
we looked through the photographs when we got back to the hotel, the most
noticeable thing to Tedeau and me was the faces that were missing. In this
fantastically beautiful place, we faced the reality that we are given such a
short time to hold our children’s hands, to walk with them, hold them from
danger, allow them to see wonder from the safety of their father’s diligent
grasp. We savor the moments we have been given, and give thanks to our God that
the moments have been so generous in number.
I thought of Dad, and his message, “That’s my babies; don’t let them get
too close to the edge.” Smiling, I had a glimpse of my father’s love, because I
see how my own husband watches both the children and the edge. I thought about
my Heavenly Father and the love he described for his children. “For I, the LORD
your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help
you.” (Is 41:13)
Do fathers ever really stop holding their
children’s hand, moving them from the edge, watching over them? A good Daddy
never will. His love transcends time and distance. Even though
circumstances may bring miles and time between us and our older children,
as we navigate the waters of life, love prayers and watchfulness will endure.
“May the LORD watch
between you and me when we are absent one from another.” – Mizpah Gen 31:49
I enjoyed reading this! It made me think of my dad and how he would hold me so carefully when I was little, such as in the mountains of Big Bend in south Texas when I was four. “See how small the people are? No, now watch the edge . . . ” Your description of “a good daddy” brought back the realization that I had a good one, too. And your description of all the responses from the others is very real and true-to-life.
My self-esteem died when I was nineteen, in a tiny children’s bookstore on the upper floor of an obscure mall.
Nineteen was a strange age to be—as Britney Spears would put it, not a girl, not yet a woman. At that time I thought I could do anything. It had always been my dream to work in a bookstore, and when I took the job as a sales assistant, I never expected that I would only be there ten days. I remember the rickety shelves of picture books, row after row of them, arranged in such haphazard fashion that no one ever knew where anything was. I remember the way the customers spoke to me as if I were barely subhuman, or perhaps a particularly intelligent species of dog, while their toddlers screamed up and down the aisles. I remember counting and recounting the money in the till at the end of my shift, shaking fingers slipping sweat-slick over the rough paper bills, praying that nothing would be missing.
Above all, I remember having a nervous breakdown one night after work with my friends, and passing my tears off as a very bad cold. I remember my shame as I considered resigning —thinking that lots of people put up with crappy sales jobs for years, and that I was just thin-skinned and weak—and my intense, head-spinning relief when I resigned anyway.
At nineteen you think in black and white, and as far as I was concerned, one flop experience spelled the end of all my dreams. My self-image walked into a funhouse mirror and promptly distorted, taking on such glowing terms as Loser. Coward. Quitter. Too sensitive. I had screwed up before, but failure had never bitten so deep, and for the first time I contemplated the idea that there were some things I couldn’t do. In hindsight, that was the year I crossed from girl to woman—the year I first reached out for something and instead bumped my fingertips against my adult limitations, there in that shop where the toddlers screamed and the till always came up short.
Very clear and vivid storytelling as you describe the setting and place yourself in it as you were at that age. I had a similar job once and remember the same condescension from some of the customers — and that same fear of my cash drawer not coming out right. I’d a very fussy boss, and ending up “over” was as bad as coming up “short”.
My very shortest time on a job, at a younger age, was less than a day — due to my ineptitude at handling the money; but that was a gas station so a bit different.
Your writing is very relate-able to the experience of others, and that was one of the main goals here wasn’t it? Good job!
The first sentence grabbed me right away. Powerful image with the children’s bookstore. I felt like I was following Alice down that rabbit hole. Great description of a nineteen year old “you think in black and white”. The last sentence with “bumped my fingers against my adult limitations” is great writing. Thanks for sharing this…
Well said. Great writing!
Great first sentence. “My self-esteem died at the age nineteen in a tiny children’s bookstore on the upper floor of an obscure wall.” What a great way to describe it. And the words “my self-image walked into a funhouse mirror and promptly distorted.” Terrific way to show how it felt.
Great writing. I think we’ve all had at least one of these kinds of jobs– where there’s little or no training and we feel lost and belittled by customers and especially by the “boss”.
I guess your theme would be the quest for finding your confidence…
thanks for sharing, I could relate to all of it.
~Tara
Joe, I’m late getting to your blog this evening, and I hesitate to post my practice for the reasons having to do with vulnerability that you mentioned, but this lesson is *exactly* what I needed for what I’m trying to write. So thank you and here goes: (My chosen themes are forgiveness and redemption.)
********************
As soon as the security guard appeared at my cubicle and said, “Sir, you’ll have to come with me,” I knew what it was. I tried to blank out all thought on the elevator, and as soon as the guard ushered me out into the elevator lobby the detective stepped up and placed me under arrest. I made my feet and legs move, feeling so shaky as to be in danger of falling. Out on the sidewalk, from the corner of my eye I could see casual acquaintances from the building slow their hurried trek back to their offices to watch as I put my hands behind my back as instructed, handcuffs were locked snugly in place on my wrists, and I was placed in the rear seat of the unmarked gray Chrysler.
The thing is, I told myself as the driver walked around the vehicle to get behind the wheel and two detectives settled themselves on each side of me, I’m still a good person. Never have I not been. I know why I’ve done the things I’ve done. But my half-baked notion of criminality-as-social-protest just isn’t working out. All too predictably. Not having the desired effect at all. Martin Luther King, Junior, I am not. Then the coherence of my thoughts took a nosedive. What would the rest of this day be like?
As the car started forward, the small, dark detective to my left with the features of someone perhaps from India or whose family had been, his small black eyes snapping, jiggled the back of the driver’s seat and hissed, “Officer. Officer. Seat belt.” I ducked my head to stifle a sudden, inappropriate giggle.
The other detective, a large muscled man with an Italian name on the badge ID he’d flashed, started a parody of a friendly conversation — “Yeah, I don’t know exactly what this is about but I’m sure they’ll get it cleared up in no time.” Facing ahead, swiveling his face in a bored, condescending circle like a graduate student mistakenly assigned to a class of seventh-graders, he asked an innocuous question about how life had been treating me, and while I was still answering, swung that large face, leaned in and rapped out in rapid fire “what-kinda-car-do-you-drive??”, glowering, and I answered, “Seventy–” before I made myself shut up. The rest of the ride was taken in silence.
Forgive myself, I thought, would be the first thing.
Then maybe, just for my own sanity, forgive these detectives; I’ve never met any of them in my life, and they’re just doing their job. And I’m wrong — wrong with reasons (“like everybody else,” spoke up a little voice in the back of my mind) — but still wrong.
It just may be a long road back.
A writing mentor taught me that the most tender, private things locked deep in our hearts have the most universal appeal. She said the best writing, the best stories come from our mistakes, fears and yearnings. When I wrote my life stories to my sick friend, I thought the hardest one to write would be about getting caught shoplifting at Target when I was 48 yrs. old. But it turned out that story made me laugh because it happened at a time I was so broken – the most difficult one to write involved one sentence: “All my life, I felt I wasn’t good enough to love” Yet, it was so freeing to see those words on the page and know they were a lie I’d believed…Thx for your story, John. Would like to read the rest…
Margaret, thank you so much for your comments, I read them saying “Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . .YES!” Thanks for the encouragement to continue.
The “theme” is the hardest part for me, everyone! So many different things happened over my life…but I think the theme may be that freedom comes with a price, which was the title of this snippet of my memoir…
We’re born with a desire to be free. Thankfully, we have parents. Otherwise, we would not be long for this world. There’s too many dangerous things around, like electric sockets and fast moving cars. If we didn’t have adults to watch out for us, we just wouldn’t survive. Parents are there to keep things in check. They feed us, clothe us, make sure we take a bath, brush our teeth and get to school on time. Someone, usually “mom,” keeps the house reasonably clean. And if we started coming home out of our heads with Testor’s glue all over our mouths and hands, someone in our household would notice and maybe make a comment.
One night I awoke with a start. One of the thousands of cockroaches that crawled around the floors of our house in the dark was crawling across my face. I swiped it away, hearing the crackling of it’s shell as it flew off into the darkness. Why didn’t someone do something about this? I had to pee, and knowing I would have to walk across the top of my bed, turn on the light, and watch an army of them scatter in all directions before I could walk to the bathroom made me want to hold it in as long as possible. I lie there in the dark, willing myself to go back to sleep. I thought about my sister, lying in the other bed across the room, her unwashed hair full of fleas and her legs bitten from top to bottom. I felt angry and afraid.
It was getting harder to make myself go to school. But I showed up dutifully, still attempting to do my best. On the long walk home I stayed lost in my thoughts, but the closer I got to our house, the relentless anxiety would take hold, starting in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to race home and yet never arrive at the same time. Once at the door, I would try the knob, and if it was locked, that familiar feeling of dread, the rush of adrenaline and fear of what I would find, kicked in. I knocked. I rang the bell. I knocked louder. Then I walked around the side of the house to the kitchen door and tried that knob. If it was locked I went through the gate and found a place to pee in the backyard, not able to hold it any longer. I climbed up on the garbage cans and tried the kitchen window over the sink. If I was lucky, it was unlatched. I crawled in over the faucet and watched my mother sitting upright in the kitchen chair, unable to lift her head or open her eyes. She was plastered again. I seethed.
But absent, neglectful parents meant I got my first tastes of freedom early. I was free to eat what I wanted for dinner as long as my mother had money in her wallet to steal. I was free to sneak out of my bedroom in the middle of the night and go wake my brother so we could walk the streets for a couple of hours, smoking the cigarettes my father had bought for us the weekend before. I was free to steal my parent’s alcohol and smoke marijuana, try my mother’s Darvons, sniff glue, and generally, come and go as I please. But I really didn’t want all this freedom. I wanted someone to take care of me, reign me in. The neighborhood moms had stopped letting their children play with us long ago. We were on our own.
Very impressive article. I have read each and every point and found it very interesting
Jeff,
Thanks for this great post! I especially liked, “…you must be willing to do the thing that so few people are willing to do. You must be human, at once whole and incomplete.” Wow, that’s how I feel most of the time.
I’m new to the world of blogging, so thanks for helping to open my eyes. Keep it coming, Jeff!
Here’s the bit of memoir that you helped kindle this morning:
She won’t admit it, but my 10th grade substitute English teacher fueled me to write for the last 26 years.
The first teacher took ill and had to take a sabbatical. I think that maybe we kids gave her a nervous breakdown. Then “Mrs. E” showed up in a big fur coat and bleached blond hair that lit up the classroom. She had style and flair and had seen the world.
She spoke poetry, the words gliding off her tongue with authority and flavored by cultures and a life truly lived. She captivated me, the habitual daydreamer, the proficient procrastinator, expert excuse-maker. She made me want to l-i-s-t-e-n and to bring those dreams to life on paper.
She pulled me aside one day after class. I thought that I was in trouble, because she looked at me like a raptor sizing up its prey. She said, “Dustin, I don’t want you to do your homework. I don’t want you to take the tests. I don’t care if you pay attention in class. Just keep writing and turn it in to me—you are guaranteed to get an A.”
Immediately, I felt like a secret service agent. I told no one of my special status, not even my parents. Can you guess which class was my favorite? And I seriously hated English class. With a single conversation, “Mrs. E” turned drudgery into life and gave me permission to love what I was born to do.
I can still feel my heart thumping in my throat as I pumped the old Huffy pedals as hard as I could to get to her house to share the latest story. That summer break we made a deal: if I shared what I wrote with her, she would share what she wrote with me. I wish I could get this squeaky bike going faster!
She taught me that poetry isn’t just about life. Poetry is life. The way that you shape your life comes from deep within you. Words come from the same place. They come from your soul and you are helpless to change it. You are a fool to try.
I learned that poetry is something to give away. And that life is to give away. Poetry and life are children of the same womb. When you give them freely, as my first mentor does, everyone grows.
To this day I am grateful to the poet who helped shape me. It is rare to hear of a teacher that has the courage to break the rules like that for the growth of her student. I saw her a few years ago at a poetry reading that she organized. She still works hard to inspire writers, to give life. I shared with the group how she changed my life. She denied it. “No, no. I did nothing of the sort,” she drawled.
Then she got that look of a hungry raptor again. I was sure that I was in trouble this time! “No, Dustin.” She said proudly. “You were just an excellent student.”
I’m good for the next 30 years.
Excellent, Dustin.
Samaritan House
(1)
After finishing my second rehab I was accepted to Samaritan House. I sensed there was some hope there; more than anything else it was a bed–I had nowhere to go, and no money for a room. It was downtown, and that excited me because I could walk to my aunt’s house, and visit her during the day.
There were two counselors, Mike B., and Tristan. They were both in recovery, I didn’t know about the Director, he was kind of a quiet guy, my interview with him only took ten minutes. There wasn’t much talk about him in the house. Mike B. was my man. He was a pleasant guy in his thirties who got married during my stay; athletic, white, like the rest of us.
Then there was Tristan. Every weekday at noon I attended a large Alcoholics Anonymous meeting downtown. Annapolis was the state capitol; half the gathering was made up of lawyers and lobbyists who got caught with their pants down. I became friends with a used car salesman who offered the group a 15% discount to atone for his past misdeeds. I led the meeting a couple times, opening my story with the familiar, “Hello. My name is Mike and I’m an alcoholic.” Tristan led it frequently and he opened with the statement, “My name is Tristan and I have an IQ of 186,”
There was no doubt in my mind he did, but it was a precept of the AA program that the prospects engage in as high a level of humility as they are able. The lawyers loved his opening, but I didn’t get it.
(2)
There was a demeaning system for transgressions. The night counselor wrote up our demerits, and we would wake to find them left publically on display on the beautiful cherry table in the lobby. I cooked part time at a carry out at night, and I barely finished in time to get home by 11pm curfew. This was usually Tristan’s shift and for a long time he didn’t write me up; if I was a few minutes late, he let it slide.
(3)
Mike B. told me I had a “huge ego and no self esteem.” This bothered me no end; I could see having one or the other, but not both at the same time. I had seen a therapist in rehab who told me I had little self esteem, but it was unbelievable to me that I was an egotist, I helped people all the time, sometimes to my detriment. He said, “Yeah, you help people, but to feed your ego.” He called me a ‘people pleaser,’ one of those nebulous phrases from AA. I didn’t like this, I felt he was calling me an ‘ass kisser.’
At the six month point in my stay, I was required to sit down in front of a tribunal, the Director, Mike B., and Tristan, to ask for an extension to my stay. If they would have bumped me, I still had nowhere to go, so I was pretty anxious. When they asked me what I thought about going without demerits for so long, I said, stupidly, “I just want to be treated like all the other guys.” The Director called me a ‘people pleaser’ again. Tristan said I was too green to lead the noon meeting. They let me stay for another six months, but the shakedown stuck with me.
(4)
I came in from work at ten minutes after eleven. Tristan just said, “Good Night,” but there was a demerit on the table in the morning with my name on it, signed by Tristan, for coming in after curfew. I was very upset about it and asked him why that night, and he said, “You said you just wanted to be treated like the other guys.” We had regular chores and the next morning there was a write up because I left streaks on the bathroom mirror. Soon I had enough demerits to push me close to being bumped out of the house. I was continually anxious.
(5)
I went to the liquor store close to work and bought a cold six pack of Colt 45’s. There was a small field behind the shopping center that had a single tree in the middle of it; I sat beneath it and drank them all. Afterwards I went to work, but the boss smelled the alcohol and sent me home. I went back to the house and did my chores, and one of the guys must have ratted on me, because Tristan came into my room just as I lay down, and said, “Blow into this.” I did and then rolled over and faced the wall. He exclaimed, dancing, “Oh, Happy Day! Point-oh-one! You’re out of here!” I asked him without looking at him, “Can I leave in the morning?”
(This is a blog post I wrote last year after Mom passed away.)
Just Let Me Feel Bad
There is a scene in “Ordinary People” where Conrad is talking to Dr. Berger after Karen has killed herself. Dr. Berger is trying to console Conrad, but it’s not working. Finally, Conrad explodes in frustration.
“I feel bad about this! I feel really, really bad about this. Just let me feel bad about this.”
This morning I couldn’t settle on a blog topic, so I went outside to help David deal with the two dead trees he felled earlier in the week. He’s become a real Paul Bunyan, except with a chain saw instead of an axe.
Stacking logs and piling up limbs takes physical effort, but it leaves the mind free to wander. I had gone through my prayer list a little earlier and started thinking of all the sad things that have happened in the three weeks since Mom died. Three friends lost their moms, my aunt lost her best friend, and another friend lost her son. At least three
friends have parents who are in their final stages, and three more are battling
a recurrence of cancer. I could go on, but you get the idea without my dragging
you down into a deep depression. The point of my mental wanderings was not the
tragedies themselves, but how can I best help and support my friends when they
are going through trying times?
When I was growing up, my family didn’t deal well with emotions, in fact, we didn’t deal with them at all. We denied, avoided, and otherwise swept them under the proverbial rug. As a result, I feared emotions and made it my mission in life to be sure everyone I knew was in a constant state of euphoria. I was a champion Pollyanna, the queen of Don’t feel bad. Just smile and it will be all better. After lots of counseling experience, both as a counselor and a counselee, I’ve learned that doesn’t work. The bad feelings are there because it’s a bad situation, and feeling bad is part of the healing process. This morning as I worked, I continued to think about the subject, but I wasn’t sure how to develop it into a post.
After a couple of hours of dealing with dead wood, we cleaned up and went to the Senior Center for lunch. One of the regulars has a beautiful voice and loves to sing, and sometimes she brings her boom box and serenades us. Today was one of those days, and she sang a number of old-time gospel songs, all of which seemed to be about Mama and Heaven. It wasn’t long before the tears were flowing. Some were tears of sadness and loneliness, and some were tears of joy that Mom is “all better” now, but all
were tears of healing. Nobody took much notice. My friend across the table shed
some tears of her own, partly sharing in my grief but partly remembering her own
mother and the child she lost way too soon. David brought me a dry napkin when
mine became a soggy mess, and he draped his arm gently around my shoulder. But
nobody told me not to cry.
When it was time to leave, I went over and hugged the singer. She had seen my tears and held me in a comforting embrace.
“You know, we buried my Mom three weeks ago,” I said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
And then she listened as I told her a few stories about Mom, and she shared a couple of stories of her own. As we bonded in the sisterhood of grief, I felt validated and affirmed.
Now that I’m home, my eyes feel scratchy and puffy, and I feel drained. At the same time I feel strengthened. I know I will cry more tears and feel more grief, but in time the wound of Mom’s loss will become a scar where the wound has healed. For now, I’ll continue to cry and tell my stories. And I will bring you dry napkins, listen to your stories, and offer a shoulder to cry on when your sorrows come.
I made my world debut in 1976. I was told that my mother gave birth to me, aided by a local midwife, in a two story wooden house which sat in the heart of a pulsating, vibrant and culturally diverse city. She called this house a “home” for a few years, paying rental fee month after month while she sometimes stayed at home to care for me and on nights when it was scarce, she worked as a bar girl.
Thecircumstances surrounding my birth are like pieces of a puzzle to me even to this day. I was told that on the night I was born, I had to be rushed to the
hospital because I had congenital pulmonary issues and my fingernails and
toenails were blue, hence I grew up knowing that I was born a blue baby.
Apparently, another woman helped my mother that night and that woman became my mother just a few months before I turned seven. No, I wasn’t adopted. I was given up.
My first mother – let’s call her Anna – met my father when he was already married. Well, Anna fell in love despite the knowledge that Papa already had a family and could never make an honest woman out of her. Thinking about it now, it’s probably in the genes, this stubbornness and this devil-may-care attitude. I see myself in Anna often and it scares the living daylights out of me because, truth be told, I do not want to be like her. Anyway, Anna and Papa’s love affair seemed to have flourished because it produced me. I am a “love-child”, their love-child, and whether I was a welcome surprise or not was a mystery that I sought out to solve. There were a lot of times when I felt that Papa hated me. I could not remember a time that he ever carried me on his lap or sang me lullabies. I could not even remember him talking to me.
Much like the circumstances surrounding my birth, my childhood memories were also like jigsaw puzzles that I struggle to piece together. When I try to remember, all I could come up with are bits and pieces of memories that I could not string together in chronological order. I see faces – women, men, and children. I see places – a nipa hut, a large square space that had no rooms, I see my father shaving my mother’s head, I see my mother crying, begging my father to let me out of this big family home so she can take me home with her, I see a man who owned a television store, I see a man who bought me new clothes for Christmas and spent one Christmas eve with me and Anna in our apartment. I see Anna, drunk and in a fit of drunken rage being dragged by four men into a room with mirrors and dresses lying everywhere. I
see Anna and her friends sitting in our “living room” smoking pot. And then I see Anna banging her protruding belly on the wall. None of my early
childhood memories were consistent; there were always different names,
different places, different faces and different surroundings. Thinking about it
now, I was probably shuttled in between one caretaker to another more than I
ever spent time with Anna.
But I loved her. I loved her with all the love that my tiny being could muster.
Anna was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on…
——-
Hi everyone! I’m researching on how to write a memoir and Google took me here. I thought I’d share what I have so far. Please feel free to let me know what you all think. Thanks!
BUSY, THE CIRCUS BEAR
I walk past Charlie staring at the kitchen sink and head straight into the bathroom. He doesn’t realize I’ve come in; he’s still zooted out. I have some time. The door to the bathroom doesn’t close all the way. It just wedges shut in the frame. He took it off its hinges once to get at me. It’s been rehung, but not right. All the doors are like this. The cops gave me a phone number while Charlie was in jail. A place to call and get the locks changed.
“The lock is fine,” I told them. “I need someone to fix the door. It’s busted right off the wall. Do you have anybody who can fix that?”
I remove my coat and lay it on the floor. I sit on the ledge of the bathtub. I have a new gallon bottle of wine, plus two beers in a bag. Five single boxes of Sudafed. Under the sink, there’s a little left in last night’s bottle and a plastic cup. Plus two smaller empties. I have to get rid of these; there’s no more room under here. I pour out the remainder of the wine and put the big spent bottle in the shopping bag from tonight’s purchase. I wrap the others in toilet paper so they don’t clink together, and I fold the top of the bag over. I don’t want anyone to suspect that I drink this much. I replace the fresh jug of Carlo Rossi to the back of the cabinet. It makes me feel good to have new things, even though this will be gone before tomorrow.
I pop twelve or so little red pills from their foil and swallow them down. I take these all day, every day when I can’t get real speed or cocaine. I go to different drug stores to buy them. I stop at Duane Reade before work and Rite Aid at lunchtime. I like to always have enough, somewhere between 80 and 120 a day. I grind up a dozen more with the heel of my shoe and snort them off the lip of the sink. They make my nose bleed bad, but so what.
This room is tiny. I painted the whole thing navy blue, back when Rusty lived here. Right over the tile and mirrors. I thought it would look cool. It feels like being inside of an eyeball. Portions now, peeling off in sheets. Like a bear, slashing its way out of a lousy tattoo. I turn the water on and pop a beer open quietly with my finger over the hole to disguise the ‘pfft’ sound.
I hear Charlie banging pots around outside. He’s hungry when I get home. Chuck has no steady job. He works day labor – moving furniture, laying blacktop. He and his cousins steal and strip cars. He earns just enough to get high and sometimes buy groceries. A carton of eggs, cheese, a box of instant mashed potatoes. He prefers soft food because his teeth are loose. I smell butter burning in the pan. I know I’m hungry but I have no appetite, really.
I dump a handful more pills into my mouth; I tear the foil at the perforation and put the rest in my pants pocket. I open all the decongestant boxes and cram the remaining three sheets of pills into one box and stuff them back in my knapsack. I fold three empty boxes into the fourth and drop that into the shopping bag with the empty wine bottles. I like to be organized.
I pee and wash my face. I put my coat back on. “Hey,” I mumble quietly at Charlie’s big, angry shoulders. “I’ll be right back,” I suggest, already on my way outside. “We have no bread.” As I walk up the street to a different liquor store, I drop my garbage into the dumpster behind the Roy Rogers.
In February of
2012, Angela and I stood in court again to finalize the guardianship of Kaylee,
my granddaughter. Because of an issue in
Angela’s past, it was deemed that her presence was by no means to be permitted around
Kaylee until certain conditions were met.
What a blow! That meant overnight
visits at our house were out, and there would be no going to the parks. Angela
could not participate in Kaylee’s upcoming birthday or even Skype with her on
the computer. She handled it by going
to an AA meeting. I handled it by having
a drink with my dinner. After a couple
of weeks, my dinner drinks extended into the nights. Then they started at lunch. Pretty soon I was
in full swing and drinking every day.
And of course, drugging. It is
amazingly easy to get prescription drugs.
It is actually easier to get them on the streets than in your doctor’s
office. Angela was resolute. She followed the court’s suggestion and
attended an anger management class. I
drank. At the end of April, the court reversed its decision and granted Angela
the ability to be around Kaylee with no restrictions. I still drank. I mean, why stop now? Let’s
celebrate!
After a 6 day mega binge in May
2012, I woke up at the crack of 2:00 in the afternoon and looked around the
room for Angela. I saw her sitting on
the floor between the bed and the closet, with tears running down her
face.
“Honey?” I asked.
She looked at me and said, “I don’t want to
live life like this with you. I have been up watching you breathe. You scared me last night. You drank an entire liter of rum and took 25
lortabs within 3 hours. I don’t want to lose you”
Last night? Hummmmm, lemme think…..NOPE! Don’t
remember anything. Seriously. Not a
thing. I remember leaving our apartment
and going to the pool. End of
story. I had never had a blackout
before. I had heard of them, of course,
but had never experienced one.
Apparently, the cocktail of rum and a slew of Lortabs afforded me the
opportunity to experience this phenomenon.
I tried
to sit up to talk to her, but being vertical was absolutely out of the question
without my head swimming. As I laid back
down, I looked over at her and saw her pain, fear, and desperation, and I just surrendered. I truly surrendered everything I had and gave
in to the knowledge that this disease was going to kill me. After 3 years in the program, Angela knew
where we needed to be, and at 5:30 that evening we were sitting in chairs at an
AA meeting. We stopped working at the pizza place and went to 60 meetings in 30
days.
On June 15, 2012, Angela graduated
from Tulsa Welding School with top honors, and we hightailed it back to the
farm. We re-joined our Texas group and
have never looked back. There were lots
of times in my life when I fantasized about how I would like my life to be, but
I am here to tell you……nothing I ever
imagined was as good as my life actually is.
There is an AA promise that says, “You will know a new freedom,” and I do. I wake up every day and do not think about
where I am going to get the money to buy for my addiction. I wake up not
worrying about what I did the night before.
I wake up with NO secrets that need to be heavily guarded. I wake up with the realization that I am who
I say I am, and nobody has enough control of me to tell me any different. I wake up next to my best friend and partner
in life, and I am happy to be there.
I wish I
could tell you that the urge to drink or use went away and never reared its
ugly head again. I WISH I could. But now
when it happens, I get an immediate thought of sobriety and all that I have but
could lose were I to go down that road again.
Jiminy Cricket’s voice is louder than my addiction’s. I never in a million years would have thought
that was possible.
As we
re-joined our Texas group I reached out (like I was supposed to) and got in
touch with someone who had been recommended to me as a sponsor. Her name was Leslie and she accepted me after
a long conversation about my goals and my feelings of determination. We sat down and mapped out a plan of attack
along with an estimated time schedule for each step. It was time to get serious.
This is such a moving story. With never having an addiction problem myself, I have no idea what it would be like. But after reading this, I felt as if I was right there with the author. Loved it! Want to read more……….. thank you Chatterbox!
Thank you so much for the feedback! I will post more.
Let’s play a game. I will describe something to you and you guess what it is. Ok?
Description: It drains peace and happiness out of the air around it; it glories in decay and despair. If you get too close to it every good feeling and happy memory will be
sucked out of you. If it can, it will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…..miserable and depressed. It is intelligent enough to be greedy, therefore holds no true loyalty except to whoever can provide it with enough feed for the moment. The very presence of it can make the victim’s surrounding atmosphere grow cold and
dark, and the longer it is around the stronger the effects.
For those of you who have read or seen “Harry Potter” you are saying to yourself…..”A Dementor! It’s a Dementor!” Nope. I am talking about my grandmother.
After mom left us I grasped onto any connection I could that stemmed from her. Some were positive (my aunt) and some weren’t. But regardless, I held on tight to each one because of the ties that they held to mom. When Mom left us, she did not have a very
good relationship with my grandmother (her mother). I knew some of the details, but really she kept the details between herself and Dad. Mom was such a lady that she wouldn’t say “shit” if her mouth were full of it, much less speak ill of a family member
in front of us kids. In the past 20 + years that Mom has been gone my relationship with my grandmother has morphed into true illness. I know that other females in our family have had to endure the kind of mean spirited passive-aggressive venom that takes the place of her words that I have. Of course, my aunt (as she is the eldest and therefore has been around longer) has been the recipient of more mind bending insensitive scorn than I could ever imagine and not wind up in daily therapy. I haven’t compared notes with my cousin but the abuse has been alluded to by others. And of course there is me. Her favorite cause. Her favorite emotional punching bag. It took me YEARS to be able to admit to myself the extent of the damage that I have allowed her to do. I am not sure why. What was the reason that I let her have so much influence on the way I thought about myself? If ANYONE spoke to me the way that Mimi felt free too I would have cut them out of my life, dismissed them as “Looney” and would have pressed on. No grandmother should ever begin any sentence to a grandchild with the words “You
are NOTHING but….” (fill in the blank with your favorite loser activity.)
Somehow along the way, after I had moved to Oklahoma, got divorced and came out of the closet (I believe that would have made me around 32- ish) I called and visited Mimi on a regular basis. My cousin and aunt were still pretty involved with her so she didn’t need me around very often, but they had a change of heart after they closed down the house on 16th street and moved her to the condo. I am still not sure of the details of all of that….but after hearing and knowing what Mimi is capable of…..I am sure I don’t ever need to. I understand. ( I feel ya sistas! ) After they decreased their involvement in her
daily life she turned to me. Slow and sure I succumbed to the control of my grandmother. I eventually called her every single day of my life, rain or shine, work or not, well or ill. Some conversations were pleasant, but most were subliminally destructive. Even at damn near 40 years old, I was often told of all the wrongs that I did and how I should correct them. From the way I spoke, the way I dressed, the way I interacted with people and of course the people that I chose to be in my life. For example: As a critical care nurse, I wore scrubs to work each day. I was often told that I
looked “low class” because I didn’t wear traditional old fashioned, starched “Nurse’s Whites”. I worked nights because I enjoyed the emergent nature of critical care at night but to her I was “NOTHING but an overweight nurse that needed to be hid on the night
shift. “If you would just lose weight you would be someone they would be proud to
have on the unit during the day when all of the Doctors were around.” Yada yada
yada. After I left nursing I was fortunate enough to be in a relationship that afforded me the opportunity to stay home and take care of my family and begin my writing dream. At that point… I became “NOTHING but a maid and a servant and I was spoiled because I was never made to pay for anything on my own.”
It was in the year 2009 ( I think) I had had about as much as I could stand and
didn’t call her for 3 days because I needed a break, and on the 4th day there was a knocking on my front door. So naturally I opened it and there stood a cop. The sleepy groggy feeling of being awakened in the middle of my night left immediately.
It was replaced by sheer panic. My blood ran cold and my heart stopped.
What had happened?! Was something wrong with one of my children?! OMG! Nope.
They were all well. He informed me that he was at my door to perform a “welfare check” on….who? You guessed it! ME! Yep! Officer Do-gooder was responding to a
call from a “very sweet sounding old lady that was just worried sick because
she hadn’t heard from her granddaughter.” (I wondered to myself, “exactly how much grandeur does one need to display while one is pulling her manipulative strings?!) Oh really! Does it matter that she has made absolutely NO effort to contact me? Not one phone call, not one message left. Just a cop at my door wondering what I was doing that was so important that I couldn’t stop it for 3 minutes to let “that sweet little voice” know that I was alright and not to worry. I said “ok! Ok!” I will call her right
now. Never mind that it was the 5th straight day of working back to back 12 hour shifts. Never mind that it was in the middle of my night. And never mind that quite frankly….I was tired. And not impressed that there was
an officer of the law at my door playing the role of Jiminy Cricket. But I called.
The first thing out of her mouth was “Debi Kaye, where have you been?” I worry that someone has grabbed you and taken you away from that hospital parking lot that you are in at night and all alone. (I am going to paraphrase here….) “After all that I have done for you, NO BODY has loved you like I have loved you and this is how you treat me. I was so worried that I was sick to my stomach.” When I asked why, if she were that worried, didn’t she just pick up the phone and call me? Her answer? “Why SHOULD I?! I am the Grandmother. You should be grateful enough to call me” OH. Silly me. I got
chewed on for a few more minutes and the phone call ended with her telling me
how much she loved me and that she would talk to me tomorrow. I felt guilty for not checking on her, weak for letting her push my buttons and childlike for feeling like at damn near 40 years old I needed to answer for my behavior! Deep sigh. And she did hear from me. I regained contact with her every single day of my life, rain or shine, work or not, well or ill.
The extent of the damage will be talked about for pages to come, but I wanted to do a kind-of “preface” to stories. I will own up to my part of the situation (staying in an unhealthy relationship) as long as you PROMISE to not respond using any sentence that begins with the phrase “She just….” IE “she just meant she was worried. She just wants to see you succeed. Etc etc etc. blah blah blah. The person that the rest of my family talks to on a sporadic basis is not really their true grandmother. The person that they talk to on a sporadic basis is an old woman trying to get into heaven. The one and
only way to honestly know my grandmother is to be part of her life on a daily basis. In that realm, she drops all pretenses of kindness and controls everything around her, sucking the life from the room to feed her sadness and disappointment of the way her life really turned out. She is very disappointed that she is alone. Plain and
simple.
And for a very long time, that made me feel guilty. So I allowed it to control my emotions and basically my life. I wanted/needed a connection to my mother so badly that I was willing to endure the meanness. Was I experiencing the same kind of treatment that my mother did? Did she walk away? No. The relationship was strained, but it was still in fact, a relationship. When I was with Mimi I never had to say anything like: “I wish you had known my Mom. She would have loved this!” She already knew. She could tell me stories about my Mom as a little girl and funny things that had happened when I was a
baby. But the good stuff was wrapped up in the bad stuff, and the bad stuff is sometimes just plain easy to believe. I wasn’t good enough. I never have been. If my mother had just married the boy that she wanted her too, she would have had a more refined granddaughter. My mother would have been embarrassed at how I turned out. How could I be such a bad mother when I had such a good mother? Yada yada yada.
How does someone like me quiet the voices? How does someone like me get the opportunity to feel numb? We drink. We use. And I did lots of both. The
following stories will be sprinkled with “mimi-isms” along with inside and
outside influences that made me want to shrink my world. If I couldn’t feel like I was good enough, then I wanted to feel nothing. Nothing at all.
It was a sunny afternoon when my friends and I walked out of our ninth grade classes on the
last day of school before the summer vacations. Everyone was busy saying
good-byes and meeting their friends for the last time, before going home. My
friend, Mansha, and I were walking together to our bus stops when she suddenly
asked me, “So when are you leaving for and returning from U.S.A?” I joked with
her and said, “I am leaving on 11th June and I may not come back, as
I might go to the high school over there!” She was surprised with my statement
and looked happy for me. I said her good bye and then I met my best friend, Sheena,
and I talked to her and waved good bye for the last time too. I didn’t know
that this joke would make me regret my words later. I spent my last bus time
chatting with my favorite bus mate and had fun with her. Then I reached home, I
got excited because I had finally gotten free from school and couldn’t wait to
meet my father in U.S.A after one whole year. I started packing my stuff and
made a bag full of my notebooks and books because I had already been given a
mid-term exams date sheet, which would start right in the middle of August, on
my first day back to school. I was very fond of writing stories and kept a
folder with rough drafts of my stories with the real-life characters in it. I
was very imaginative and fascinated about my perfect life and used to enjoy my
day. I wanted to take my stories with me to U.S.A but I hid and locked them in
my cabinet, thinking that I would return home in three months and will write the
stories then. I thought I should better enjoy my holidays with my family.
Little did I know that my life was about to change forever and I wouldn’t be
able to return to my people, my things, my friends, my home-Pakistan, again.
A few days
later, I was all set to leave for the second time to the United States and I
called my paternal grandparents, whom I called, Dada Jan and Dadi Jan,
and sought their prayers and good wishes for the future. I told them that I
wanted to meet them but their home was in Lahore. I talked to them for a long time and said
them a final good bye. Before leaving my home, I emotionally bid a goodbye to
my favorite study room, where I spent my most of the time; my personal things,
my bedroom, and my home for the last time. I left for the airport and thus
began the unexpected journey of my migration to the United States. After a long
and tiring flight of around 23 hours, my family and I finally reached the
Washington Dulles International Airport. I was amazed by the friendly, clean and
the peaceful environment America had. One of the immigration officers looked confused
at my mother after checking our passports and asked her, “Why did you go back
to Pakistan?” My mother confidently told him, “We went back because I had to
look after my old parents-in- laws.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked
confused again. He wrote on our passports, “OUT OF U.S. FOR 10 MNTHS” and
warned us that our Permanent Resident Cards could be cancelled if we didn’t
“live” in U.S.A. This incident shocked us and we came into a dilemma of what to
do next. We met our father and uncle at the airport and I loved his new white,
Pontiac van. We were excited and reached our apartment after 2 hours. I was
surprised to see our apartment and there was another surprise waiting for us. I
met my maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles and my cousins waiting there to
give us a warm welcome to United States.
After resting
a day or two, the family began to reflect upon the serious trouble that had
taken place at the airport. Our extended family members suggested that my
mother to take a one year leave from Pakistan and leave my elder sister and me
here in U.S with my father. We didn’t agree to this as we hadn’t lived without
our mother and couldn’t think of separating from her for a year. This decision
remained uncertain for a long time and sometimes we were asked to study for our
exams and sometimes to start preparing to live in U.S. My parents had a hard
time making this difficult decision as many obstacles came in our way. I was
very young and I depended on my mother; I had just started my O-Levels, a
British GCE affiliated with Cambridge University, and my elder sister had to
complete her A-levels, the in-depth, academically advanced level after
O-Levels. Finally, after much courage our family decided that it was better for
my sister, Sabeeha, and I to live in U.S with our father while my younger
sister, Dia, and my mother would reside in Pakistan.
“Why would you go and do something like that? What were you thinking?”
I felt like I was in an interrogation room after I took a bottleful of
klonepin. My fiancé sat next to me questioning me on my motives of taking such a heavy dosage of the anti-anxiety medication. There was no strong emotion left in me to be truthful. I would have loved to say “I wanted to drown out your annoying voice,” but I could only stare at the wall and picture my demise. Depression hits, but those affected by it can’t see the harm they do to themselves; they can only see the negative change in others.
My mind started to slow down. The negative thoughts I experienced for years slowly seemed to fade away as I was going into a deep slumber. Death was the only thing I was trying to embrace, because life seemed like a distant sad memory. I understand that overdosing is fatal when mixing drugs, and part of me wanted to live. There was a small part of me, however, that wanted to die; I was hoping that this was the answer. I blacked out. The next hours then seemed blurred together.
The next thing I could see was a cop standing over me, asking me if I was okay and why I did it. I quietly mumbled “Her” in reference to the woman I was engaged with. This was a complete bullshit lie I was trying to set up. Really, I didn’t know exactly why I attempted suicide. Someone who attempts suicide hopes that they won’t have to wake up to answer questions from others. I wanted others to believe that a rocky relationship was the cause, instead of years of illness I was inflicted with. My consciousness became more strained, and the next jolt of it was when I was rolled out to the ambulance on a stretcher. The summer day was beautiful, and I didn’t care to experience it. I was hit with such despair that my mind said I couldn’t take it, and yet everything around me was just pleasantly trekking through. It was in this realization that I was not the center of it all. I was just one of the pieces of this bigger spectrum of reality. Once I woke up one more time in the hospital to swallow the coal to clean out my body, it was over. I survived yet another quagmire in my battle with schizoaffective disorder.
Early in my childhood, when I was roughly 12, I realized things were changing. Not the normal “I grew hair in places I didn’t know I had, and women are embarrassed to talk to me because of my mid-conversation squeak” phase. Instead, my thoughts were developing into something sinister. Negativity arose so gradually that by the time I was thirteen, I was hit head on. I remember being in my classroom, and a test was being handed out to take. There was to be absolute silence for 40 minutes to allow everyone to successfully complete the exam. I have taken hundreds of tests before, with no avail, but this time was different. As ten minutes of silence went by, I started becoming restless. Whispers were surrounding me.
“You’re a piece of shit.”
“No one likes you here. You even see it yourself. End your life now.”
“You won’t be successful.”
The whispers started to even come at me in what appeared to be another language. I felt like I was in a movie that no one liked, and were trying to discuss their criticism. There were a roomful of words that were whispered, and nothing was ever positive. I started shaking in my chair, hoping it would stop. There were twitches in my arm, I started sweating. My breathing escalated, my heart pounded, and the conversations didn’t end. I looked around, and not a single classmate was uttering a word. Whispers were present, but not a mouth was moving. It was at this point that I asked to be excused, and jolted into the hall. I slammed my body against the wall, breathing rapidly, hoping that the whispers would come to a halt. I would talk to myself and, in repetition, say “They aren’t real.” Eventually the voices subsided, but my nerves did not. This was the evolution of my paranoia.
Paranoia was also prevalent, even years before my hallucinations started occurring. Kids around me cared about whatever fucking thing kids do. I confess that I don’t really know what kids thought about. At a young age, I was thinking of grim and really poignant subjects. I felt as though people were out to poison me, with no evidence to corroborate the thought. Fast-food workers, relatives, and even my own mother were not exempt from this. Who inspects food products better than Sherlock Holmes could? Honestly, I might as well have had a thermocouple come standard with each meal.
My mom’s meals were the ones I felt I should inspect the most. This had nothing to do with the quality of food she was preparing; she was, and still is, an excellent cook. I was always down upon myself as a child, and I would think that each mistake meant there needed to be some repercussion. What better repercussion would there be for a tantrum than death? A logical and morally uncompromising one would be the sufficient answer. My mind would find the worst way to rationalize and deal with discontent.
For example, I was known to take tantrums in public places. If there was something I didn’t care for, I was very outspoken about it. By outspoken, I mean that I would make incessant noises, including snorting sounds to clear out the mucous from my headache-inducing cries. I took tantrums in such lovely places as the movie theater (a crying child makes a blockbuster thriller much more thrilling), Wal-Mart, and even McDonald’s. The McDonald’s tantrum I will never forget.
I went to McDonald’s and requested to my parents a plain cheeseburger happy meal. Apparently that was not an option for me that day. When I got the cheeseburger, there were all the toppings that made me cringe. Ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onions were topped onto a colossal waste of an animal. Any child that had a speck of decency could easily request the burger to be replaced almost immediately. I, unfortunately for my parents, did not do such a thing.
I remember how my parents would stare at me as I would open my food, hoping that the meal was satisfactory for me. This had nothing to do with them spoiling me, because we didn’t have enough money for that to occur; my parents were terrified of my actions. I don’t blame them, because what I would do if there was the slightest mistake in my food was absolutely embarrassing. My body was thrown on the ground like I was a wrestling champion body slamming my opponent. Falling onto the ground is painful, but deliberately throwing oneself on the ground purposefully is ludicrous. Hell, depending on my mood, shoes would be flown off in a frantic manner. I would scream and twitch as though there was a man with a knife stabbing me. What did my parents do in all of this? They turned glaring red and angrily stared in direction of my pathetic outrage. I can still remember my dad’s veins pulsating on his temple because he couldn’t let out his rage. Corporal punishment was seen in such an unflattering light at the time, but I still think it should have been acceptable for my parents in moments such as that.
The only thing more ridiculous than my tantrums was the reason I had them; the tantrums existed over a paranoia that people were out to retaliate upon me in some way shape or form. Oh, there is a mistake on some type of food? I want to upset that child. People are staring in my direction? I want to kidnap and harm that child. These illogical thoughts were a constant flood that I accepted. The acceptance of the thoughts turned into anger and aggression to those who would “wrong me.” Those are when the tantrums occurred, mainly for retaliation purposes. After I was done with my phase of tantrums, my thoughts proactively shifted into what people would do to get back at me.
It was after my tantrum phase that I was starting to think, at the ripe and mature age of 7, that my mother was going to poison me. Each chicken dinner was followed by me raising the food up to the light, like it was some type of delicate relic, just to inspect it. There had to not be an inkling of pink in the chicken. The side dishes received special treatment from me too. It was a necessity for me to unveil that it was salt on the baked potato, and not powdered dish detergent.
Memoirs Of An Addict:
Fact or Fiction
Picture this…the setting is in Washington, D.C. during the 1980’s and 90’s, a new drug called crack has entered into the universe. The movie New Jack City gives details of this new drug that has a triple killing effect. Drugs and more drugs are entering into the big cities and small towns all over the United States of America. Illegal money is being made like never before. A glass pipe turns men, women, rich and poor into crack zombies and the people’s Mayor for life Marion Barry quotes (“The B** set me up”). Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia, also known as the DMV, are out of control. DC is being called the murder capital of the world for the crimes, murders, sexual behaviors and the way life has changed. The devil is smiling to all those people who want to get high.
Living in a sin sick world, society misuses and misunderstands that addiction is more than illegal drugs and alcohol. Addictions come in many forms and patterns such as gambling, sex, cigarettes, cell phones, food, video games, prescription drugs, coffee, soda, the internet and the list goes on and on. For the addict who struggles there is a familiar trait in the life and pattern of addiction, but what is the definition of the word addiction? Better yet, what is the definition of the word addict? Enter into the world of Mary/Pumpkin’s memoirs. She is one person with two different personalities who suffers with a dual diagnosis of depression and drug abuse; who happens to be suicidal.
You decide: Fact or Fiction
http://www.memoirsof2165.com
News flash: Parenting five children is exhausting.
I know what you’re thinking.
Some of you might be thinking: You brought this onto yourself — when you decided to help over-populate the Earth (how dare you). Or: for being so pious against the modern wonders of contraception. Or: for taking your chances with unprotected and rampant intimacy with your spouse (imagine that), etc, etc. My sister, the city-slicker-swinging-single-Vegan-recycle-everything New Yorker in the family, certainly thought as much. To you, I say, I truly and sincerely admire your uncanny ability to imagine yourself in a scenario where you actually have kids and actually understand what it is like; your astounding imagination alone should be enough to compel me to thank you for your valuable feedback — and, oh by the way, Mom loves me more than you.
And then some of you might be thinking: I totally understand — I have two dogs, one cat, and a cockatoo, and they are a lot of work! My co-worker, the one who entered at the same level as me but whose blonde-and-blue-eyed charm is sure to get her promoted years long before me, certainly thought as much. To you, I say, I truly and sincerely admire your uncanny ability to imagine that creatures of other species are the same as human children, and that all that kids need to be happy is to be fed, walked, sterilized and petted; your desire to connect with my plight, even through the fog of logic and concept, should be enough to compel me to thank you for your empathy — and, oh by the way, everyone on the promotion committee is prettier than you, so dream on, sister.
And finally there are those of you who I am trying to reach — those of you who would gladly join me in alienating everyone else as I did just now: You who want to have children more desperately than you’ve ever wanted anything in your life. To you, I say,
News flash: Parenting five children is exhausting. But not in the way you might think.
Yes, there are the endless logistics of after-school activities, music or dance lessons, dental and medical check-ups and appointments, parent-teacher conferences (my kids are in four, count ’em, FOUR different schools), science projects, theme papers, Halloween costumes, play dates, slumber parties, driver’s ed, church youth groups, and — the mother of them all — birthday parties. Sure, all that is exhausting, but I don’t mind as much because it does help me bond with the spouse, and more often than not, those activities end up being well worth all that time and energy. So that’s not what I’m talking about.
You know what I find truly exhausting? Worrying.
I sat silent, stunned by what I thought I heard.. I wasn’t sure, because it was so
outrageous. “This isn’t the east village” he said. Could an attorney say that to me? I’m their mother. I’ve been their mother for 14 years without challenge or question. I spent nearly every day and night with them since birth; loving them, nurturing them,
teaching them to be kind to others. But now, this court appointed Roman Catholic white male law guardian said he would do everything he could to prevent my adorable sweet ten year old son from living with me. Meanwhile, my $300 an hour attorney just sat there and said nothing. I laughed because that’s what I do when I’m nervous. I didn’t know protocol in this awful, miserable family court legal process and I was waiting for her to respond, especially when he commented, “this isn’t the east village, you know”. As in Greenwich Village, I assumed, but I didn’t know. This was Albany, New York, a long way from Manhattan and the east village. I could not comprehend that a court appointed
attorney for my children could legally speak to me that way. Yet my attorney said nothing in my defense. Thousands of dollars and months of legal actions to gain physical custody of my son and here we are in this god-awful place of total denial by this smug, arrogant man. Perhaps I need to mention that the court appointed psychologist met with all of us.
There were our two children, Kristin and Montana; their wealthy father and his phony, gold digging wife; me and my partner Holly, who would have been my wife if our country had legally provided for us to marry, which it did not in 2002. The findings by the
psychologist was that Holly and I were emotionally and mentally healthy and stable; while my children’s father and his wife had a myriad of psychological and emotional issues with anger topping the list. That sounds easy, right; let Montana live with us? But the psychologist would not recommend us because we were a female couple. I was dumbfounded, outraged and heartbroken, but not in that moment. In that moment I was in shock and by it’s mere definition, I could not process my feelings, because I was
unable to connect with them.
On March 14, 1985, I went into labor. According to the doctor’s calculation, I should have given birth on March 6th, but I’m a patient person and didn’t mind waiting. I was pretty much terrified about childbirth, so putting it off a week or so seemed fine to me. Labor is exactly as it’s word suggests; it’s work. It was hard, laborious work. After nine hours, my husband drove me to the hospital. He was right there with me, being supportive, but don’t forget, I was the one having painful contractions every three minutes. The doctor said I was a long way from delivering this baby and suggested
an epidural to ease the pain and help move the labor to delivery. That sounded sweet to me, but there was a woman screaming in the next room that also needed an epidural. I told them to go to her, she sounded more desperate. The nurse expressed surprise
at my generosity. As I reflect back, it occurs to me that my truest nature, even in a moment of distress and physical pain, is of kindness to others. I am not being conceited or egotistical. I’m inherently kind and generous. I have other qualities that are not as endearing, but they do not outweigh the positive. After a few pushes by me and the nurses, I heard the cry of my child. The sound of her cry evoked the deepest joy I had ever known to well up from inside my heart. Tears streamed down my face as they placed my infant daughter on my chest.
I was able to experience that rapture once more, on November 29, 1991, just hours after Thanksgiving Day when, after 22 hours of painful labor, I pushed and pushed and pushed some more, this time when the midwife wasn’t looking my son was born. He
didn’t cry, but I sure did. When he was placed on my chest, that deep joy returned once more.
I was fortunate in that I did not have to go to a job when I became a mom. I was able to raise my children, love them, feed them, teach and play with them every day. They were the glue that kept the marriage between their father and I, together.
And that was okay, until it was not.
After sixteen years of marriage, I acknowledged to myself that I was emotionally unfulfilled. We had lots ofmoney, houses, cars and boats, but none of it satisfied my emotional appetite.
it was her empathy that got me. to care so much about a seemingly fucked up individual is rare. what was she to benefit from? present tense? couldn’t be…I am out of work, still relapsing even though in recovery… but it’s not the high i chase… its the past i wish to erase… in three months we aged 10 years, 1/8th of that time i spent in jail 34 hours away from ” home ” … but it turns out… ” home ” bailed me out 280 hours later….. but even though she sleeps in the bed down the hall… I feel like home is farther away than all.
One life changing knock shook everything.
All pushy and impatient, It barged through the house, charged up the stairs three at a time, whisked us from our rooms, and threw us in the dining room. It had a voice that is embedded in my mind, jagged and harsh, leaving no room for uncertainties. Smoke wafted around the room in It’s presence. It constricted me. I needed to get out, but I needed more than anything to listen. It looked at me with It’s chilling eyes devoid of any emotion and said, “I am taking her.” Just like that there was nothing I could do; my grandmother, Batsia, had already been taken. It was invasive physically and mentally. It leapt from my mind down to the backs of my eyes, pricking here and there as the tears threatened to spill out. They fell, relentlessly recreating that of a stream on the planes of my flushed face as It decided to slide down to my throat, fully intending to leave Its burning and Its tightening mark. I tried to spit It out, but It was there to stay. She was taken and inturn the rest of us were going to be held hostage.
All I can remember about that day was that It hurt me, emotionally, physically, or both, I’m not sure. It grabbed me by the shoulders with It’s less than delicate hands, Its pungent smell of cigarettes taking over any and all senses, and shook me as if I was the world spinning on my axle completely out of control. It decided then that It never wanted to leave me and It never has. It has become a part of me. Unsuspecting as an ignorant middle schooler, I constantly pushed It away each time It relentlessly latched onto me. I should have made It front and center. It stayed with me anyways. It was always with her. And It would forever stay with our family, creating definite lines and jagged barbed wire fences lined with harsh feelings of resent. It was the new addition to our breaking family that sat in the corner never saying much, but making sure everyone knew It would always be there.
It wasn’t all bad though, I guess. It allowed us to visit her a few times. I used to have the drive memorized; I probably still do. It always sat by the window. The space It took up was next to nothing. Still, there was no extra air to take in as It made itself our permanent tour guide, branding the trip to memory. It shamelessly pointed out the somewhat unsafe area that only lead to a place no better- the place It was keeping her. It’s fingers, jagged and unsettling, made sure to direct our eyes to the deteriorating cement stones lined up and united on the haphazard lawn. It always sat next to me during the car rides, It’s heavy breathing mingled with the low hum of the radio and the dings from buttons on my phone. Silence became a tangible object on these car rides. You could feel and touch the tense feelings. How could I have been on my phone? Simple, because It didn’t tell me how to act or what to do or what to feel. It was just there, along for the long ride.
It told us where to park, where to walk, where to go; It was a well-seasoned tour guide who enjoyed our discomfort. The overly clean rubbing alcohol infused halls of It’s home will probably never leave my memory. The doors squeaked as we opened them, the anticipation of seeing where It was keeping her building with each hesitant step. I’m not sure what I was expecting when we walked into the room. Would she be okay? What had It been doing to her? Surprisingly she seemed okay, if okay can be used to describe someone held prisoner in a white washed blank room typical of a hospital. The rules were finite. You can visit. You can’t take her back with you. You can do this but not that. I tuned out It’s relentless list of rules after a while. I walked up to her bed. “Hi Batsia.” “My Petunia.” I was so hesitant to step closer to her. It had her on lock down. She was beeping. I thought that if I crossed boundaries that It didn’t like, It would take me too or It wouldn’t give her back to us.
It is selfish. It is unsuspecting. It took a lot and It gave a little. Cancer changes everything.
The Sinking of Molly Brown
In the late ’90s, when Titanic hit big, Molly Brown was once again a hot property. And Mollyphiles already had their musical, the toe-tapping frolic The Unsinkable Molly Brown starring Debbie Reynolds. But a few years later, a playwright friend of Ernie’s decided to forego the tunes, and strip Molly’s life down to a one-woman show. Starring Ernie as Molly. Naturally.
I had nothing to do with The Ghost of Molly Brown. Although I tried.
“A bare stage,” I said. “Nothing but a sectional sofa. Circular. White leather. Maybe a small table. And a rotary phone. Let’s give it a ’70s vibe.”
“But we’re putting it on in a coffee shop,” said Ernie. “And you’re not directing it.”
“And I see you in slacks and a turtleneck. Lesbian chic. With a shag haircut. Like Cloris Leachman in Phyllis.
“The playwright envisions it differently.”
“Well she’s a ghost,” I said. “Let’s have some fun with it.”
The one-night-only one-woman show was performed at a boxy urban coffee joint, conveniently located so Ernie could exert the least amount of effort to get there, just around the corner from his condo in Belltown, several blocks from Seattle’s Two Bells Tavern.
Ernie had introduced me to Two Bells a few years earlier. And told me tales of hanging out there while attending Cornish College of the Arts, sitting up at the bar next to intoxicated dreamers, talking about creative projects that would never get made because they were all too damn drunk too much of the time. Because talk is cheap in a Seattle bar where everyone is an artist on the verge of a nervous breakout. So that became the benchmark. Whenever Ernie and I heard a big talker–including ourselves–going on and on about some future project, we would warn each other about the Two
Bells bar stool drunks. And encourage less talk, more action.
I learned on the day of the show that the show had been directed on the day of the show, by the playwright, in a car, while driving back from Portland to Seattle, staging the entire show in three and a half hours without ever having seen the stage.
“How can you direct a play in a car? How can you do blocking? This makes me very angry,” I said, angrily.
“The playwright wanted to take his lover down to Portland while he was here.”
“I can’t tell you how upset this is making me. It’s so Two Bells of you.”
When the audience arrived–six of Ernie’s friends, a few of their dates, plus Ernie’s lover–tables and chairs were still being shifted around, the clamor periodically drowned out by a blast from the espresso machine.
“I think there’s still some coffee customers here. I thought they were going to clear them out, then re-open the doors just for the play,” I said passive-aggressively enough so everyone could hear me.
Ernie hovered between the “stage” and the restroom, in costume. “We rented the dress,” said Ernie, as I slowly shook my head. They were going for a period look. But instead of upscale 1912, Ernie looked more like Mrs. Oleson from Little House on the Prairie. Or Norman Bates’ mother.
Ernie’s cue to begin was My Heart Will Go On, the Titanic movie theme. Seriously. I can’t remember if they used the Celine Dion version, or the instrumental, but it was endless. It took Ernie about five seconds to walk onstage. Then another four minutes to just stand there and adjust his bustle. The squeal of the milk steamer occasionally broke the monotony. And then it began. The life of Molly Brown, as remembered by her ghost. During the forty-five minute show, Ernie drifted in and out of at least three different accents. And remembered his lines almost 50% of the time.
“Aah…the Titanic,” said Ernie, his voice somewhere between Julia Child and Tracey Ullman as Princess Margaret. Then, “LINE!”
And then he would be prompted from offstage. But it wasn’t really offstage because everyone could see the playwright standing next to the coffee counter, script in hand, feeding Ernie nearly every other line. And if it had been intentional, it could have been an interesting effect. Molly Brown in stereo. But as performed, it was light years from Ernie’s down-to-the-syllable perfection in Fever. And as angry as I was, I felt bad for
the playwright. Because the script wasn’t that bad. But no play can survive this sort of stop-and-go. So the only dramatic tension was wondering at what point Ernie would simply give up and end the performance. But like Celine Dion’s heart, he just went on and on. And unlike the Titanic, Ernie took less than an hour to sink.
Although I will credit the production with a memorable finish. After Ernie’s last line, he exited out the front door. And we all saw his profile through tall windows as he walked down the sidewalk, head held high, against a backdrop of panhandlers, drug addicts, tourists, and a public fountain with a statue of Chief Seattle. And Ernie suddenly achieved the ethereal quality that had been missing during the play. Suddenly, he was the ghost of Molly Brown, floating above the sidewalk toward the Two Bells Tavern.
Unfortunately, he didn’t return for the cast party.
###
[from a memoir I’m writing about doing fringe theater and underground film during Seattle’s grunge era.]
I remember coming downstairs and not finding him anywhere. I thought maybe he went out for a while for something pricked at the back of my neck. I walked to his office-music room door and opened it. It was immaculate as usual and it was quiet. An eerie quite. The prickle on back of my neck turned to nausea as I looked down at the dark hardwood floor and saw a yellow post-it-note. In sloppy cursive it read “Don;t bury me. Spread my ashes over the lake.”
I felt numb, shaky, on auto pilot as I started running from room to room shouting his name. I went upstairs and down to the basement. Nothing. Ran outside into the spring cold barefoot looking in bushes, behind the fences, under the porch in the garage. That was when I called 911. “He’s gone. I can’t find him.” I heard the voice on the other end telling me to stay calm and asking stupid questions like “Did he leave you?” Are you kidding I thought. Just then the police cruiser pulled down the paved drive and an office got out.
“I can’t find him ” I know I was talking but the voice didn’t sound like me at all. “Did you check the house?” he asked. “Yes, Yes. His car is here. I can’t find him.”
“Let me look in the house ok” he said trying to be sympathetic. “Ok” I said taking him into the house as another sheriff showed up. The first office went through the rooms on the first and second floor. The second office stood in the kitchen with me. They exchanged glances as the first officer headed to the basement. He came up a few minutes later. He looked sick. He walked over to me and stood right in front of me. “I am sorry” he said. “He’s down there. He’s gone.”
New and quite late to the game here… but I’ve recently decided (admitted) I want to write narrative non-fiction. Here’s a most recent sample:
An article wandered through one of my feeds yesterday—the words, “Portland” and “loneliness” catching my eyes. After about two-and-a-half years, as wonderful and friendly as Portland is, I’ve also felt astonishingly lonely. Friends of mine who’ve passed through here for a couple of years say the same. I’ve lived in a lot of cities, (including the author’s Brooklyn) and several countries and don’t think I’ve ever felt so isolated on a day-to-day basis.
It’s interesting to me how this feeling over time, does indeed lead one into the depths of insanity. I think this is most exemplified by my slight obsession with a fitbit last winter. Abandoning my vow to never be one of those “tools” who openly display some level of obsession with health, I bought one, (I told myself,) in order to track and therefore (somehow) help manage my sleep.
After several weeks, I began to enjoy the thing. It gave me something to interact with on a daily basis—upon waking I’d check in on another night of erratic sleep (I still don’t know how I thought this data was going to help me fix it,) those four days I tracked my water intake, and every afternoon my bracelet would buzz and flash in celebration when I’d stepped enough. It was more positive affirmation than I’d had in some time.
In December, we went back to Michigan to visit family. On Christmas Eve, I looked down at my wrist…and noticed that it was gone. I panicked. Retracing every step that day, I drove back to the grocery store, combed the house with my computer and toggle on scan, and set the entire family on an All Points Bulletin. Most embarrassingly of all, (as if there is a most here) I put up a Craigslist post for the parking lot of the stores I’d visited earlier. I’m pretty sure I cried.
At some point it hit me and I said to my mom, “I think the real reason I’m so upset about this stupid thing, is that I’m just so desperately lonely.”
I think it’s true that social isolation, (even more than being a fitbit user,) is horribly stigmatized. And the more we don’t talk about the shame around it, the more isolated we become—bashing us deeper into the void of loneliness. A positive feedback loop from hell.
I did end up finding my fitbit—in an ironic twist, it had fallen into the meat-drawer in the fridge. I haven’t been interested in putting it back on, however. Something about the previous realization was enough to put me off of it, and was, truly, far more valuable data than the ones it was intended to be tracking.
There were probably ten things I would rather have been doing that muggy July afternoon in central Alabama. Like most eleven year olds on summer break, I really only wanted to do nothing. Or do nothing at the lake. Or watch television. Anything but sit on the front porch for countless hours snapping green beans we’d plucked from their vines only hours before. The gun-metal grey floor of the porch was covered in yellow pollen from the oak and pecan trees that surrounded the house. The only noise
was the clicking of the flying beetles trying in vain to get through the window
screens and the faint chink the raw green beans made when they landed one by
one in the stainless steel bowl in my lap. Grandma was across from me in the
rocker prattling on about cousins I didn’t know and getting up and down to
check on whatever happened to be on the stove at the moment – usually a soup,
or some veggies being blanched for canning. Mostly we just worked in silence, or talked about life, or the silliness on the Johnny Carson show the night before.
I didn’t appreciate it then, but in the years since those days, I’ve found myself longing for that connection. Not to my Grandmother, she’s still alive and kicking and telling me about cousins I still don’t know — but the connection to my food. To have the dirt
under my nails, the silks of corn tangled in my fingers, and the bruised thumbs
from countless hours of shelling and snapping. I miss that.
It’s only in the past few years I’ve realized my joy in cooking. The act of transforming simple ingredients into a loving meal designed to nourish and fulfill and produce contentment. That’s what my grandmothers did day after day, year after year. They planted, they gathered, they cooked. They nourished. The kitchen table was the heart of the family.
((haphazard and without direction in my opinion – I know I need to refine my focus at bit and settle on the theme. I’m not quite sure, but it seems to lie somewhere in honoring the past and being connected to food. All comments/thoughts welcomed!))
I enjoyed your reflections. Your description of the scene on the porch snapping the beans with bugs, and sounds took me to the country. I lost interest as you evaulated the fact you didnt appreciate it back then.
I have no experience so…raw reply.
For the love of Mother
She was fair with hazel eyes and dark wavy hair. Her skin was fair, with no signs of age. Her spirit was bitter, sad, and aged. In her top dresser drawer I found a tube of red lipstick when I was 8. I was plundering as she would have called my nosy wandering. There were ear rings in this drawer also. Mom had never wore red lipstick, but this tube white at one end, with a gold band in the middle, and the opposite end red, seemed to hold some mystery. It told me something I had never seen in my mother who was angry without glamour. She was pretty… for her age, but no jewellery or lipstick. She’d point out some women can never say they were pretty. This was a subtle admission that her beauty was beginning to stray from her mirror. I knew being pretty was very important. My older sisters said she use to dress in heels and wear red lipstick, and paint her nails red. This lipstick was like a gleam of hope mom was not who I lived with. Maybe she use to be happy and dress up, smile, and laugh. Maybe she use to hug, and love…just maybe. Now she only toiled with the laundry, dishes, meals and Joe, our down’s brother. She would fight with my father who was long gone as she washed the dishes. She hated the air that he breathed she said as she scrubbed pots and looked out the window into the wooded backyard. I thought she made her own self mad and I had done nothing, but she probably wanted me to do something I had not. I could not think straight in that house. It was from moment to moment…anything could happen.No homework no personal inquiry as to my pondering of things. Lots of screaming….unless…I got a fever. Fevers scared mom it seemed. She grew up in Carolina born in 1919 so fevers had killed in her time. She would take my temperature, carefully with the glass thermometer. Then, call Irwin’s Pharmacy to deliver ginger-ale with aspirin. Mom would put cool wet water and vinegar towels on my face and chest. She would give me ginger-ale or orange juice to drink. I was important, I was a child, I was real, when I had a fever. She would get me into her bed, to keep check on me, I suppose, although I remember no touch, other than the forehead. Her walls were lavender, the shelves on the wall had pill hats, one turquoise which I’d seen her admire and put it back into the shoe shelf. There were shoe boxes with pointed toed heels, on the shoe shelves. These I’d never seen on her feet. The frame of the bed would cool my hands as I lay in a surreal place of lavender with a caring mother, hat and shoes on shelves proving there was life in her. The crisp vision the warmth gave was okay with me. But it scared her and made her a mom, a spectacle unknown to when me I was well.
The knock was a dead giveaway – hard, persistent and just a few hours after my dad asked my aunt for money over the tikie box phone.
My mom and dad weren’t home, they were at the pub around the corner, drinking away their sorrow on a tab that would go unpaid. They weren’t bad parents, just spent and severely defeated. Life was hard and clearly showed on my young mother’s aging face and made even more apparent each time my dad sucked on a cigarette, his worried blue eyes too often consealed behind a wall smoke.
My sister and I were home alone, eating our food on the wooden floor, delicious food from the pub’s kitchen, food that would also go unpaid.
We knew the suddenness of their visit to the pub with empty pockets just meant one thing, especially since my mother doesn’t drink but insisted on getting sloshed. It was nearly time for us to leave when no one was looking.
Our electricity was off and so we ate in the dark, on the floor, in the dripping hot humidity that only Durban could produce before summer even really arrived. We breathed silently, exchanging looks that spoke louder than words, content despite everything with the world around us until that hellish knock. Our heads propped up in surprise, although I don’t know why. A sudden knot formed in my belly and just looking at my sister, I knew she had it too. We agreed to ignore the knock because it could only be who we were expecting, the land lord wanting the rent my dad promised three months ago, or maybe this time he came to kick us out.
We held our breaths every time the knock came again until finally we were left alone.
It wasn’t the land lord that knocked so furiously though, he came the next morning to inform us that it was the welfare and when no one answered, they knocked at his door for further details.
My aunt had sent the welfare after my sister and I because my mom and dad couldn’t provide, they had borrowed money one too many times and reached the inevitable dead end for the last time in the eyes of our family and the world around us kept feeling sorry for our terrible lives and we probably would too if only we could see past the adventure and the thrill of chaos.
My younger sister and I looked at each other and we weren’t surprised, we have become so use to our poverty stricken lives that we sometimes forget to be shocked by the events thereof.
January 13, 2013 Denis from above.
It was over. I’ve taken my last breath. My vision of all that had surrounded me gradually fading away… My final encore, the curtain closed. All the medications, the pain, sleepless nights. My fear of leaving, fear of if I stayed in this broken body feeling as if I had been a puppet that everyone else had control off.
For the past year I was just an outsider in my own body. Medicine controlled my thoughts, doctors determining my destiny…. I watched as the world I had known started crumbling down around me, grasping for whatever was left of Denis Farrell, after the surgery, all the chemo and radiation. It was all over now. I was whole again. No more pain. No more fear. The choice had been made for me.
I was peaceful but saddened watching you “Laurie” from above as you slowly gather my belongings, collected all the photos of our once happy life together. My beautiful Grandchildren having now to realize the reality of death at such tender ages. My Children distraught, hoping that I understood all the love they had for their Daddy, although not always able to express it, but now time had run out.
Laurie…. (You looked helpless,) like a wounded solider that had just surrendered to the enemy. Me feeling as if I held your prisoner far too long, wanting to release you from all the pain and suffering you also had endured.
My darling. I wanted you to somehow hear my voice saying, “Don’t be afraid to leave me here,” I’m already gone. But I knew it would take long time for you to fully understand it all.
… I watched as you walked away and glanced back (hesitant at first to leave me) as if miraculously I would awaken and follow you home. I did darling feel that last kiss on my lips, the gentle touch of your hand letting mine go….
The door closed. Once alone my dimly lit room became bright.
lightness had come back to me. But darkness had now surrounded you. I’m so sorry I had to leave you behind…. I Love you. My sweet dear darling Laurie… The beginning of Darling Denis… When Two Become One……
She knew she shouldn’t have said it. Even at four years old, I could sense everyone else in the room knew it too. All my great-aunt Julia had done, as we stood in her neat, but 1920s-like living room, was innocently blurt out a fact: “Oh, this is the little adopted boy!” But now, an uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Aunt Julia, my Mom, her cousin, and my Grandma all stood uneasily looking at one another and occasionally glancing at me, as if what she’d said was supposed to mean something. If not for their reaction, the comment would have likely floated right over my unsuspecting head. But even at four, my instinct told me that something about what had been said was important. So it was only natural that I would later ask my mom, “What does adopted mean?”
Just sometimes, things don’t work out quite how you’d expected. I never imagined I would end up living in Wales, tucked away out of sight. I never in my wildest dreams predicted that my best friend would no longer be my best friend. Or that my dad would have an affair with one of my closest allies. Neither did I think that my beautiful Mum with film star looks would end up in a nursing home. I certainly didn’t foresee my Greek lover, a humble baker; becoming involved in an organised crime ring. And not once, did I think I could possibly be middle aged and riddled with depression. Yet here I am forty five years old and missing parts of my old life, and embracing a new one.
I walk on the beach near my house in Swansea most days. Sometimes before work, lost in the magic of pre dawn light. That’s when my mind seems most active and my a Jack Russell Lily-dog needs to stretch her short legs. I usually start thinking, looking back and trying to figure out when my mind went wrong. Not long ago, I wrote a letter to Josh, the friend I lost. I sat under a grey sky on a weather beaten log that had taken the shape of a seat. It was a misty morning and seagulls wheeled and squawked overhead. Before I knew it I’d written the beginning of a book. I sort of spewed it all out in scribbles and thoughts. So here it is. My hand of cards. Fanned out on the table for all to see. My pilgrimage into the depths of me. I’ll start my story with my writer-friend Josh. As it’s his bad behaviour that started all of this off.
*
January 13, 2013. Darling Denis , A Memoir.
My vision of all that had surrounded me was gradually fading away… My final encore, the curtain had closed. I’ve taken my last breath.
All the medications, my pain, the sleepless nights. It was over. My fear of leaving, fear of if I stayed in this broken body, feeling as if I had been a puppet that everyone else had control of.
For the past year I was just an outsider in my own body. Medicine controlled my thoughts … Doctors determining my destiny…. I watched as the world I had known started crumbling around me, grasping for whatever remained of Denis Farrell, after the chemo, radiation and the surgery. It was all over now. I was whole again. No more pain. No more fear. The choice had been made for me.
I was peaceful but saddened watching you Laurie from above as you slowly gather my belongings, collected all the photos of our once happy life together.
My Children distraught, hoping I’m sure that I understood all the love they had for their Daddy, “although not always able to express it,” but now time had run out.
Laurie you looked so helpless, like a wounded solider that had just surrendered to the enemy. Me feeling as if I held you a prisoner far too long, wanting to release you from all the pain and suffering you also had endured.
I did darling feel that last kiss, the gentle touch of your hand letting mine go, I could taste the warmth of your tear drops as they trickle down my cheeks and on to my lips. As you were walking towards the door, I noticed your arms full, clenching on to all that was left of us, of me. You stopped, glanced back (hesitant to leave) as if miraculously I would awaken and follow you home.
My darling. I wanted you to somehow hear my voice saying, “Don’t be afraid” I’m already gone. But I knew it would take a long time for you to fully understand it all.
The door closed. Once alone my dimly lit room became bright,
lightness had come back to me. But darkness had now surrounded you. I’m so sorry I had to leave you behind…. My sweet dear darling Laurie. How I loved you.
The beginning of Darling Denis…
Pure hate is what I received. Not as the result of karma or abusive parents. It was the consequences of a conflict between the manager and assistant manager where I was employed. A manipulation by the manager. His kind words turning into hate that poured down on me like the exploding of a bomb, when I turned to greet the assistant manager’s pregnant wife. The hate wasn’t through words or threatening gestures. It was through the action of a killing hiss.
This was many years and more misfortunes ago, and I’ve finally made it to individual therapy where I’m learning to turn these unfortunate events into opportunity.
2014
“Hey it’s me, call me when you get this. It’s dad.” I listened to the voicemail again and took a deep breath. I didn’t want to call my sister back. Didn’t want to know about the man I was apparently supposed to care about. Why? Because I had half of his DNA? Did that make him my “dad”? Did that negate all the rest? Knowing I had a few hours before picking up the kids from school, I started washing dishes and let my mind wander. Let it go to places I kept hidden from everyone, even from myself.
1988
I sat on the stoop in front of the building and waited. I had been up since 7am. Showered, dressed and had eaten breakfast by 8am because I wanted to be ready when my father came to pick me up. At noon, when my mother finally said, “let’s go outside guys” I was the first one out the door. My brother played in the yard behind me but I refused to get up. Afraid of falling and getting dirty or God forbid, ripping my new stockings! Even while the ruffles itched, I tried not to scratch the pretty white hose. So, she I there with the grown-ups while the kids played behind me, the breeze softly blew and the bochinche swirled around me. I knew better than to react or remind my mother that I was there and could hear everything. That didn’t mean I wasn’t listening, I soaked up every word and fought the urge to argue when my mother started saying my father wasn’t going to show. Fought the urge to scream, “shut up mom, he’s coming”. He’d said he was coming, he’d promised this time he would be on time. The last thing I remember is the way the sun lit up the sky as it was setting. All those colors, all that beauty in one place. Later my brother laughed at me for falling asleep outside like a bum and having to be carried into the house. I thought of the homeless people near the stores and the subway who people just walked around like they didn’t see them there. I felt that way sometimes, especially when my parents forgot about me. I knew what it was like to be invisible.