(Here’s a post unrelated to travel. The end is where I caption the above photo, which is the point of this post.)
You know how one small thing someone says can amazingly ring true. Even if you’ve read about this thing a ton or you know about it theoretically, or whatever, you never really felt its meaning until you hear this one thing.
My mom was in a deep depression after my dad died. She was seeing a therapist and was taking meds and doing her best to slog through. And she was smart, whip smart, but her brain was water logged by her depression and she couldn’t see how to get out. Until her therapist said one thing to her, that the light she carries inside her was shining inward, and she needed to turn it around, like on a swivel, and shine her light out. Maybe this is standard imagery for therapists, and it’s certainly not psychology rocket-science, but when Mom heard that one thing, she was able to look toward her future for the first time since Dad died. That one piece of advice rang true for her like nothing before it.
After our weekly Zoom trivia game, Team Donner Party sometimes stays online to recap the game or talk politics or personal stuff, whatever comes up. A few weeks ago, we were talking about this phenomenon. I think our captain, Karen, had heard something simple that had changed her outlook on her health (something like that), and Finn popped in with his recent revelation thanks to one simple thing he’d been told.
The deal is that all his life I (his wise mother) have been telling him to eat more food. Like, every day of his life I’ve been telling him this. He recently saw a dietitian (turns out Michigan State University offers this service for free so why not), and the dietitian told him, drum roll, that he needs to eat more food. Not more protein or more fruit or more complex carbs or whatever, simply more food. Maybe a lifetime of me telling him that had prepared his brain to be open to it, or maybe it was the fact that this person is a trained professional so he was expecting more complex advice … whatever the reason, that simple statement, eat more food, suddenly triggered his understanding, like a Zen koan.
This isn’t just an introduction to my own moment of understanding, because I do find the phenomenon to be fascinating. A cardboard coaster pinned to a closet wall helps me understand the complexities of Tracy. The memory of my sister’s careful hands in my hair triggers not just feelings, but understanding.
Here’s what happened to me recently that I brought up during the Donner Party post-game conversation. I’d been on a Zoom call with a writing consultant I’d hired to help me through the early, nebulous and frustrating stage of envisioning how to write a certain book. I was mired in my past writing, in this blog, and I kept thinking about the fact that I want to say more than I have here. She told me, in essence, “Your past writing is not what you have to work with. Its contribution is that it’s evidence of you what you can do. It shows you that, because you’ve written well in the past, you can write well in the future.” There it is:
Because you’ve written well in the past, you can write well in the future.
With that one statement, my vision of my writing went, just like my mom’s inner light, from pointing backwards and inwards to pointing straight out into my future. How easy that was. It woke me up to my plan for my book, like a small key turning in a lock, and a heavy door swinging wide open.
Because I’ve done something well in the past, I can do something well in the future. What an important realization for me. I have done a lot well in my past. I’ve navigated more than the standard hurdles, let’s say. And I’ve thought a lot about them. What does that mean about my future, though? Maybe it’s clear to you, if you’ve known me a long time or even have just been reading this blog, that I can navigate my future just as well, but suddenly that’s news to me. Like my son realizing he simply needs to eat more food. Like my mom realizing her light can shine outward.
Well, enough of personal musing. What’s exciting in a tangible way is that I’ve been working on this manuscript like crazy ever since I got that advice. Part of me wants to tell everyone I know all about it, and part of me is wary. Don’t writers keep quiet about their projects, kind of like a pregnant person waits with the news? It’s all complicated and still formulating and may go south at any minute. It is so exciting to me, though.
If you’re still with me in this rambling post, let me tell you a bit about the manuscript. The genre is called radical memoir. I know about traditional bildungsroman from studying Western literature, and that’s a thing I’m not gonna touch. But it’s there behind me. I wrote my master’s thesis on ways certain storytellers reframe their pasts through narrative. That’s fascinating. So, I’ve been thinking for a long time about how we tell the stories of ourselves—which makes me excited to embark on a different way to tell my story. A radical memoir.
I’ve got mapped out two distinct storylines, one told in the present tense, one told in the past tense. They each develop their story arcs separately as if they’re two books, but they intertwine, like a double helix. And, in subtle places they form small barbs that jut into the other and change that one’s arc, then the next story spurs the first, so they flow together toward an end they share.
That’s my plan. I have an outline, and I have about 30,000 words moved from various writing over the years into that outline. But I am always thinking what those pieces of writing mean to me, that because I wrote then, I can write again now, and in the future. I’m calling the draft, Some Who Wander, which leaves that double helix’s direction open.
My friend, Whit, in the photo up top, gently nudged me to hire the writing consultant who said the thing that’s moving me forward. He took an hour away from a long drive yesterday to stop and visit with Tracy and me on the porch of a BBQ joint in central Texas; hence, the pic. What’s funny is that, for a couple of years now, Whit’s been suggesting I talk with this consultant, someone he talks with about his multiple (and serious) manuscripts. I don’t remember what thing he recently told me, a certain thing that prompted me finally to see the consultant who said the thing that began this mindset change, but I’m glad for it. Thank you, Whit!
