I just finished a writing class, where for one month I mined for memories. Every word, every prompt, every assignment was me digging deep into the folds of my brain to pull out what I could with all the strength I could muster. Part of why I love memoir writing so much is because it has taught me how to remember. Contrary to popular belief anyone can have a “good memory” because memory is itself a muscle. Work it enough and it gets stronger. Practice it like you would a skill, and it will be honed. I used to think I had a bad memory, but what writing about your own life teaches you is that it’s all there for you, for the taking. Not just the funny memories, the big-moment memories, the crazy-story memories, the sad memories, or the do-you-remember-when-that-happened memories. Anything that ever happened to you in your whole entire life can be a memory worth writing about. Last year I wrote 288 words about the bathroom in my childhood home and it’s one of my favorite paragraphs currently in my Google Drive. This month I wrote about going to the beach as a kid and I couldn’t believe how much came out. The piece wasn’t a particular story of a particular day, but in a way it captured all the stories of all the days. I wrote about the feeling those days at the beach gave me. I painted a picture. If you had asked me three years ago to write about those sunny summer weekends I would have said, “sure, but what exactly do I say about them?” or “but I can’t think of a particular day that stands out” or, simply put, “why?”. Three years ago I didn’t know that un-special beach days are still worth writing about.
For three years I have been in the gym on the page working on my beach body memory. For three years I have been committed to Being A Writer. This includes: caring about the craft of writing, connecting with other writers, reading other people’s writing, reading about how other writers write, trying to write, actually writing, and sometimes, getting published. Every day that goes by I’m more invested, more obsessed. I haven’t felt this clear about something since…I don’t know when. All this is to say that after three years of memory training I can now jump in and out of parts of my life like they are different swimming pools in the same giant resort. Some pools are for fun (the ones with the wet bars), some are for pain (the freezing cold plunge), and some are for simply swimming in (the lap pool). Which pool I jump in on a given day depends on my mood, of course, and my appetite. I used to equate writing about my life, my memories, as a draining emotional task but I have recently learned that not every memory needs to be mined that way. Sometimes we just want to swim. Sometimes I just want to write about the wood paneling in the bathroom of my childhood home for no other reason than to get it on the page. I might need it one day. I might not. It’s a beautiful, romantic description either way, and that’s how I’d like it to be remembered. Not as the bathroom that hasn’t been renovated in 40 years. Not as the bathroom where I weighed myself every morning hoping for the needle to shift. Not as the bathroom where I spent entirely too much time angling the mirrors just so, to examine every speck of my face and body. Instead, like this:
The previous owners had covered the entire bathroom with wood paneling. The wood was a deep warm caramel color that had dark spots and knots throughout. I used to look at the wood and at the shapes the knots formed, while sitting on the toilet, searching for images like some sort of weird Where’s Waldo?—and I often found some. I knew the wood paneling was dated and tacky, even for back then, but I always kind of liked it. It was so different from any bathroom I had ever seen.
In the class I just finished there were a number of students actively working on a book. Some were working on novels, some on memoirs, some about the last year of their life, some about a far away made-up planet that resembled Earth, yet not at all. I’ve never been around this many writers who were writing actual books. It was incredible. It was inspiring. It was frightening.
Because now I’m thinking about books, too.
Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not ready to write a book…yet. But I think I see it far off in the horizon, like the shining beacon Tony Soprano sees in his coma dreams. Too far to walk to, but close enough to be curious about.
What would it take to actually write a book? A whole book? While sitting through a recent seminar on scene writing—where the teacher broke down the concepts of Scene + Sequel as per Dwight Swain—my mind was kind of blown. Blown not because I didn’t already have a general understanding of plot, scenes, conflict, resolution and all that stuff you learn about literature in high school, but blown because of the idea of marrying those concepts to my own writing. To take the memories I’ve been mining and give them structure. Give them a plot.
It hit me that up until this point I’ve just been at the gym on my computer doing reps writing snippets. Getting stronger. Building stamina. Becoming a better writer, even. But to what end? My goal in the beginning was to simply get published, and well, I guess I’ve done that. Of course I have other, loftier, publishing goals (I’m currently manifesting an essay in a literary mag), but overall I can say I ran that race. But it was a 2K. Small potatoes. What’s next?
It seems I need a new training program. It seems now that I know how to wrestle my life experiences enough to no longer describe myself as someone with a “bad memory”, I need a new goal. I need a new muscle to work. I need to find a way to apply all that strength and stamina into something concrete. I need to learn how to write a Story.
I was going to end this newsletter here, but it occurs to me that this topic might be too specific/niche for non writers without a quick metaphor. Anyone in the mood to talk about motherhood?
Once you figure out how to change the diapers, and pump the milk, and dress the baby, and work all the gadgets and equipment, and basically KEEP THE CHILD ALIVE, then and only then, can you start to care about the next phase of being a mom: being a mother. Those two words are very different for me. Being a Mom is the daily grind of keeping a small human safe and fed and clean and (somewhat) content. It’s wiping butts, giving baths, and being woken up in the middle of the night because “my foot itches”. It’s saying things like “no you can’t have some of my coffee” and “we don’t lick people’s faces” and “can you please wait until you’re done peeing before you stand up to wipe?” Being a Mother, on the other hand, is everything else.
My daughter is only four years old so to some degree I still consider myself a new mom, especially compared to moms like my cousins who have kids in college. Yet I have four years under my belt and I’m slowly entering the phase of motherhood that requires actual mothering. I’m long past the point of being able to Google quick fixes for Mom problems, like how to sterilize a bottle or how to drop a nap. Now I have un-Google-able problems. I have problems that require reading long think pieces written by smart experts. I have problems that whole books are written about. I have Mother problems.
My daughter, now an almost-person, looks to me for guidance every day without even realizing it. With every decision she makes (to say yes or no? to throw the toy or not throw the toy? to lie about writing on the wall or not to lie?) she is testing me. She is testing my training. She is saying, “Mama, is this ok?” My job has evolved from holding a blob as close as possible, keeping it as safe and clean and happy as possible, into holding the hand of an almost-person as they walk through the world. My job description now includes teaching things like values, respect, hard work; to tell the truth, to care about friends, to be a good citizen; to have empathy, compassion, and an understanding of her privilege; to say please and thank you, and mean it. This part, I can already tell is the marathon. This is being a Mother. It’s what I’ve been training for, I guess. What all the other work has been preparing me for, but I just didn’t know it at the time.
My new goal is clear: to raise a Good Person…and maybe write a book, too.
“I can now jump in and out of parts of my life like they are different swimming pools in the same giant resort” — I looove this imagery & framework!!
I feel so lucky to have read this BEAUTIFUL piece of writing today. And we would be even luckier to get a book from you down the road!