THE THEME THAT RUNS THROUGH IT

As a writer, there is no doubt that my background, education, family relationships and employment history color the ideas that appear in my work. Some of the very words and expressions that land on the page come from deep emotions, buried past experiences. It is all part of the unconscious life that lives within us, propels some of our decisions as well as our creativity. It’s the theme of our days, the flow of joys and sorrows. I believe it also appears in our dreams, where we work things out, relive events. But if you are like me, dreams are hard to pin down. We might remember aspects of a dream, but it soon slips away–unless it’s a nightmare.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

This past week I sent part of my Memoir to a small publication. It will be interesting to see what they say. Below is an excerpt. It reflects how I lived after my father died of a massive coronary. Though I wrote the memoir as an adult–that’s the whole point. The unconscious remembers. There is loss, sadness. A theme runs through it. I was three years old, when he died; She, is my mother. 

There will always be songs, the words of love She will sing to me, and the soft body of my tiny brother as I hold him. There will be the quiet of the back bedroom with the shades pulled, the hall light on, the window slightly open to the crickets, maybe an owl. And there will be me, lying in bed, sucking my thumb as my heart beats, beats—living moments buried in the wood and plaster of this house, mingling with the slope of the ceilings, the creak of the floors, the very air of the space. The house will be there, a second skin, comforting me, ferrying my child self into the future. 

Writing a memoir is really a form of confession. You can’t hold back. You must report your life exactly as it was. After the thumb sucking, I would need braces. But I lost my father at the age of three, so the consensus was–if she needs to suck her thumb for comfort, just let her be.

WHEN YOU SIT DOWN TO WRITE, YOU WRITE YOUR LIFE

I am also rewriting a novel. Are some of the same themes echoing in this excerpt? Yes. Maybe you also see loneliness, loss. We write what we know. Our characters come alive on the page when they are imbued with how we feel, react. Every character has a little bit of you, the writer. 

Ella roamed, searching closets, drawers, never certain of what she was looking for— living room curtains closed, only narrow knives of sunlight slicing through. Always listening for her mother’s footsteps, startled by the thudding of the grandfather clock, the pendulum descending, asking: where is your father, why did he leave you? Ella never understanding why the woman she depended on hid away. The result, creating a secret twin to give her courage, be with her while wandering the darkened house, though Ella never knew what she was looking for.

Then later, more courage, Ella and her secret twin, going out, roaming the neighborhood, feeling the tall spring grass against their legs, walking farther and farther, counting the city blocks all the way to the lake—something she’d been warned never to do, ignoring her sleeping mother, being content with her ghostly partner—Cecile never to notice that you were gone, you’d disobeyed, you being forced to grow yourself, make your way to the commercial strip, all its shops….w ind whispering in the trees, “you can do this, you will find your way.”

THANKS FOR READING

P.S. The mother in the novel, Cecile, is the opposite of my mother. But sometimes it takes that tension, that complete departure to create real events and certainly more drama.

 

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