memoir

Tail-wagging & other ways of giving thanks

One of my favorite Southernisms is, "It’s a sad puppy that won’t wag its own tail."  My Yankee interpretation? It’s a back-door reminder to give thanks for our blessings. 

I think it’s engrained in us to be humble about our achievements, maybe even self-effacing.  Especially women: On the whole, we’re more reluctant to give ourselves a shout-out. (Cross your legs at the ankles, keep your thoughts to yourself…) But I think we should celebrate every achievement, tangible or otherwise. 

So…What say we do some tail-wagging for Thankful Thursday? I’m fully caffeinated, so how ’bout I start? 

Last week, a thick cloud of dirt and debris pelted my ankles and darkened my doorway. Life’s like that sometimes, isn’t it? But by nightfall yesterday, I’d managed to tamp down the dust, and to reshape the experience into an important scene for my memoir.  As I watched the sunrise from my office window this morning, I reflected on this minor miracle. Bolstered by supportive friends and family, I’d managed to turn lemons into lemonade, water into wine…[insert your favorite metaphor]. My sense of accomplishment has more to do with counting my blessings (again, grace) than numbering the words I typed. And yet, I have to add, I wrote quite a lot!

You’re next on the parade route. C’mon, let’s hear you toot that horn! With all due apologies for another mixed metaphor.

Teaser Tuesday: Ghosts of fruitcakes past

[info]jamarattigan wrote a delicious post the other day, in which she extolled the virtues of the much-maligned fruitcake. Though she couldn’t quite convince me to try another slice, she served up several memories of fruitcakes past.

My family used to bake huge quantities of fruitcake, which my father gave to hapless victims preachers he met on the Sawdust Trail during the holidays. The recipe called for lots of expensive ingredients, but “It’s a worthy sacrifice for God,” my father liked to say.

We all chipped in. We’d crack walnuts and pecans around the kitchen table while my  mother scraped orange rinds and chopped the candied fruit. My oldest sister, Coral, helped my brothers measure the wet ingredients into a galvanized washtub; then two by two, we’d all take turns mixing in the flour and spices. My mother and father baked the loaves in our tiny oven—countless pans, a few at a time—and we helped them wrap the cooled cakes with gauze and tin foil. Every few days or so, my father baptized the loaves with bourbon. By the time those fruitcakes reached their ultimate destination, they’d been doused with liquor more times than the county drunk!

A few years ago, my sister and I visited one of the houses where we made those fruitcakes. The current owners showed us all the remodeling they’d done. When we toured the yard, we spotted the galvanized tub! We couldn’t fit it into the trailer when we moved, so we’d left it hanging on a nail. And there it was, was waiting for our return, Oh tidings of comfort and joy: The tub’s been repurposed for gardening. I’m still smiling about that. I’ll take flowers over fruitcake any day!

Here’s Coral, standing near the garage door of that house. The infamous washtub’s in the foreground.

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and…writing?

I’m not a big fan of most amusement park rides, especially the gravity-defying beasts that whiplash your heart between your stomach and your throat. 

I do like Dark Rides, though – the more imaginative, the better. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland is my all-time favorite.

The beginning is peaceful, idyllic even. You climb into a caravan of horseless carriages going “merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, to no place in particular.” Suddenly, the seemingly benign adventure goes berserk! No matter how hard you crank the steering wheel, your car careens in all directions. You crash through the Toad Hall fireplace, barrel through haystacks, nearly run over pedestrians, and narrowly avoid an explosion in a dynamite-filled warehouse. After managing a daring escape from the long arm of the law, your car twists and turns through the darkness, until…OMG! You meet your demise in a head-on collision with an oncoming train. Then – get this – Satan awaits you at the fiery gates of Hell!

 

But don’t fret: In the Magic Kingdom*, all passengers return safely to the sunlit shopping kiosk disembarking area. Hi-tech, it’s not. But I think it’s great. It’s a C-Ticket ride to Hades and back, with a happily-ever-after ending. 

I also think Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is a great metaphor for memoir writers. There’s no instant rush of adrenaline…just a series of wide-awake encounters with your scariest nightmares. You’re not always sure you can push past the obstacles, nor can you be 100% certain that your project won’t hit the skids. Sometimes the pitch-black gets to you. You’re never in real danger, of course; still, you’re always choking back the fear that you could be stuck for a very long time in the cobwebbed surreality of this emotionally charged adventure. But when you tunnel your way out of a difficult passage—wow, that’s magic! You emerge from the darkness with a huge smile on your face, ready to go again.


*Although the original Disneyland ride is still operational, Disney World drove Mr. Toad’s wild ride into oblivion in 1998. 
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Thankful Thursday: Tinkerbell edition

Do you recall what happens after Tinkerbell drinks the poison Captain Hook intended for Peter Pan? As the tiny fairy’s light grows ever fainter, Peter realizes he’s facing the loss of a treasured friend. In desperation, he turns to the audience for help.

"She’s going to die unless we do something. Clap your hands! Clap your hands and say, ‘I believe in fairies!’"

While I’ve taken great pains to collect evidence of my memoir’s veracity, some publishing insiders are suggesting that certain high-profile hoaxes have poisoned the genre altogether. No surprise, those dishonest stories have cast shadows of doubt over CAN I GET A WITNESS. I’m very optimistic about my project’s potential in the long run, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit those perspectives put a temporary damper on my enthusiasm. 

Until I remembered Tinkerbell. 

Why she came to mind, I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps I was inspired by this icon, or maybe it’s the trace of my father’s DNA in me that sees everything as a potential parable. Anyway, when I re-read JM Barrie’s story, this excerpt from the original version really brightened my spirits:

"If you believe," [Peter Pan] shouted to them, "clap your hands; don’t let Tink die." 

Many clapped.

Some didn’t.

A few beasts hissed.

The clapping stopped suddenly….but already Tink was saved. […] First her voice grew strong, then she popped out of bed, then she was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever.”

Did you catch that? Not everyone clapped for Tinkerbell! Her inner light returned, even though not everyone believed.

In re-reading Peter Pan, I rediscovered that important truth. Not everyone has to believe in my project. Some will say meh, and others will reject it outright. But it just takes one agent and one editor, right? That, plus a writer who believes in herself.

I also realized anew the power of our collective spirit. Each of us goes through dark times now and again; when that happens, we can help one another keep the magic alive. I’m grateful for the wonderful people who clapped for me when I didn’t have the energy to clap for myself. 

I refuse to let my light go out, not ever. I’ll keep researching and telling my story true. I’ve worked too hard, endured too much to let someone else write "The end."  

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Friday Five: truthiness edition

Five factiods for a Friday, plus a few embellishments, no extra charge.

1) A couple of memoirists got inducted into the liar’s club this week. Two Too many wrongs don’t make a right, of course, but it does seem that misery loves company.

2) While the recent memoir debacles aren’t the least bit funny, the Memoir-a-Tron makes me laugh. 

3) When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments, was he really coming down from a drug-induced high? Perhaps, says cognitive psychologist Benny Shannon. I can’t attest to the soundness of his theory, but it might help explain why Moses wandered so long in the wilderness.


4) Twinkie Deconstructed tells more truths about processed foods than some of us might want to swallow. The Twinkie, for instance, gets its buttery taste from butyric acid, which author Ettlinger describes as “a natural component of Parmesan cheese, rancid butter, and, unbelievably, vomit and perspiration.” [Full disclosure: I’ve always hated Twinkies, but this isn’t a hit piece, I promise.]

5) Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to share one of my favorite quotations (dedicated to my good buddy, Linda Partlow), plus two new photos.
Finally…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Philippians 4:8

 

The fifteen-day-old bird babies were slumbering when I approached their nest. But as soon as I snapped the first picture, their eyes popped open, and they stretched their necks toward the sky as if to say, “Mama, is that you?” and “Hey, where’s my food?”

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Clipped wings

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
MaryJo Koch


Our hummingbird hatchlings, 13 days old

Oy. Two more memoirs have been exposed as elaborate fictions, both of them this week. Unbelievable.

I can’t begin to understand why these writers positioned their invented stories as fact. Why not present it as a child’s fantasy? Why not write it as a novel? And, for that matter, why introduce a memoir as “intensified reality,” when it’s more appropriately placed in a different genre altogether? Whatever their individual justifications, I’m sad about their decisions. I worry that they might negatively impact those of us who enjoy memoir, readers and writers alike. 

It’s true that each of us views the world through a unique lens, that our perspectives are therefore limited. But when memoirists purposefully blur the line between reality and imagination, they risk compromising the truth about who they are. I don’t want to come across all holier-than-thou, but I do think it’s essential to keep this in mind. Sure, I want to sell my memoir, CAN I GET A WITNESS? I’d like to think that my personal story will someday have big-tent appeal. But my integrity? It’s not for sale — not ever, and not at any price. 

Memoirist Rachel Manija Brown says, “Fiction which is not emotionally honest is artistically bankrupt. Memoir which is not factually honest is morally bankrupt. It is a writer’s moral and artistic obligation to tell the truth in the manner that is appropriate to the story they wish to tell.”  What else can I add but amen?



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A matter of perspective?

1. Again?! Yet another memoirist was caught throwing truth to the wolves. Unbelievable.

"Be sure your sins will find you out," my father used to preach. Touch of irony, that. 

But there’s a great deal of truth to what he said. It’s peeking out from the pages of this fabricated story.

Hmm…I feel a sermon blog entry coming on. 

2. Hello, hummingbirds, Day 11! This picture’s way bigger than they are. Truth is, this nest (birds and all) is only about an inch-and-a-half long. But in another ten days or so, the hatchlings will be full-fledged hummingbirds!

 

Nancy Drew gets a clue or two

Last week, I poked around Los Angeles and surrounding neighborhoods, taking pictures of places I remembered from my childhood. Lots of buried treasures and secrets surfaced on my trip. For example, I wrote to the owner of a house I lived in when I was three, and she graciously agreed to open her home to my oldest sister and me. Over coffee, we reminisced about my family baking huge quantities of fruitcakes in the very small kitchen. 

I remembered measuring out the ingredients (55 cups of flour, for starters) and stirring everything together in a gigantic, galvanized washtub. The batter was very heavy, so everyone had to pitch in. My mother baked the cakes for days, it seemed, and my older sister dredged the finished loaves through a cast-iron skillet filled with brandy. We wrapped each one in tin foil and slapped on some red bows. Then, my father gave them away as Christmas gifts to preachers he encountered on the Sawdust Trail.  
 

After coffee, the current home owner took us out to see the garage my father had built out back. She’d found the galvanized tub, which we’d left behind in our haste! Another (re)discovery: My mother had carved my father’s name into the cement steps leading down into the garage, and the etching was still visible after all these years!

 

Some of my research isn’t as easy; it requires more intensive digging and a lot more finesse. A while back and just for fun, I started referring to myself as Nancy Drew, Girl Detective. So you gotta know how tickled I was when the archivist for the Episcopalian archdiocese of Maryland (who helped me solve a memoir-related mystery) took to calling herself Nancy Drew, too.

 

Speaking of which, did you know there’s actually a Nancy Drew movie coming out this summer?  What a coincidence! If you squint your eyes and tilt your head just so, you’ll recognize the similarities between its plotline and my own story. In the 2007 movie, teen detective Nancy Drew accompanies her father on a business trip to Los Angeles, where she happens upon clues to a murder mystery involving a movie star. And, as you already know, I went along with my father on his business trips, which often took us to the City of Angels. I don’t expect I’ll uncover a murder mystery, but I’m hot on the trail of my father’s connection to a criminal who was involved with a famous movie star. Allegedly.  

One last, very cool find: On Saturday, I saw the lovely and talented Debra Garfinkle at a book signing in Aliso Viejo. I’ve been following her blog for some time now, so I was really glad to finally meet her in person. Not surprisingly, she was a big hit with the Barnes & Noble customers who stopped by her A-list signing table. Tonight, I’m going to read my signed copy of Storky, the first project she ever sold. Come Monday morning, though, I’ll be ready for another action-packed week!