So You’re Supposed To Write A Memoir

You’re dad came home from Back-To- School-Night, or Curriculum Night, or whatever it’s called and said that in your English class this year, you’ll write a memoir.

“I wonder who could help her with that,” your dad said.

I could help you, but it’d probably be better if I didn’t. For the same reason I insist your dad go to these Middle School “here’s what I’m teaching” nights, this is your turf now – your moments, your experiences that you get to turn over and think about how they shape you, or if they will at all.

I don’t want to get in the way of your storytelling. I think that’s the best support I can give you. More than using your setting to evoke, or working metaphor into your story, it’s best you write your memories the way you see and experience them.

It’s how I’ve always treated writing about you.

One of my first blog posts had to do with how hard it was to get you down for a nap. I was miserable that day. The plan was for you to nap so I could write, but you wouldn’t, and maybe “miserable” is too dramatic of a word, but that’s how I felt, and that’s another thing I want to pass along to you: go on and feel the way you feel, but also, see what it is you can do with those feelings. See what you can create from them.

We parents sometimes tend to think we are responsible for how you’re feeling. This is because it is painful to see our children upset, angry, struggling. We’d rather not, and so if we can do something about it, sometimes we do. I know I’m guilty of that, and it comes from fear and discomfort. You are so bold, so daring, so confident, so effervescent, and I’m terrified for the day you question all of that; for the day you get your heart broken. There are so many ways to get your heart broken.

So I was miserable, and you were wearing these red sweatpants with a matching onesie, and when I walked into your bedroom, the one your dad painted sunshine yellow because it is my favorite color, and we didn’t know what yours would be, you’d taken all the diapers I had stacked on your changing table, opened them up, and put them in your crib.

You were so proud of yourself, you held one up to show me what you’d done. I put them back, laid you down, and we tried again.

We are always trying again, you and I.

It went on like this for a long time. I’d sit at the table and write for ten minutes, then stand up to try again to get you to sleep. That day, I compared trying to get you to take a nap with trying to solve for x in an algebraic problem – another thing I’m no good at. It made me laugh, the simile, and it felt good. Not just because I laughed, but because I was the person who did something – created something – from my situation, all by myself.

That’s what I hope for you.

You never did fall asleep. We took a trip to the bookstore, and you fell asleep in the stroller, so I bought a coffee and a book, and we sat outside on a bench near a sandwich shop that was playing Del Amitri’s, “Tell Her This”:

Tell her what was wrong

I sometimes think too much

But say nothing at all

And tell her from this high terrain, I am ready

now to

fall

I thought maybe someday I would tell you this, hopefully showing you we did OK, you and I. We were alright figuring out this world together.

I don’t mind sharing it with you, but it’d be my memory, and not yours. Very few people besides grandparents want to hear a story that starts out, “My mom tells a story about how I didn’t nap.” That’s because it’s not your story. I want you to experience the power and redemption in handling the truth. My friend and fellow writer Jenn Batchelor would tell you “to write the story only you can tell.”

Write about summer nights closing down the pool. Write about how it feels to score a soccer goal. Write about walking across a rickety rope bridge one mile off the ground. Write about that slow, sad walk home from the pool on the last day of summer, heading up to your room, closing the door.

Write about something that makes you nervous, or sad, or fearful. You will find there’s more there than what makes you feel uncomfortable, or, you’ll write it so it’s bearable.

I suggest small moments that you like to return to – or you can’t help returning to.

There will probably come a time when you will doubt the worth of your story. You will forget what was so great about it in the first place. Don’t give up. Keep looking at it because that’s the point when it’s about to get so good. What’s happening is it’s no longer your story – it’s getting ready to be shared, and you are holding it close to you because sharing it can be scary. That’s hefty work, but stay in the game. My other friend and writer Sonya Spillman would tell you to, “throw the damn football.”

You’ll like the metaphor because of sports and also because of the swear word, but I also want you to consider the toss. You’ll watch a football player throw a ball and sometimes you’ll hear a collective gasp and then roar of celebration because everything worked in his favor: technique, his teammates, the wind. Sometimes though, there is a mistake and the crowd goes equally wild, and you’ll hear existential and philosophical insults so crass, so angry, you might wonder what it is this ball actually holds.

There is no guarantee what will happen when you throw the ball. Don’t focus on the outcome. Focus on how it felt to grip the ball, to aim it with precision focus, to throw it – to give it away – so someone else can carry it. So someone else can give it a try.

That’s what stories are like for me. As soon as I hit “publish,” as soon as I send something to an editor, the story is no longer mine. It belongs to whoever else wants to pick it up and carry it home.

It can be a brutal process, and at times I wish I was a football player so that after the game I could ice myself – numb all of it so I can rest. But it is also a gift, turning one’s life over and deciding what stories will come of it. The stories you write from your life will help you live your life, and while this is a lesson that is smacking me in the face every day I watch you walk out the door to catch the bus – yours is not my life to live. Your stories are yours to write, nobody can do it for you.

So go on and tell what only you can tell. Throw the damn football. I’ll attempt to catch it, but I’ll step out of the way if it wasn’t meant for me. Or maybe I’ll be in the stands, watching and cheering you on. Maybe I won’t be in the stadium at all. That’ll be OK, too. You are always my daughter; you’re not only my daughter.

The rest of it is up to you to figure out.