Apologies for the epoch between posts. My larger writing projects have been consuming most of my time and headspace. (Forecast: major editing and publication.) And, I’m still teaching! Translation: Every moment counts, especially the ones writing.
It’s such a pleasure to welcome new students into my practice. Each comes with their own strengths, passions, growing edges. Yet, the most common element is a desire to make meaning out of what they are learning.
Take one student who needed help with an essay about a book that centered on an escape from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The main character, blind, depended on his senses, his intelligence, and his guide dog. The relationship between dog and man was at the heart of the essay.
Yet, the student seemed to lack sufficient context of 9/11. This want led to a lack of vested interest, or so it seemed in the writing that had been completed thus far. After we watched a stunning clip — yes, stunning for its capture of the jetliner crashing into the first tower– I shared my own memories of that morning as I learned the news. Then I recalled the eerie week of continuing shock afterwards. Do you have a story of how you learned or a family member who was there?
It was a shocking moment in history. It was devastating. Catastrophic. Mind-blowing. Violent. Savage. Brutal. My mind still empties when I witness any part of this staggering once-unimaginable event.
It’s a lot to take in. But take it in we must, if we are to understand such an event. And take it in we must, if we are to write about such things in human history. Without an emotional investment, an essay captures little of the enduring helplessness and desperation of 9/11. The changes wrought by this despicable act. Because of this, the essay couldn’t possibly capture the courage of those on the scene.
The teacher on record asked me how I supported this student writer. Perhaps, I’ll writemore on that in a future post. For now, I’ll simply say, I enticed her with context, emotions, and words — like the ones above.
How might it feel to witness what registers as a significant historical event? What event in your lifetime will you never forget?
If we can’t imagine how a blind man navigating his way down a building on fire, that may have been hit (he didn’t know at first) deliberately with a jetliner, then how do we imagine our students will be able to write about such things.
Meaningful. Authentic purpose. Those aren’t throwaway words. What we learn must have meaning, and possibly earn a place in our psyche, before we can record more than facts, before we can write something someone wants to read. And isn’t that the point of learning how to write? Write with meaning.
Thank you for this wonderful collection of essays on life and loss, and so much more in your book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost.
As an avid reader and writer, I love the deep dig of re-reading, underlining, marginalia, of pausing to ruminate. And now that reading is more often at bedtime, I confess I’ve often read and reread one of your passages to understand the words. Your writing demands more thinking than most. When a writer speaks of the “kind of resilience of the psyche” that speaks to the “rugged” brutality of our lives, a reader must take note, literally. Its meandering style allowed me to pick up the book at will which helped me incorporate the history and the memoir, the physicality and mentality, along with the meanings. Of course, the book is about being lost, and as I hoped, the experience of loss itself.
Against a multitude of positive quotes, affirmations, and platitudes that instruct us to be strong and carry on, your book waves the caution flag: difficult road ahead. This loss stuff isn’t so easy.
I suppose that’s why I honed in on your description of a butterfly’s transformation an apt metaphor. It’s one we think we’re familiar with. It’s a beautiful story we’ve come to believe.
Yet, we don’t know it at all, starting with the awareness that the process involves decay. The magic of this change is less about beauty and much more about ugliness and even violence. When the creature crawls into the chrysalis, it “digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues.” Ugh.
Change is not for the faint of heart.
After the chrysalis opens, you bring our attention to that last step of the butterfly’s transformation: leaving the shell that has offered dubious shelter. Far from the “graceful as a flower blooming” time lapse video, a tragic image is made concrete in its brutality.
I recently finished listening to the audiobook of your novel, Olga Dies Dreaming. As other audiobooks became available, and I wasn’t at all captivated with Olga’s occupation as wedding planner to the elite, I nearly dropped the novel. Napkin drama? How trendy and shallow can an author be? The stories of those who meander through lives taking little note of the world they walk through can be repulsive.
Yet, I kept reading. I’m glad I did. Your novel is layered with questions and meaning.
What changed my mind? For one, an unwillingness to give up on any Latina author, writing about two Latinos –puertorriqueño siblings in this case, particularly when the two are financially successful and live in privilege. For another, like many from the old neighborhood, Pietro and Olga grapple with the way achievement can separate us from our sustaining roots. Also, their family disorientation feels authentic (though created for the novel), and their concerns are ones most of us have.
Adding the political backdrop teased me in. While not a fan of strictly political books, I am an avid fan of fiction with a political backdrop. Novels that raise socio-political questions keep me reading. Consider The Bean Trees. Barbara Kingsolver fosters awareness on issues of immigration, indigenous trauma, and racism. And while some will dismiss such writing as divisive and manipulative, I truly appreciate the adept way Puerto Rico’s issues are woven into Olga and Pietro’s exploration of identity. A dissatisfaction with wealth, a call for attention to their own disintegrating neighborhood, and a tangled concept of liberation compelled me.
Intelligent novels are often more inspiring than what passes as news. One such mismanaged media example is when the spotlight should’ve been on what Puerto Ricans needed after a hurricane. Instead, cameras and talking heads highlighted Drumpf tossing paper towels to a beleaguered crowd in Puerto Rico. His actions so despicably clueless, if not absolutely incompetent, for someone of such rank made for cringe worthy reporting. And was a red herring distraction leading us away from the central point. Can news even reveal what’s important to know?
Perhaps it won’t be surprising to say that I’m most often the tune-out type; neither a disaster do-gooder nor disaster porn addict, yet left wondering how to be most helpful. Disaster news overwhelms and pushes me into a pit of darkness and confusion. The same thoughts and prayers, the same scenes, the same promises. In the case of P.R., little thought of the island inhabitants, except when hurricanes put them in the public’s eye, crossed my mind. Yet I’ve since learned about H.R. 8393, which offers P.R. the opportunity to vote for independence. The Senate hasn’t passed the bill, and maybe a letter can provide a tangible way to support P.R. You have my admiration for giving readers insights into the lives and struggle of Americans (yes readers, P.R is America).
Speaking of status and socio-political issues, the villainy of the Selby clan and their cronies was very satisfying. I love a good villain to despise, and their exploitive actions and entitlement made it easy to loathe them. While weaving in the people who manipulate politics seems an obvious choice, Dick’s hypocrisy (no spoilers here) diminishes him and minimizes the impact of those who want to and could possibly make a difference. Certainly, all of them propose a thwarted view of helping our fellow man.
Of course, everyone has dirty hands—even those who stand helplessly by (like I do) in a significant crisis. The main characters aren’t perfect. You are very clear that their mother, Blanca, isn’t either. Her manipulations remind me a bit of my abuela. While many mothers are guilty of manipulating their children, especially Latina ones, and I certainly have been told I can craft quite a respectable guilt trip, Blanca takes her desire for parental influence to a new level.
Most provocatively, Olga Dies Dreaming turns the usual matriarchal model of loving mother on its ear. But I admit, I was torn, wanting her kids to see her passion and commitment to improve life for their countrymen. Isn’t sacrifice for others noble? Aren’t parents supposed to want more for their children? She tells Pietro, that “even people who were once your sails can become your anchors.” Indeed, our hopes can tie down our children, and before they can live their dream, they will need to slip off the chains of expectation, and listen to their own hearts.
As the story continues, the missives from Blanca unfolds a disturbing view and an extreme impact of parental expectations. What’s even more brilliant (to me as a writer) is the use of this epistolary device which allows Blanca to remain distant from us, the reader, while echoing same in her relationship with her kids.
One last note on parental relationships, the siblings’ reaction to their mother helped me sort out some possibilities for my own story, including recognizing the role of generational trauma and my own desperate attempts to be considered worthy of my father’s attention.
In a branch of absent parents comes the family that still holds a place for Olga and Pietro. They are fortunate. And thus, the book holds a hopeful tone. While I appreciate my siblings for many things, when it comes to processing my father, they offer no shoulder. And as I reread all of my father’s poems and letters as a way of understanding him, so many questions remain unanswered, so much pain remains. Like these two orphaned adults, I’m trying to figure out where home lies.
Underlying discordant notes (of class, racism, imperialism, radical activism) are part of the whole picture. And along with origins and dreams, you remind us how these merits deep examination. We can benefit from hearing this music before we can realize true growth.
While little of this sounds light and funny, Olga Dies Dreaming traces an inevitable superficiality of the upper classes, and those that upwardly climb, all of whom forget the benefits from previous generations’ hard work and sacrifice. Of course, you make us laugh, if even squirm, at Olga and Pietro’s bumbling attempts to be comfortable with coveted success. And because both possess a strong need to be good and authentic people, yours is a fun read.
Final note for readers: the origin of the title. Olga Dies Dreaming led me to the work of Puerto Rican poet, Pedro Pietri best known for “Puerto Rican Obituary” in which writes about the sacrifices made to become someone else. “Puertorriquenos are a beautiful race” indeed.
Thank you. Pietri’s work is worth reading, and so is your book.
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finley Boylan
“All of us have something in our hearts like a flower that cannot bloom because it is held in secret.”
While I have issues with the very end of the novel– feeling the answer to the central search of the novel a bit tacked on, I sped through this book, marveling at the way Picoult and Boylan wove the bee-keeping, the life of a transitioned girl, teens and motherhood into and through the novel.
As a mother, I ached for the main character and the mother of the girl whose death begins a search to punish her killer. The pain bourne by a parent is only equal to the joy of watching a child grow into someone beautiful.
As someone who has watched a loved one face long term consequences of abuse, I wanted to cry out against the injustice of any person trapped in this pain.
In the words of Boylan: “Mad Honey is a novel of suspense about the secrets we keep from each other and from ourselves.”
In the words of Picoult: “There are things that I’ve wanted to write about for a long time, about identity and about how we become who we are, and Jenny and I have very different lived experiences, as women, in this country.”
Final comment: the novel started as a dream that Boylan had. When she woke, she tweeted about the dream and Jodi Picoult responded to partner in the writing of the novel. See interview with Christina Harcar on Audible.
I’m at an exciting part. Deep into the story of Addie LaRue, I push away everyone and everything just so my eyes remain on the page (or earbuds in the ears). I want to know what happens to the cursed Addie as she walks through life invisible and forgettable to all but . . . Uh, no. No spoilers here.
My creative writers are at an exciting place, too.
They’ve written a series of exciting things happening, of characters meeting swords to beasts, and suspenseful moments climbing toward the peak of a story. None of which is easy. Working through the challenges to make their characters visible and memorable, they have set down words, a story, an adventure, rhe writers bring their pages ready to share, eager to share aloud and hear some feedback. And I’m eager to read what they’ve written!
The plot is evident. But lately, amidst fantastic twists and crazy turns, I’ve been wondering about their characters. How can they become invested in these characters? Are they real enough, do we care enough, to keep reading?
In the fall, I asked my students, “Imagine a monster breaking through the fence. It attacks a group member. What do you do? Would you run or fight?” We agree they’d probably run away screaming. Then I ask what changes if the attack is their best friend (we work at friendships in group, but it takes a bit of time). The response comes with “Sure, I’d help him/her.” We work our way through various scenarios that changes the shrug to a physical response: a karate pose, two fists up, a brief scan for a possible weapon– a branch, a flower pot? What will it take to move us to stay and fight? Do we know enough about someone to risk our time and energy? What if they are the only person who knows where the treasure is hidden?
The point is to create characters we are willing to fight for, so our readers will be willing to read on.
While plotting out a story can be made easier with various tools, it’s tougher to create a character we actually care about. How do story creators pull on heartstrings?
One easy way is to show your character being nice to younger kids, to the loner at school, and to animals (especially, cats, dogs and horses). Another easy way is to give him/her a positive flaw. Maybe a character is too honest and that leads to trouble (see Schooled by Gordon Korman). Or perhaps he is poor and dutiful, but can’t afford what he wants, so he must work hard to earn enough (see Where the Red Fern Grows). Maybe she is curious and intelligent, but she lives during a time when women, especially young ones, are limited in their choices — we know she’ll face challenges!
Others ways are giving characters a flaw, a habit of misjudgment, a sticking point. Authors must give characters plenty of good traits but perfection is dull. So we give the hard worker or the curious, a flaw of rationalizing their obvious mistakes. Or perhaps she has to pay for the one mistake all of her life, in the case of Addie LaRue who made a deal with the dark. Or Jean Val Jean in Les Miserables who is pursued for one indiscretion. Every reader knows a good book that has both a character who inspires caring and also has room to grow.
In fact, the world is full of characters we want to read, and very few of them are perfect specimens of humanity. We read to see how they cope with the missteps and obstacles. A single flaw won’t make a character readable. Ultimately, we enjoy a character who lies to himself.
We know about lying. All of the adults in our lives told us not to lie, so we avoid the nasty habit as much as possible. Choosing carefully how we step through minefields of white lies and rationalizations. Yet we lie to ourselves all the time. And what’s more troubling is we can believe the lies we tell ourselves.
Recognize any of these?
I’m too busy to . . ./ I just don’t have the time to . . . .
I’m too old/too young/too fat/to slow to . . . .
People leave, so I shouldn’t get attached.
I will never be as good at . . . as . . .
I need to be in control or something will go wrong.
I always fail at . . .
If I could only be/have/etc. … I’d be happy
We lie when we tell ourselves that nothing we do will make the winter holidays less stressful, that the family dinner next month is going to be a disaster, or that we’ll never fall in love. One of my favorite lies that non-parents tell is that kids are so easy to raise! My sister-in-law once told me that all kids need is clothes, food and shelter. Having her own has challenged that mythical mindset.
Lies can be deeply rooted in our psyche and DNA, and if we examine recent studies about trauma, we find that they travel through generations. It’s possible, though I’ve yet to meet anyone that hasn’t faced hardship, grief, fear, doubt, regret and anger or been wounded, experienced loss or felt trauma. In which case, you can consider yourself lucky. But even if you’ve made it through the teen years without scars, just remember your reader is not likely to have been so lucky.
To be clear, this isn’t about a decidedly skewed sense of reality, of hallucinations and the like– though a character may have some serious problems– and the genre may demand such. This idea isn’t about going from good to evil. And while this is certainly not a post about psychoanalyzing yourself, we can and must analyze our characters!
The truth of the human subconscious is it’s mucky. What’s up with the nice guy who anticipates that Jill would turn him down. We authors must go into the swampy mess of the human psyche if we are to find out why the princess doesn’t think she’ll a good ruler. Sure he’s not wealthy. And yes, she can’t help turning people to ice. Go deeper. Go to the fundamental lie: Does the nice guy think no one will love him? That he is unworthy because only wealth makes worth. Does the princess believe that leaders aren’t capable of cruelty? More importantly, do they believe that they can never change?
Not only do many characters who have little confidence reject change, they commonly believe that they can’t be happy until X happens.
All too often we humans believe the same.
False beliefs, or the fancy way that psychology labels the lies we tell ourselves– Cognitive Distortions–show the power of the mind to mislead which makes them a powerful tool in creative writing. Take Catastrophizing, or what we call when a person exaggerates the effect of everything to extremes. They can lead us to go from one poor exam grade to a lifetime of boring jobs in less than five minutes. In one of my favorite novels, a mother of five daughters not only believes marrying her daughters off the only sacred duty of motherhood, but also rejecting a proposal will result in a life of poverty for her and her daughters (Pride and Prejudice). When Mrs. Bennet’s daughter rejects a valid proposal, her demeanor cascades into a dreadful fit of drama.
Or how about a character who only sees things in black and white or extreme opposites, PolarizedThinking. What juicy situations may an author create that will easily lead him to stubbornly dig in! Or perhaps, he’ll be indecisive –after all, all or nothing means every choice in life can be too big of a commitment. One of my own characters has been convinced that the only man that can truly help her is her biggest enemy. Her own Filtering — the magnifying of the negative while ignoring the positive– traps her, renders her unable to change course. If every piece of evidence confirms her false belief, what will change her mind?
How might someone with a cognitive distortion, such as Mind-Reading or Fortune-Telling react when put in a situation that demands them to look at life differently? Can we understand a character who evades responsibility and blames others for every mistake?
Of course, we don’t have to know that these false beliefs are cognitive distortions (unless we want to work our way through them) to place them in stories, but knowing them can helps us grow both as writers and human beings.
Would it be possible for young writers who learn about the human psychology of creating authentic characters to gain awareness of their own mindsets? As we apply what we’ve learned to our characters, might we begin to see how our limitations lead to struggling against the fire-breathing dragons outside and the dark beasts inside. Of course, I’m here to open up possibilities, but every one of us must work through our own dragons and take charge of our own journeys to change.
And when it comes to arming my creative writers, I’m going to give them whatever tools I find effective. The main takeaway will be we don’t just want characters to face and overcome challenges, wielding a sword or swinging fists. We don’t just want to see they grow — an imperative for a tasty tale– we must care about them enough to see them through to the end, begging for more even when we arrive at the last page.
Here’s a few interesting places to read more on the web
What tools might you suggest to create authentic characters?
What do you know about cognitive distortions?
What false beliefs do your characters have?
What false beliefs are you working to change in your own life?
Show’s over. Go home. Nothing to see. The recent book banning debate hit California as a parent complained her child had access to a book on a web based service. It was just a mistake of mislabeling or filtering or something. “This isn’t book banning or censorship,” wrote a member of the Orange Unified Public School Facebook group OUSD Buzz. “This is ensuring age appropriate materials remain where they should be.” Apparently, no one wanted to take books out of the hands of students. Debate over.
But is it, really?
Not for conservatives, not for book banners, not for those whose ideas of freedom spells less learning.
Ray Bradbury says, “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” Given the main character of Fahrenheit 451 begins the story as a fireman burning books, Bradbury was always an outspoken critic of censorship. Undoubtedly, he would suspect the Orange County district’s suspension of Sora (related to Overdrive) is not just a simple disagreement over the age appropriateness of books. He’d point at the usual banning of books the kind where people scream “obscene pornography” over LGBTQ stories or the F word.
One must wonder, though, is this conflict more like an expectation for the world to be your child’s nanny?
Let’s face it, the joys of the digital age are expansive. One may even be tempted to use a screen to “supervise” children. But when parenting demands heightened involvement and oversight, and everyone, including disagreeing parents, seem to have their eyes locked on a screen, we tend to blame the screens. It’s a tough spot we’re in, watching out for our youth in a volatile world. We can decry the dangers of the digital age and its access to so much information at our fingertips, yet parenting is still parenting; reading is still reading; and censorship is still censorship. When we put in or take out a book from the hands of our own children, that may or may not be good parenting, but when we take the same book out of the hands of all children, that’s fear.
One OUSD first grade parent remarked that to suspend all access to a library because of complaints of two books is “the equivalent of finding a spider in your basement and taking a flamethrower to your entire home.” Many, including union president of teachers warned of an “organized effort by the extreme right… to transform public education.” Are we listening to the sirens warning of us an encroaching fire?
So while Jill Replogle and Michael Flores write about the brouhaha on LAist, leaving us a chuckle of irony — a mom read aloud the offending passages at the board meeting (gee, I hope there weren’t any children in the room!) — censorship isn’t a joke. We can laugh, but we cannot ignore attacks on books. We must be aware of anyone carrying the tiniest fire of censorship.
Of course, as a parent I recognize there are books I wouldn’t give a second grader to read. But being a book lover, teacher and a reader of book banning attempts over the years, I’ve had plenty of time to consider banning books a threat. But don’t take my word for it: research what others have had to say this year. NPR has its own coverage of the threat of censorship in this article. And there’s an interesting peek at what’s going across the country on the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy, along with a list of recent attacks on books. There’s a woman on Tiktok who shares the news from classroom libraries in Florida. Check her out here. I admire her for her specificity. Instead of simply crying foul, she’s reading aloud the books that are undergoing the “review” process (which has taken some books over a year). I puzzle why these books have been pulled from teacher and school collections. Another TikTok post featured a man ranting about books he calls pornographic. But here’s the thing: If someone is going to call out a book but hasn’t read it, I have to wonder. If someone calls out books and can’t or won’t even name titles, I don’t have to wonder. It’s noise.
Of course, I had to read the book in question as research. The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg involves two older high school boys whose queer identity is known only to a few close friends and their parents. They haven’t dated because they don’t know how. Their friends haven’t quite received the memo that teasing them about being gay, even in a lighthearted way, is lame, and these scenes convey the struggle many have faced against heteronormativity — that’s a fancy word for saying the boy-girl relationship story is the norm and surrounds us like water. We’re the fish in that story. While we may not recognize that water around us, we can recognize family struggles and friend struggles.
And The Music of What Happens is full of them. Both young men have had to grapple with family issues — a lost father, a mom whose grief and resulting addiction has taken her too far. When the two meet, the young men help each other through some difficult times. Within its pages are tender moments of a growing friendship and then crush, with a sprinkle of swear words that don’t feel gratuitous and if memory serves doesn’t come close to the amount of swear words heard in the halls of schools. Note: nothing in this book come even close to the bar set by Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc. In addition to a thread of consent, Konigsberg weaves charity, toxic masculinity, and acknowledging trauma along with connection and the realization that true friends don’t hurt you.
Frankly, I was happy that Konigsberg handled the sexuality with a light touch, mostly friends dancing around the topics. The one very difficult scene is a date rape in which the young man is de-clothed. As the character dissociates (a condition in which you may feel disconnected from yourself and the world around you, as in feeling as though the world around you is unreal), the scene is reminiscent of a 50’s sex scene cut away. We don’t see much (my own little modest millie prefers this from most stories). What we do witness is how an unwanted sexual experience can leave a survivor feeling that they may have deserved or asked for the sexual abuse. We struggle with Konigsberg’s character as he wonders why he doesn’t move, leave or hit the abuser. Mostly, the sadness comes after the experience, causing him to shutdown and withdraw. Indeed, this traumatic experience may help readers understand how sexual abuse continues and more importantly, that telling an adult, especially a therapist, can alleviate suffering.
Nevertheless, at the heart of the book is the friendships, the failure and success of dad’s old chicken food truck, and two teens trying to work out what it means to be an adult. I don’t want to give any more spoilers, so I’ll just say that this is a book I’d add to my list of books with authentic characters.
Returning a moment to the riled up school community, Sarah Smylie, argued that a book is “not salacious or pornographic” when it describes a genuine struggle teens face. Identity and how to tell apart the good friends from the toxic ones is what coming of age books are about. As a parent, one of my favorite parts of Konigsberg’s story is the way one of the boys alerts his friend’s mom of his concern. He could’ve walked away, rightly so because he doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he doesn’t. Mom might never have known why her son was suffering without this one brave act. (And this book is filled with plenty of courage.) The mom recognizes the boyfriend’s concern and steps in. She is not only involved in her son’s life, she willingly serves as his advocate and shows him she loves him enough to encourage him to talk about something difficult.
Indeed, we need more books about adults who step up to support kids. Support is having informed discussions about books and media, not banning books. Support is about opening up conversations to help our kids figure out how to be in the world with their values intact, not shoving important questions into a forgotten corner so people have to find answers on their own. Support is sharing, not silencing concerns. Support is listening, reading, advocating for those who haven’t had a voice and need to see theirs on the shelves of libraries.
Support is checking out the books your children are reading, talking about books you’re reading, and having more conversations that help your kids fit into your family’s idea of safe. And not expecting others to do this for you.
Support is taking a hard look at what’s being pulled off of shelves and why. And speaking out against banning books.
Update by LAist: “The Sora app will be reinstated Feb. 6. In a written announcement, Interim Superintendent Edward Velasquez (who just quit) said that the books in question have been reassigned to the correct grade levels. . . No books or categories have been removed from the app.” YET.
But the debate isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Are there any fires burning in your neighborhood or nearby? Tell me about them in the comments.
January is dark. It’s a tough month to navigate. Though the promise of longer days, the hours of light remain short and the “clouds are edging my mind in gray” (Yaralian) Four and a half weeks feels more like five, especially if the month begins on Sundays or Mondays. Post-holiday let downs and commitments to increase exercise and cut down the sugar weigh heavy, as do the expectation of making this year better than the last. While January articles and adverts tend toward healthy resolutions and good intentions, those ideas struggle to penetrate the gloom, and I often question whether one can make an effective goal without both a centering focus and examining the whole picture. How do we do both at the same time?
This January has been particularly isolating as my household combats covid, and my spine heals from an October compression fracture. An aggravating factor is the relentless rain that reminds me of the two long winter months spent at my daughter’s side recovering from MSRA-infested lungs. The ghosts still linger. The first month of the year indelibly marks my mom’s death of about fifteen years and my brother’s who died mid-pandemic on the same day as mom (just like him to claim her day). My papa (which is what I affectionately called my stepdad) made this list when he entered hospice winter of 2021 and died in February last year. The shadows lengthen, no matter how often the sun brings its light to the center of my living room, nor how many times I dive into a good book with a cup of hot cocoa in hand. (Though both help as do talking with friends). Loss and darkness haunts me in January.
I’ve been thinking lately about loss so when this past week a distant family member passed, I realized I’d never read my Papa’s obituary. I hadn’t read it at the time of his death; the reasons are related but belong to another story. I read the final words about him. I wish I hadn’t.
Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.
"Separation" W.S. Merwin
The poets understand that loss never completely disappears unless the love is shallow, then the meaningless scratch merits no words. If we’re lucky, we have deep wounds, signifying how deep the love has transformed us. In the healing of love’s wound, a scab forms, and gently gives way to a scar. If we’re even luckier, love creates many happy moments along with the tears and the scars serve as deep reminders that loss is part of life, connecting us with humanity and the ones we’ve lost and who remains. But make no mistake the scars remain. They are a part of us.
But for fattening rain
We should have no flowers,
Never a bud or leaf again
(Rosetti)
While I didn’t know that Papa’s obituary (written by whom?) would crush my soul, I definitely knew his death (last year) would be hard because I loved him and because his passing would remind me of my mother’s. When mom died fifteen years or so ago, so did two of my essential circle that same year. Wide and ranging are my scars. I’d known these people were important, but had I realized these people defined me? To say I felt lost without them is a gross understatement. Compass demagnetized, the needle spun. I felt abandoned (or re-abandoned in the case of my father). Orphaned. Wondering, amidst such confusion, I’d suspected I might not have even existed. I had to search for the clues to my life and identity. How could I find center in the midst of such grief when I no longer knew who I was?
On this quest, I’d spend hours and days, months and years reading books to help me understand grief. Some like When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron and Alexander Levy’s book, The Orphaned Adult: Understanding And Coping With Grief And Change After The Death Of Our Parents were non-fiction primers written to help us through the pain. Others like Joan Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking and Every Last One by Anna Quindlen laid out a literary path. There are songs that made me wail and poems that stuck in my brain. My grief took hold, and I can say that love brought me low but without love, I couldn’t have found light.
Papa’s grief allowed me to grieve, to sort out the pieces of life. The depth of his kindness and love for mom, my children and me gave us strength. His presence assured us. He insisted on telling stories of the Christmas he told mom over the phone that he was going to marry her and how they went to his prom long before. He talked about how his mom had favored marrying her and the jokes he enjoyed with my abuela. And while I supported Papa emotionally, taking him to doctor appointments, inviting him over often, I realize now that he gave me time to process my grief. I didn’t have to sort out whether I was like my father– stern, determined to strive for financial success and pushing beyond expectations–or like my mother — calm, compassionate, courageous, whose idea of life gently asked for acceptance of what was. At first, I stood in the middle wondering who I was like most, and who I should become more of? With Papa nearby, I wanted to be more like him.
He enjoyed being part of our Northern California family (as he called us), where he experienced happiness in bowls of homemade minestrone and Christmas filled with tamales; he ate 4th of July hot dogs at bbqs and spent ordinary days with us. More than a few times, he wondered aloud why we still cared. But I couldn’t imagine not caring. He was Papa, Grandpa, a beloved member of our family — with or without his wife, our mom–for 30 years. Once or twice, I chastised him, pressing him that if he considered me his daughter, Miss Devious, then it was only natural that I would think him as my Papa. He was family. Period.
Finally, his questions, curiosity and perhaps guilt for “ignoring” his Lompoc family got the best of him: he announced that he wanted to move south to live with my stepbrothers. I had my doubts that they’d take care of him as I would, but I surrendered nonetheless and gave him my blessing to go. Was that a mistake? How can I blame myself? He wanted to be with them. I needed not to worry so much about him growing old and eventually losing him. Maybe I thought letting go now would make letting go later that much easier. Loss isn’t easy.
Adjusting to his absence took more than I anticipated. We never adjusted. We wanted him here with us. We had shared 30 years, including the 16 years transformed by the love mom and papa had. We held onto little things that reminded us of him. Little tokens of love, like his baby elephants and a rug that he couldn’t fit into the moving van. And when he died, so far away, my son captured a feeling we all have had: “I thought we had time.” We don’t have time. We never do.
As with the loss of my mom and dad, the loss of Papa left me feeling immense and enormous things, particularly, since we were so far away and couldn’t hold his hand and play his favorite music. We couldn’t whisper our love into his ear. Once again, I listened to sad songs, watched movies that made me sob and read the words of poets to help me climb out of the despair.
"When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you becomes fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens."
"For Grief" John O’Donohue
Then I read the obituary. The sparse overview of his 90 years omitted my mom–his wife, my siblings, my kids. No mention of any of us, our names stricken from the record. My emotions swung madly. I struggled to hold back tears. I shouted in the darkness of night the love he had for my children was real and cried over the authentic love my mother and he shared. Mostly, I felt we had been deleted. Erased. Deemed worthless. Undone. How can someone eradicate another? Who was I? Or more pointedly, can I exist in a world that denies my existence? The sparse words stabbed at me. Did he really love me? Had I imagined how he loved mom? And what about his grandchildren? Who was I if I didn’t exist in my papa’s memory? If my identity has been wrapped up in a family that has died, left, refused to acknowledge who I’ve been, where and who am I now?
I felt like I’d lived a secret life. Or I was the secret, others sworn never to tell.
Grief requires many hearts. I reached to a friend, a sibling and my spouse– all told me not to take Papa’s obituary personally. I looked through poems about loss and identity. I sang a song to him. Then I remembered the voicemails, messages from him that I’d saved them for a day like this. His voice pierced the gloom. I had mattered to him. My kids mattered. My mom most definitely mattered. No obituary or secret could deny the truth. Incontrovertible proof that he loved us.
In the end, January’s clouds and rain will be swept back and forth, and sun will light our days. I’ll unearth the truth — share the stories and memories and write my own memoriam for not only Papa but for the love between he and my mom, a love that wrapped us all up in love for awhile. I’ll carve out a safe space to let go of my grief, to let the scar heal, and to move forward knowing I loved him deeply. And feeling more certain that papa loved us, too. We weren’t a secret, nor a chapter ripped from a book of his life. I’ll listen to Oliver, and other poets who speak of love and loss and life. And feel the sun’s warmth again.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
"In Blackwater Woods" Mary Oliver
While at college, as Chicana Power! and Viva La Raza! occasionally rang out from the plazas at colleges, I read Latino-American authors, including Ruldofo Anaya, and for the first time, I found my maternal grandparents’ lives–my cultura–written in a book. Where had this novel been all of my life? Along with authors who spoke “my language,” I met the poet, Lorna Dee Cervantes and Bernice Zamora and read even more, awakening me to claim a wholeness I hadn’t known. Representation definitely matters.
But even with this awareness, I couldn’t hide the “scars” that Anaya’s book opened up, nor the ones Cervantes writes about in “Poem For The Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent, Well-read Person, Could Believe In The War Between The Races” —
Let me show you my wounds: my stumbling mind,
my "excuse me" tongue, and this
nagging preoccupation
with the feeling of not being good enough.
These bullets bury deeper than logic.
Racism is not intellectual.
I cannot reason these scars away.
I had listened while my grandparents told me of an illegal deportation, while my parents told me of the punishments received for speaking Spanish in school. I knew their history. But I failed to comprehend the extent of Anti-Mexican racism nor speak of it to anyone. And now, while some want so much to believe that racism is no longer a concern, the truth of history–often not only hidden by educators and historians, but even buried by our own parents, hoping to leave that pain behind–must be made clear before anyone can ever declare equality a winner.
Let me be perfectly clear, this post isn’t to raise ire and hate, but rather I post to educate, stir compassion, and inspire action to fight hate. Today, I write about the “real enemy/who hates [us]” that Lorna Dee Cervantes speaks of in her poem.
While it should be enough to say the names of the 23 humans who died at the hands of a white gunman in front of an El Paso Walmart. We know the roots of his hate have been nurtured for over a century by ignorance.
1848-1928 600 Mexican Americans were lynched which was justified by the sentiment that this was no place for Mexicans and that it was not a crime, morally, to kill a Mexican. Writer Matthew Wills wrote, “Violence forced Mexican residents of territory newly claimed by the United States to flee their homes, allowing whites to seize the land and natural resources.”
Identity is one of the BIG IDEAS that pulse through literature because this question echoes throughout our lives. I am reminded daily, as I’ve bungled my way through the art of being an empty nester, our life stories change the response to this question.
Ironically, as I shift my writing into the front and center spot, a book about a writer-in-training came up on my Hoopla shelf. The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick, whose main character housecleaner, Liv, moves through the story, taking on the identity of her boss, a reclusive author, and her favorite character. Liv’s growth and discoveries make the reading a fun romp with a few twists as she accepts a role of ghost writer and steps up to what the situation requires, fooling others (and herself) into believing what she’s barely dared dream of doing. While one aspect of the novel becomes an investigation — isn’t all of life? — Patrick underscores one of the pitfalls of living someone else’s life and the importance of becoming one’s authentic self.
In a related gear, though not as fun, I reread No No Boy by John Okada, to keep up with the reading demands of working with my literature students. The story begins when the main character, Ishiro, steps out of prison and returns “home.” Ichiro, one of about 300 Nisei who were taken with family from their homes, later from so-called internment camps, is imprisoned because he refused to fight in WWII. We follow Ichiro, witnessing several factors that have and will shape his identity, but especially the two extremes — his mother, who clings to the belief that Japan won the war, and his friend, Kenji, who has lost his leg in his military service in the war. Born American, the young man longs to believe this land is without prejudice and discrimination. But the Truth is harsh. Throughout the reading, Okada raises questions about loyalty, generational conflict and identity. This week, as my student finishes up the book, he will respond to some daily quick-write prompts about a few of the factors that shape identity: beliefs, people, ethnicity, and events. I’ve encouraged him to consider his own feelings about his parents who I believe are second generation American, and the choices that lie ahead for him. My young student understood Ichiro’s anger toward his mother who has been a dominant parent, and he felt confused about the father’s role who indulges his wife’s bizarre thought process. What kind of man is he? We’ll continue to discuss these questions and explorer the concept of identity.
What has shaped you? What questions are raised with Who am I? What part of your identity whispers too afraid to show up in the light and which part shouts for attention?
Along the same lines of identity and parent-child relationships, I’ve heard plenty of complaints teens have against parents. While I know this isn’t anything new, I do wonder whether these expressions of dissatisfaction affect me more now because I’ve travelled more in this journey. My own two have questions about their decisions and our influence through the years. Given the time I spend reflecting on their questions, rehashing old mistakes, hoping they’ll come to visit, parenthood still is relevant to my identity.
And considering how many friends or family members have been dropped or cancelled for expressing an opinion, I worry about complaints becoming a more insidious trend fed by social media. Toxic seems to be a familiar and overused word. When is the label justifiable? Will social media’s usual over-simplification of life impact our most important relationships – with our family and ourseves?
Trust me when I say that I’ve walked away from people. At the very least, I encourage youth and even peers to choose friends wisely, to consider how to minimize contact with the energy zappers, the confidence thieves, and the whining voices of the privileged and powerful. I know to keep my distance from people who continually ruin my good mood, color my life gray, question or rebuff me at every turn because fighting– words or fist– isn’t attractive nor very useful in my book.
Of course, sometimes we can’t step away. Whether in the case of a parent or a sibling, or our own self, a pause is sensible, if not mature. Isn’t it in our best interest to untangle resentments and find an end to conflicts? The treat of quiet reflection is not easily enjoyed in our noisy world.
What to do?
Why look at me? It’s not as if I have concrete answers. It’s you who holds your answers.
Some people will choose to burn a bridge. The flames that travel higher and hotter warms our resentment and satisfies a base need for vengeance. To watch it burn feels so right. After all, a bridge only invites crossings that may threaten us. Yet, once the bridge is gone, not only is rebuilding such a tough job, but also finding a better crossing point can be impossible.
While some vigilant ones are skilled at conversation distraction and reboot, others will choose to be brave and speak up in respectful but confident ways– as I watched a young woman do in a conversation with an older family who needed someone to wield a can opener to his head. At the very least we can zip it up and walk away, not to ghost one another, but rather to find the right words. A pause allows for the hope that a bridge will open up. In the best case scenario, we examine our own motives, mistakes, and needs.
Trained by my own mom to avoid head on battles at any cost, I willingly admit a novel to escape into is my favorite away path from challenging people. The world can be scary, so I often enjoy the retreat. I read for the life lessons to deal with the conflicts of humanity.
Who am I? And how does the answer help me manage today’s conflict. Am I the mom in Okada’s book clinging to my version of the truth? Am I Phaedra Patrick’s wanna be author who ignores what’s smack dab in front of her and waiting inside of her?
And what do I do armed with this knowledge? Ah, so many questions. And like the old phrase about books, so little time.
If I dare, I’ll advise parents to ask your child for a hug, if you can. As you are trying to figure out who this kid is — because you’re sure an alien has abducted and replaced your child with an impostor– remember that he, she, or they are struggling to answer the very same question.
Hug or no, my other advice is to pick up a good book, one that teases out some of our biggest questions. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes for awhile. Take a new path. If not for the break from this world, do it understand this world. And while on a journey through someone’s story, maybe you’ll not only ask some BIG QUESTIONS along the way, but also find some of the answers you’re searching for.
One Good Mentor is all you need 