The tree across from the apartment I’m writing from has a sad face in it. I’ve been staring out this window for a week, but didn’t notice it until today. It’s easier to see when the tree stays in the shadows, like me.
One of the hardest parts of writing a memoir, in my opinion, is including myself in the story, especially when I lived for so long in environments where I felt that what I thought and said didn’t seem to matter. I learned to live quietly and other times to just shut myself up. I learned how to put everyone else’s thoughts and words before mine. I’m a people-pleaser. Even this morning, I subconsciously opted to wait until the people in the attached unit got their shower first, thinking they are full-time tenants and probably need a hot shower before work. Me, I’m only a guest (even though I paid for this Airbnb for two weeks and really, I paid to have hot water.) Why do I sacrifice? I don’t even know if the hot water would run out! I’m just sitting here thinking that I don’t want to burden them. That’s who I am. I learned that from my mother.
A writer friend recently shared with me how difficult it can be to show ourselves as characters in our own memoirs. The feedback she received on her manuscript is not unlike what I’ve seen working as an editor. First drafts typically need character development, and that includes the narrator’s character, but something in our conversation made me think of my own first draft. Including our own thoughts and insight on what happened in our childhood is a very personal endeavor; and one that is easy to subconsciously skip. My mentor at the time wouldn’t have it.
Thinking we could use a note or even a short graph more on YOU though. Isn’t it an important component that her ideas/patterns on loss, etc, formed YOUR life as well, and that by understanding them and her better you hope to, or you have come to understand more about your life and your choices?
John Capouya
Back then, I considered writing the book as a biography instead, but ultimately chose not to. John was right. I was still learning my part in the story and I’ve learned through ten more years of research and writing that I’m not just the storyteller. This abandonment story is more than my mother’s traumatic experience, and her mother’s, and my childhood, and my children’s childhood. It’s bigger than all of us. Much bigger.
I have to go on writing retreats to get the hard work done. I know a writing retreat sounds extravagant, especially since the tiny Airbnb apartment I found is in the Smokies and has a great view of the mountain that looms between Waynesville, NC and Maggie Valley. It’s not picturesque like when you rent a fancy cabin. There are power lines breaking up the view, but it’s still a view. I need this view and the crow of the rooster and the laughter of the school kids walking uphill to the library and the honking of the train several times a day and Panacea Coffee with its creek running behind it and the whole downtown and Frog Level districts of Waynesville, NC to help bring me back from the dark places I write myself to. I’m here, an hour away from my home, because I don’t want to burden my husband with knowing that me from the past.
Yesterday morning as the sun rose, I watched the light slowly move across the mountain until it was mostly covered. It’s going to be a beautiful day according to my weather app. Then I looked back up a few minutes later and Eaglenest Mountain was gone.
And that’s what the character of me is like in my memoir. One minute I’m there, the next I’m gone, but I always come back home. 💜
Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.
~ Vicki
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