Okay,just indulge me a bit here. I've been working on this memoir for about a year now.I started out with a time that predates myself,just to set context, and so far I haven't quite gotten myself to the schoolhouse door. But I promise, we're almost there.I'll resume the narrative soon.Just a few more entries at most to get us out of 1966,which has seemed intolerably long in terms of memory and writing.But I'm still having fun, still believing that this story is important, and still hoping that all of my readers are keeping up.It's not that I really see myself as being all that important, but I've come to believe that everyone should write a memoir.
I believe I've mentioned that I took up memoir writing about seven years ago while living here in Toronto for the first time.I'd had a fairly clear idea as to why I wanted to do that,and perhaps we'll revisit that at some length in some future notes to my readers.But I really want to take you into what happens when I meet with others from my writers group,each Monday that the library is opened.A little more than just a casual mention has long been in order.
So,when we meet,we select topics to write about.It kind of puts us on the spot a bit,requires us to improvise, but for the most part we are all experienced writers and up to the task. We are all contributors to the topic base, and, as of Monday, there were enough topics to fill up a small cookie can. What we do is draw a card out at random,and proceed to write on that topic, if we find it agreeable, or at least manageable, for fifteen minutes.We then read to each other. That is usually done twice in a two hour period, but sometimes three times. One of the traditions of this particular group is that we tend not to be critical of each others work.This is all about memory for most of us, the story telling is at least as much fun as the writing. I've come to describe it as a kind of hunter/gatherer activity,in which I gather together many of the materials for my memoir.Because, even though I think I know the story well, I'm always amazed how much I glean from listening to the memoirs,and memories of others. Toronto is a very diverse city, and our group tends to reflect that fact.So I've come to hear the stories of lives from all over the world. This group has been, over the years a fertile mine from which to gather the natural resources of memoir writing. Over the years we have written on topics as diverse as the police,bees,teachers,dogs,horses,puns,church,clocks, and the list goes on endlessly. Some of the topics really challenge me at first, but almost without exception, there is something in each topic that relates to my life.Moreover, it's the rare time that I can sit through a session and not be enlightened by the others who write on the same topic, thinking "I forgot about this,or I forgot about that." In all,knowing these colleagues has always been very much akin to being a kid in a candy store.
I mentioned that we sometimes, though not frequently draw a topic out of our cookie can that we may not find agreeable.Very few of these are rejected outright.The reason I mention this is because just such a thing happened this past Monday.And it just happened to be a topic that I had contributed,thinking"this is a great topic." We did proceed with it, though after some discussion.It may be that some thought it an awkward sort of topic.Still, all seemed to work out for the best.
Sometimes I'm inspired by really stupid people, especially those possessed of a really deeply philosophical kind of stupidity.One such person was a woman named Kelly Ann Conway, the woman of "Alternative Facts." notoriety. The phrase just seems ridiculous, like an oxymoron in which one word cancels out the other.But on thinking of it a bit longer, I thought that stupidity doesn't really limit the significance of such a notion.In fact,to get back to the topic of memoir, and in particular, thinking about and reconstructing ones childhood, it seems to me that much of my world was constructed of just that:alternative facts. Or,as another American politician called them,"inconvenient truths." Most likely they are not exactly the same thing,especially in the context of American politics,where a fact can sometimes turn on what your definition of"is" is, but in normal,everyday,sensible talking and writing, it's rather easy to see how both exist, and how one creates the need of the other. Thus are the many things of childhood explained, regardless of how inconvenient the need for that explanation might be. Thus, a woman might be described as a "housekeeper" when she lives with a man to whom she is not married, even when the house in question is very small. A child with an eye located on the side of his head might be explained as an "accident." That child's sibling who had six,not five fingers might prove more of a challenge to the fabricators of alternative facts. A person serving a jail sentence might be described, if that sentence is sufficiently short, as being "on vacation". The point being, that encountered "alternative facts" day by day, until I left my parents home.Nobody had really coined that phrase back then, but that's what my whole world was made of, especially when I was small.
Much of the process of putting this memoir together has involved a bit of a mystery to me. I've sorted through it at length,before writing, and for the most part I believe I've put the story together right, or at least in a plausible fashion.I may have some dates and the likes out of order, but my memory is not currently capable of dating things any more accurately, and at any rate, they are truthful,to the best of my recollection regardless of exactly when they occurred.So while that is mysterious,in a sense,It's not really the mystery. That lies in being a child, in viewing things through a child's eyes as they happen, and in having those things explained further to me by the adults around me, then in trying to recreate all of that fifty years later for the sake of memoir.Because the world seemed one way then, and quite different in the writing of it today. Today I tend to view it through the eyes of an adult writer, imposing an order on things that stem from my current understanding of the world. But, in truth, that seems to set the story slightly off kilter in my mind, and I'm not certain that I've got it right.
My parents,and the other adults around me were the true mystery.And it's a mystery that I continue to work through and around, but have never really been able to resolve in my mind.It's not that they were bad people, or,for that matter,good people. They were, I've come to believe just people trying to navigate their way through an often difficult world.In the early days, they were trying to do that without letting on how difficult that world was. Today, it's a very hard thing to pass judgement on, and back then passing judgement was not a thing that concerned me, because adults,in my world seemed omnipotent. Well, perhaps not all adults, but my parents certainly could do anything. In terms of undertaking a writing project like this however, that leaves me in a perplexing sort of a netherworld with a lot of unresolved questions.So how do I know that the thought of them being just people doing the best they could is really true? The short truth of it is that I don't.Not for certain.
By the time 1966 rolls around and finds me still not in school, but sitting in an anthill watching the older kids make their way up to the schoolhouse, my reasoning had improved, or really, just changed,because,of course,reasoning is a developmental process. The first practical implication of that fact is that my parents, and other adults were losing that omnipotence, as that illusion faded away and I began to understand people better.I began to see events as not just happening, but happening because of other events, or people. All of that has some practical implications for moving forward with this memoir in the here and now too. Do I try to speak with the child's voice as that child,me,grows.Do I describe the world I encounter through his eyes, knowing that his eyes are really not exactly the same thing as my eyes? Or do I impose an order on the world that is consistent with any insight I've developed over the years.The short answer again is both.
I love seeing the world through that long forgotten set of eyes, even though it gets filtered through my adult mind. Taking up that child's voice, reasoning as he reasoned is a wonderful sort of literary device at times.Kind of like presenting my own alternative facts,I suppose. But I really don't want to think in an unrealistic way, or encourage readers to do so either.You see, the truth is that I've viewed my world through many eyes over more than half a century. This is what makes the world mysterious,or perhaps I should say,preserves the mystery that is existentially within the world. But, I want to know, and I want writing to be that conclusive resolution to the mystery that is, rather than just allowing myself the pleasure of letting the mystery be.
Moving forward from the winter of 1966,things are getting progressively more complicated. That is not to say that my parents are comfortable with revealing such reality to their children.My mother in particular seemed to choose to be naive about things, and to encourage us to do likewise.It's not nearly as simple as her trying to preserve a sense of safety in our world, and I'm certain it will play out more and more going ahead.
By the time I'm sitting in that anthill, watching another boy incinerate an ant with a magnifying glass, the real world is starting to intrude on my world, such as it was, to say nothing of The World Just Beyond.That raises an issue of how to deal things in terms of writing about a world in which innocence is lost incrementally. Up until that time, I'd never really witnessed a world that was all that disturbing, aside from some cussing, a car accident, and thunder and lightening.And Hell, of course.Moving into my school years,things are turning.I'm about to learn that some really bad things can and do happen.I'm about to learn that people are not always decent to each other.In fact some people would come into my world whom I found deeply disturbing.I still do, these many years later.The question now, though is how to write about it.
Firstly, I have noticed a tenancy on my part to write about people without mentioning names.That suits me and my purpose fine.The people I present are all very real,though some are gone.Still,they may not be entirely comfortable being presented in someone else's life story, and I've tried to respect that as much as I can, while still telling the story.To the best of my knowledge, I've only presented one person by both a family, and a given name, and then only because the story depended upon a word play that derived from that name.Moving forward,I intend to follow pretty much the same policy, with one or two possible exceptions.Some people will appear who are public figures,and the thought is to present them as is,or at least as they appeared to me.The greater concern that I have is that there my well be people who I present who will find their representation unflattering.They may have family members still living, and with whom I have relationships with, that I value, but find that I must nevertheless tell unpleasant truths.Know that these are subjective truths and I would never want to willfully portray any individual as evil. That determination I'll leave in the hands of God. I've mentioned before that while I believe in telling the truth, not all truth should be told.The thing is to use truth that enlightens, and doesn't seek to damage for it's own sake.But it can be a thin line to walk,between being sufficiently edifying, and hurting someone.I hope that I end up doing that responsibly, and will be as diligent in my efforts to do so as I can.There are some difficult things ahead, moving out into the wider world.
I believe I've mentioned that I took up memoir writing about seven years ago while living here in Toronto for the first time.I'd had a fairly clear idea as to why I wanted to do that,and perhaps we'll revisit that at some length in some future notes to my readers.But I really want to take you into what happens when I meet with others from my writers group,each Monday that the library is opened.A little more than just a casual mention has long been in order.
So,when we meet,we select topics to write about.It kind of puts us on the spot a bit,requires us to improvise, but for the most part we are all experienced writers and up to the task. We are all contributors to the topic base, and, as of Monday, there were enough topics to fill up a small cookie can. What we do is draw a card out at random,and proceed to write on that topic, if we find it agreeable, or at least manageable, for fifteen minutes.We then read to each other. That is usually done twice in a two hour period, but sometimes three times. One of the traditions of this particular group is that we tend not to be critical of each others work.This is all about memory for most of us, the story telling is at least as much fun as the writing. I've come to describe it as a kind of hunter/gatherer activity,in which I gather together many of the materials for my memoir.Because, even though I think I know the story well, I'm always amazed how much I glean from listening to the memoirs,and memories of others. Toronto is a very diverse city, and our group tends to reflect that fact.So I've come to hear the stories of lives from all over the world. This group has been, over the years a fertile mine from which to gather the natural resources of memoir writing. Over the years we have written on topics as diverse as the police,bees,teachers,dogs,horses,puns,church,clocks, and the list goes on endlessly. Some of the topics really challenge me at first, but almost without exception, there is something in each topic that relates to my life.Moreover, it's the rare time that I can sit through a session and not be enlightened by the others who write on the same topic, thinking "I forgot about this,or I forgot about that." In all,knowing these colleagues has always been very much akin to being a kid in a candy store.
I mentioned that we sometimes, though not frequently draw a topic out of our cookie can that we may not find agreeable.Very few of these are rejected outright.The reason I mention this is because just such a thing happened this past Monday.And it just happened to be a topic that I had contributed,thinking"this is a great topic." We did proceed with it, though after some discussion.It may be that some thought it an awkward sort of topic.Still, all seemed to work out for the best.
Sometimes I'm inspired by really stupid people, especially those possessed of a really deeply philosophical kind of stupidity.One such person was a woman named Kelly Ann Conway, the woman of "Alternative Facts." notoriety. The phrase just seems ridiculous, like an oxymoron in which one word cancels out the other.But on thinking of it a bit longer, I thought that stupidity doesn't really limit the significance of such a notion.In fact,to get back to the topic of memoir, and in particular, thinking about and reconstructing ones childhood, it seems to me that much of my world was constructed of just that:alternative facts. Or,as another American politician called them,"inconvenient truths." Most likely they are not exactly the same thing,especially in the context of American politics,where a fact can sometimes turn on what your definition of"is" is, but in normal,everyday,sensible talking and writing, it's rather easy to see how both exist, and how one creates the need of the other. Thus are the many things of childhood explained, regardless of how inconvenient the need for that explanation might be. Thus, a woman might be described as a "housekeeper" when she lives with a man to whom she is not married, even when the house in question is very small. A child with an eye located on the side of his head might be explained as an "accident." That child's sibling who had six,not five fingers might prove more of a challenge to the fabricators of alternative facts. A person serving a jail sentence might be described, if that sentence is sufficiently short, as being "on vacation". The point being, that encountered "alternative facts" day by day, until I left my parents home.Nobody had really coined that phrase back then, but that's what my whole world was made of, especially when I was small.
Much of the process of putting this memoir together has involved a bit of a mystery to me. I've sorted through it at length,before writing, and for the most part I believe I've put the story together right, or at least in a plausible fashion.I may have some dates and the likes out of order, but my memory is not currently capable of dating things any more accurately, and at any rate, they are truthful,to the best of my recollection regardless of exactly when they occurred.So while that is mysterious,in a sense,It's not really the mystery. That lies in being a child, in viewing things through a child's eyes as they happen, and in having those things explained further to me by the adults around me, then in trying to recreate all of that fifty years later for the sake of memoir.Because the world seemed one way then, and quite different in the writing of it today. Today I tend to view it through the eyes of an adult writer, imposing an order on things that stem from my current understanding of the world. But, in truth, that seems to set the story slightly off kilter in my mind, and I'm not certain that I've got it right.
My parents,and the other adults around me were the true mystery.And it's a mystery that I continue to work through and around, but have never really been able to resolve in my mind.It's not that they were bad people, or,for that matter,good people. They were, I've come to believe just people trying to navigate their way through an often difficult world.In the early days, they were trying to do that without letting on how difficult that world was. Today, it's a very hard thing to pass judgement on, and back then passing judgement was not a thing that concerned me, because adults,in my world seemed omnipotent. Well, perhaps not all adults, but my parents certainly could do anything. In terms of undertaking a writing project like this however, that leaves me in a perplexing sort of a netherworld with a lot of unresolved questions.So how do I know that the thought of them being just people doing the best they could is really true? The short truth of it is that I don't.Not for certain.
By the time 1966 rolls around and finds me still not in school, but sitting in an anthill watching the older kids make their way up to the schoolhouse, my reasoning had improved, or really, just changed,because,of course,reasoning is a developmental process. The first practical implication of that fact is that my parents, and other adults were losing that omnipotence, as that illusion faded away and I began to understand people better.I began to see events as not just happening, but happening because of other events, or people. All of that has some practical implications for moving forward with this memoir in the here and now too. Do I try to speak with the child's voice as that child,me,grows.Do I describe the world I encounter through his eyes, knowing that his eyes are really not exactly the same thing as my eyes? Or do I impose an order on the world that is consistent with any insight I've developed over the years.The short answer again is both.
I love seeing the world through that long forgotten set of eyes, even though it gets filtered through my adult mind. Taking up that child's voice, reasoning as he reasoned is a wonderful sort of literary device at times.Kind of like presenting my own alternative facts,I suppose. But I really don't want to think in an unrealistic way, or encourage readers to do so either.You see, the truth is that I've viewed my world through many eyes over more than half a century. This is what makes the world mysterious,or perhaps I should say,preserves the mystery that is existentially within the world. But, I want to know, and I want writing to be that conclusive resolution to the mystery that is, rather than just allowing myself the pleasure of letting the mystery be.
Moving forward from the winter of 1966,things are getting progressively more complicated. That is not to say that my parents are comfortable with revealing such reality to their children.My mother in particular seemed to choose to be naive about things, and to encourage us to do likewise.It's not nearly as simple as her trying to preserve a sense of safety in our world, and I'm certain it will play out more and more going ahead.
By the time I'm sitting in that anthill, watching another boy incinerate an ant with a magnifying glass, the real world is starting to intrude on my world, such as it was, to say nothing of The World Just Beyond.That raises an issue of how to deal things in terms of writing about a world in which innocence is lost incrementally. Up until that time, I'd never really witnessed a world that was all that disturbing, aside from some cussing, a car accident, and thunder and lightening.And Hell, of course.Moving into my school years,things are turning.I'm about to learn that some really bad things can and do happen.I'm about to learn that people are not always decent to each other.In fact some people would come into my world whom I found deeply disturbing.I still do, these many years later.The question now, though is how to write about it.
Firstly, I have noticed a tenancy on my part to write about people without mentioning names.That suits me and my purpose fine.The people I present are all very real,though some are gone.Still,they may not be entirely comfortable being presented in someone else's life story, and I've tried to respect that as much as I can, while still telling the story.To the best of my knowledge, I've only presented one person by both a family, and a given name, and then only because the story depended upon a word play that derived from that name.Moving forward,I intend to follow pretty much the same policy, with one or two possible exceptions.Some people will appear who are public figures,and the thought is to present them as is,or at least as they appeared to me.The greater concern that I have is that there my well be people who I present who will find their representation unflattering.They may have family members still living, and with whom I have relationships with, that I value, but find that I must nevertheless tell unpleasant truths.Know that these are subjective truths and I would never want to willfully portray any individual as evil. That determination I'll leave in the hands of God. I've mentioned before that while I believe in telling the truth, not all truth should be told.The thing is to use truth that enlightens, and doesn't seek to damage for it's own sake.But it can be a thin line to walk,between being sufficiently edifying, and hurting someone.I hope that I end up doing that responsibly, and will be as diligent in my efforts to do so as I can.There are some difficult things ahead, moving out into the wider world.
No comments:
Post a Comment