(for Julie)
At sixteen weeks the baby’s head measures twelve centimeters They can’t tell us what is normal blade of grass ceramic plate ¿Qué es más probable? I know this carpet is pink that we should notice her rings and wallpaper samples that they are all torn up omertà And that for her there is no such thing as fictionIt’s the forgetting I remember most. The fact of forgetting. The past is fuzzy for me, something that will make memoir difficult.
So, for me, re-membering will partly be a process of re-constructing and re-assembling the story, piecing and pasting. Largely, this is due to trauma. Trauma around growing up in a dysfunctional family whose front door was broken down by the FBI on way too many occasions. Trauma around having a mental illness that at times disconnected me from reality and the people I love.
However, I have a strategy for doing this detective work, because I, clearly, need to research and document the parts of my life I can’t recall.
So today I’ll outline the most obvious steps to take in reconstructing both the story about my father’s connection to organized crime and the one about my mental illness—what amounts to a 20 year struggle to win (and sometimes seemingly lose) the battle against bipolar disorder.
Though I don’t know that my family is entirely comfortable with my writing about my father, who, in fact, died in 1981 (when I was still a teenager), I plan to do the following to document my dad’s story:
And in order to reconstruct the bipolar narrative, I plan to:
As I lay out this agenda, I want you to be assured, also, that I am well these days. No one would ever know I had ever been sick or still carry this diagnosis. In fact, when I’ve shared this information with folks in recent years, they’ve been shocked.
My partner can certainly see how moody I remain. I’m not always easy to live with. As Sara says, when I feel something, my emotions fill the entire house. I still hallucinate at times, but you would never know. I’ve learned to manage the symptoms that remain, the ones that still break through despite the medication.
I hope some of you will help by holding me accountable with regard to the strategy outlined above. Renee over at “Life in the Boomer Lane” recently posted a two-part series on memoir writing (something you should check out by clicking here and here). But in the second of those posts Renee suggests assembling a supportive group of friends to keep oneself on track during the process of writing a memoir. (So, I hope some of you will be willing to “support” me with periodic kicks in my memoir-writing ass.)
Thanks to all of you who read my blog. Please know how much I appreciate your on-going support. You all have given me the courage, the faith in myself as a writer, to finally take on this task I’ve been avoiding for years.
Peace to each of you and, as always, hugs from here in Haiti,
Kathy
And for me it is, indeed, a matter of re-assembly. Sorting and piecing , cutting and pasting.
(So, today I have a confession to make.)
From the beginning, I’ve wanted this blog to be an avenue into memoir, since, in many ways, the story of my past is far more interesting than the narrative that is now. And, in fact, the most significant “event horizons” in my life happened a long time ago.
I know that may be hard to believe, as the life Sara and I have lead over the past several years has been an exciting one—taking me to places like Bangkok, Hanoi, New Delhi, Port-au-Prince.
But in many ways to travel backward in time is the bigger challenge—more over-whelming, more frightening, yes, but also more meaningful, and perhaps even profound.
The story of how I’ve gotten here—how I’ve gotten “now” is one that must be told. And how I’ve gotten here involves telling at least two stories, requires that I follow two narrative threads. (There’s actually three but only two I’m even close to comfortable sharing now.)
The first is the story of my father’s involvement with organized crime and the second is the story of my twenty-year struggle with bipolar disorder.
Neither of these is easy to tell. And honestly I’m afraid.
I still intend to write about Haiti. I still intend to write about the “now” that is the life I share with Sara on this troubled island. In fact, I believe the struggles Haiti faces nationally are not dissimilar to the personal challenges I’ve endured. My story and the story of Haiti both involve sickness and corruption, oppression, endurance, even hope.
In the coming days and weeks I’ll outline my strategy, share my goals, my hopes, my fears.
I don’t know how to tell this story. I don’t know where to begin. I feel swallowed by the enormity of the task, dwarfed by it.
So, I’ll pray for peace—and if you’re a praying person, please offer your own prayer; if you’re not, please say you care, please say you’ll share.
I still need that massive infusion of grace. I still need that holy yes.
I’m preparing a post for next week about why Sara and I are weird as a couple. (And the fact of the matter is, we are way, way weird.) However, that new piece won’t mean as much if you haven’t read the one I’m re-posting below.
I wrote what appears here only a few days into the life of this blog, so few of you will likely have seen it in its original incarnation. It was called “Top 10 Reasons I’m Pretty Much a Freak.” Hope it entertains you over the weekend.
Let’s face it. I’m not normal. My partner Sara has always said I was weird—actually her word was “eccentric”—but you get the picture.
At any rate, amid all the seriousness I face living in Haiti, I’ve decided to lighten things up here today by offering you the top ten reasons Sara still insists I’m what you could call—well—“quirky:”
#10. Left to my own devices, I eat mostly from what my friend Milana and I call the “white food group.” Edible items in this category include: baguettes, bagels, butter, cream cheese, sour cream, lots and lots of sugar—sugar cookies, cakes, unimaginable amounts of pie crust—and if I were a drinker, which I am not—wine!
#9. I’m a double fisted drinker. Not with wine, of course, but with hot and cold beverages, mostly hot tea, Lipton (though since we’ve come to Haiti, coffee has become an option), and Pepsi Max, when I can find it—(Coke Zero, otherwise). Now, for me, this only works in one direction. Namely, if I drink something hot, I have to have the cold cola to accompany it. However, chilled drinks can stand alone—not always needing the hot accompaniment.
#8. I tend to collect things—and not the kinds of things most would consider collectables, but which I gather in the name of “potential art”—items I prefer to call “collagables”—buttons, beads, ribbons, rocks, shells, business cards, bottle caps, maps, matchboxes, newspaper clippings, play bills, and, among other things, sales receipts—in my mind the most under-rated and readily available of all the collagables—a free gift with each purchase, so to speak.
#7. I have a lot of bags. For a fairly inclusive cataloging, I refer you to a post from 13 July 2009 “Not dog on grass—Not bag on floor—Not bike on . . . .”
#6. I never use a top sheet. Don’t believe in them. Never have.
#5. I pretty much live with a saint— We’ll call her Saint Sara the Orderly. (And I have saintly siblings, but I’ll leave that for a later post.) Sara has “placement issues”—a problem she blames on her training as an architect and which she insists I knew about prior to our partnering and simply can not change, as they are, in fact, evidence of her Saintly origins—rituals of the Order, so to speak. Bottom line—Sara likes to arrange things: drawers, cupboards, closets, the contents of the refrigerator, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup arranged in tidy rows—like items lined up together—like soldiers—an army of condiments ready for edible action. Need I say more.
#4. My partner does disaster response. She’s a disaster response expert. Now there aren’t a lot of these people on the planet (though there are quite a few of them in Haiti these days). I believe (and you are free to disagree), that’s it’s the relative scarcity of this species that makes disasters so, well, “disastrous.” In all seriousness, I’m grateful that Sara does this kind of work. It helps make meaning in our lives. And though that “meaning” often means traveling a lot, we’re not exactly heading to what most would call “vacation destinations.”
#3. My mother wears clothes pins as fashion accessories. Actually, at age 72 she uses them as a mnemonic device, so let’s not get all uptight about this one. However, for further discussion of this semi-strange sartorial habit, I refer you to a post from several days ago called, “Airing Family Secrets Via Haute Couture.”
#2. I taught at Oral Roberts University. This may speak for itself—except that I might mention having arrived on campus in 1986, just after Oral sequestered himself in the Prayer Tower for a number of weeks, claiming God was going to “bring him home” if believers didn’t donate 6 million dollars. I know some of you may be too young to remember this, but it’s true. He did it. I was there. And the play the drama department performed that semester just happened to be—“Death of a Salesman”—I kid you not!
#1. My father was in the mafia–pretty much, that’s what it boils down to—Enough said.
Now, none of these items in and of themselves makes one weird—not even two or three. It’s the global picture I’m getting at.
And I haven’t even included here the biggest reason I’m a weirdo. But, let’s face it folks, we don’t know one another well enough yet for me to share all my secrets. It seems though the picture’s becoming clearer—
Bottom line–I’m pretty much a freak.
How about you?
Kathryn M. McCullough 