On Writing Memoir

Not every memory fits with memoir. Essays provide room to roam, which can lead to surprises for both writer and reader.

Check out my essay Wake Up, Bella! under Pages to the left for a personal and critical review of the Twilight book series by Stephenie Meyer. For me, Twilight is a double nightmare about the state of popular literature as well as gender equality.

When I was young, I was taught that our spirits existed before this life in another dimension called The Spirit World. In The Spirit World, we knew many things about the the nature of God and everlasting life as well as the purpose of our time to come on earth. Once born into a physical body unto earthly parents, our memory of all Spirit World knowledge would disappear behind a veil that we would not be able to lift again until the death of our physical bodies.

This morning, I am struck by this as a metaphor for uncovering the meaning in our lives. While I no longer hold any faith in the mysticism of a fanciful eternal life, I do wish to understand and make meaning out of the only life of which I am certain. Memories appear as if behind veils of varying thickness, the heaviest shielding earliest recollection. To try and recall how I felt and what I thought as a child of five or six years old is like trying to lift a curtain like the one I was taught shields us from our pre-existence. As I’ve aged, the veils of memory have grown increasingly transparent and yet to see the roots, the anchors, the plugs, the stuff from which all else formed is like attempting to peer through all of the curtains at the same time.

When I first set about to write a memoir, I had no idea it would be so hard. I was a teenaged Mormon shoplifter. My mother was depressed and reclusive. My father is one of the oddest people I’ve ever known. Add to that, my brother and sister and I were equally underprivileged and over-indoctrinated but each of us took radically different paths. Plenty of drama, I’d thought, and foolishly I believed the story would practically tell itself.

I didn’t realize that peeling my story apart would reveal a veritable circus of colorful and ill-mannered memories nearly impossible to tame, a kaleidoscope of mini stories each competing for center ring and none singularly thrilling enough to command it. A pesky agenda to expose the sexism of my childhood religion is often a formidable obstacle and self-doubt is my touchstone. When I’m tired or challenged, I make a bee-line for the safety of low self-esteem. If I’m not capable of doing something, the pressure is off and I am relieved, at least temporarily.

But I am also hard to knock down for long. Turns out I have the resilience and persistence of a cockroach.