Why I Write Memoir

Reaching "Across the Abyss"

Welcome to Pocketful of Prose, a community for sharing stories. As always, there’s an audio of this post if that works better for you, and links are in bold, so you won’t miss out on the fun. This is part six in my six-part series on the power of story. Today, I am writing about the power of telling your own story. If this pocket resonates with you, please click the heart at the bottom or share with a friend.

I finished the first draft of my memoir, friends. I feel a little like this…

Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash

And, also like this. In this one-minute video, this amazing kid describes how he feels when he rides a bike by himself for the first time. When his dad asks him how he feels, he says, “I feel…I feel… I feel happy of myself.” It is so much cuter when he says it, but that is exactly how I felt when I finished my draft. I felt “happy of myself.”

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I love memoir. No one puts it better than Natalie Goldberg, who has taught thousands of people how to write about themselves, when she explains why so many of us our attracted to the memoir form. “We have an intuition that it can save us. Writing is the act of reaching across the abyss of isolation to share and reflect. It’s not a diet to become skinny, but a relaxation into the fat of our lives. Often without realizing it, we are on a quest, a search for meaning. What does our time on earth add up to?”

When I was first introduced to Natalie Goldberg, I wasn’t doing much writing. I wanted to write, but it was aspirational. In our family, we throw things off the balcony on New Year’s Eve. This is an Italian tradition that represents letting go of the past. We have Americanized this tradition a little, and we throw out items to mark our intentions. For years, I have thrown out a pencil to set the intention that I want to write more.

About six years ago, I signed up for a creative writing class at our local community center. I attended each week, but outside of the class, I did very little writing. One week, an older gentleman in the class who always wore a cowboy hat asked me why I never did the homework. Sure, he was crossing a social boundary, but it was a fair question, and I took his question home with me. The next week, afraid that cowboy hat would scold me again, I made an effort to write for ten minutes outside of class. Sometime after that, someone recommended Natalie Goldberg’s books to me. I loved Natalie’s books on writing because they took the pressure off. I discovered I didn’t have to show up to the page knowing what I was going to write about. Natalie offered juicy prompts that both relaxed and inspired me and made me want to write. She also told me that I could tackle writing ten minutes at a time, and that’s what I started to do.

I still throw out a pencil on New Year’s, but now it is to mark my intention, to honor something that has become an integral part of my life and my identity. I now teach the memoir writing class at the Corbin Arts Center, the same one where cowboy hat once chastised me for blowing off the homework. Each quarter, I welcome new students who are looking to reach “across that abyss” and make sense of their lives. Each quarter something magical happens as we write our lives and share them with each other.

This writing of our lives is magical, but it is also incredibly vulnerable. It is not for the faint of heart. Sometimes in returning to the past, it doesn’t feel like we are reaching “across the abyss.” Rather, it feels like we are falling into the abyss.  

This happened to me this week.

I don’t know if this happens to you when you accomplish something or receive good news, but I immediately jumped from feeling “happy of myself” to feeling something that was a lot closer to existential dread.

In writing a memoir, I am telling my story, but my story intersects with the stories of the people I love. My parents are private people. My husband is a private person, and here I am airing intimate details of our intermingled lives on the laundry line. I felt selfish.

I asked myself why I was writing a memoir. Why was I participating in such a vulnerable act? Why was I pursuing a process that causes pain as journeys to the past often do?

I felt lost, so I wrote, and I read. I returned to some of the memoirs that I loved, hoping they might light my way, hoping I might feel less alone.

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I came across these words of Cole Arthur Riley in This Here Flesh. “We are worthy of tending to the pain of the past. Repair—truth-telling, reparations, healing, reconciliation—these are what breathe new life into us.”

Cole’s words remind me that I am not writing a memoir to harm. I am writing a memoir to heal.

Melody Beattie, author of Co-Dependent No More, writes “We can lovingly and compassionately tell the truth about our experiences without demeaning others or ourselves… The longer this lifetime goes, the more convinced I am that our primary responsibility in life is to find a way to make peace with ourselves, our past, and our present—no matter what we face and no matter how often we need to do that. It’s also our job to mindfully practice self-love. Every day. For all our lives.”

Melody’s words remind me that telling my story is not selfish. It is an act of self-love.

Louise Erdrich, one of my favorite writers, and author of the memoir The Blue Jay’s Dance, A Memoir of Early Motherhood writes “A woman needs to tell her own story, to tell the bloody version of the fairy tale. A woman has to be her own hero. The princess cuts off her hair, blinds her eyes, scores her arms, and rushes wildly toward the mouth of the dragon. The princess slays the dragon, sets off on her own quest. She crushes her crown beneath her foot, eats dirt, eats roses, deals with the humility and grandeur of her own human life.”

Louise’s words remind me that memoir is not a fantasy, and it is indeed not for the faint of heart, but that is what makes it sacred.

These wise women reach “across the abyss” and remind me that I am not alone. Their words light my darkness. Their bravery in navigating their lives gives me courage to navigate my own.

Memoir requires extreme vulnerability, but I choose to believe that it offers a much greater reward. It returns us to ourselves. Memoir gives us strength to approach our lives with more openness, love, empathy and understanding.

For now, the idea that my memoir might be a light to others is an aspiration. It is a distant star, but in returning to myself through writing memoir, I remember there is another light that I tenderly tend as I journey “across the abyss.” It is the light that was sparked within when I began to tell my story.

What resonates with you today? What is your relationship with memoir? What writers have reached you “across the abyss?”

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