Memoirous

Here I am on vacation writing up a blog post on my Kindle which consistently wants to auto-correct Ta-Nehisi Coates, so forgive me if I neglected t to keep writing the name. I have finished reading Between the World and Me . On the same day  news leaks out about another Chicago police shooting "under investigation" . The difficulties of blogging on a Kindle have gone out the window. But, with Coates words in my head and the news headlines before my eyes I cannot help asking some of the same questions raised in this thought-provoking book. Virtually one long essay written to his teenage son. Of how to save himself, and still not be safe. That there is no safety. I'm questioning so much. Yet, like Coates I feel a great distance between the world out there and the world inside of me, they have never jived. Perhaps this misunderstanding is normal for thoughtful, curious kids. The world of difference is color: I did not have to fear for my life while other writer-type ki...

In a blog post titled What Would Happen I told the story of a man in my building who took a huge risk: He reached out to a refuge. Now this refugee could have sucked the life out of my friend. I mean, how many times do you get spam emails asking for money to be sent to the bank account of a Nigerian prince. It happens so often we have jokes about Nigerian princes. How many times have our friend's accounts been hacked and we receive a desperate email saying they were robbed in Paris and need just enough money to get home and please send to  . . . We're all jaded enough that our immediate response is disbelief. Why in the world would we be so foolish to actually help someone. Overseas. In a refugee camp. Poor. Basically unable to ever pay us back. That's why when my friend Ted decided to write the young man back and begin a dialogue with him that the world seemed to stop on its hinges. The young man was a refugee from the wars in Sudan. A lost boy stuck in a camp in Ke...

Uptown I sleep between the boats in the harbor and the shshsh rattling of the elevated trains rocking back and forth floating, on one side the eternal hum of traffic on Lake Shore Drive and the construction horn, bleating as if through thick fog a new platform going up at Wilson and Broadway. To the south, on the strains of a strong wind—cheers from Wrigley Field, and if evening, the lights halos of hope, always hope. To the north the coast curves and if possible, if the sky is clear and the air washed clean, the observatory at Northwestern. And, in between, the pink Edgewater, successor to the famous hotel demolished—who knows why? Between landfill that extended the shore that lengthened the Drive, between train tracks abandoned, fused, split and merged, constantly changing but ever the same the sounds and movements of Uptown, by the lake.

Danny skidded into the bowling alley just as we were starting the second game. He grabbed the heaviest ball (I’m making this up) and bowled a turkey (I’m not making that up). I high-fived him after each strike and we all had a really great time. Actually a better time than I thought we would have. The lane next to us even asked us to settle down, we were being so loud. As if we could quiet the strikes and accidentally dropping our bowling balls. Afterwards we all went out into the parking lot to find that it had started to snow. Not a lot, but a little glaze of it covered the windshield. Dad handed me the keys. “Want to practice?” The parking lot was nearly empty. I took a deep breath that said now or never. I got in and turned on the wipers to clear a see-hole. Mindy waved at me. I put the car into D and felt the power of the accelerator through my gym shoe. I barely touched the pedal and the car lurched forward. All my training had been on class simulators. Dalton gave me a thu...

Later that night after a tryptophan nap Torrence and I prank-called Dalton and Mindy, which I guess technically isn’t prank calling since they knew it was us. Still it was fun to hear Torrence ask if their refrigerator was running. I’m sure he had no idea who Prince Albert was. He was like my own little Muppet repeating words into the phone that I whispered to him. He kept screwing up which made me laugh harder. If I wasn’t such a selfish only-child I’d have wished for a little brother. Right away Dalton drove over after picking up Mindy. I was starting to revive after eating such a heavy meal. Meanwhile we helped clean up the kitchen. By cleaning up I mean we loaded the dishwasher. Mindy loved the crowns Dad made so I let her wear mine. It barely fit over her bandana headband. We wasted a couple hours talking about what to do until Dad finally put our quibbling to rest by insisting we all go bowling. Now, there is nothing I hate more than bowling. Like what the hell is the po...

This week I am excerpting holiday related sections of a new manuscript I am shopping to editors and agents. Survivor Guilt After the high school principal finds his truck on the roof of the school, prankster James Tiller is sentenced to sixty-six hours of community service at a local homeless shelter. Between punking people on Facebook and giving the check-out clerks at Walmart hell, his life is seemingly one big practical joke—until James’ mother is killed when a U-Haul slams into their car.Suddenly things become very serious.   Happy Turkey Day The director of the homeless shelter where I volunteered dropped Torrence off Thursday morning. Dad had been up since 6 a.m. working on dressing the turkey. I on the other hand was not dressed. I was still in my PJs. Torrence and I sat in front of the TV eating cold cereal and watching the parade. The one with the creepy, globular balloons. The one with Buzz Lightyear the size of a cruise ship. The one with a warehouse si...

Fiction on the Web is one of the oldest running on-line story websites--coming to us out of the UK. Since 1996 it has brought out 3 stories per week and Today until Wednesday my story, Roadkill will be up. Roadkill is a caper based on a true story Lanie passed a dead deer. It was off to the side of the roadway half hidden by brush. In the span of a second she got an idea. Click on the link above and continue reading ROADKILL.

  This time of year brings its own particular memories—usually brought on by the five senses. The smell of fresh-fallen snow reminds us of sled runs when we were younger, the velvety taste of hot chocolate reminds me of sipping cocoa from my Santa mug when I was five or six years old, the ugly ornament half broken and losing its shiny luster is the one I am most fond of, the one my mother gave me that used to be hers. The lights, the carols, the yummy smells all work together to bring forth memories—some good, some not so good. I remember one particular weekend before Christmas when I was a Girl Scout leader for my daughter’s troop. At best it was like herding cats. Trying to get a dozen or so girls to cooperate, for one minute to shut up and listen. We had plans to go downtown to the Museum of Science and Industry for Christmas Around the World . Does the museum still do this? It is where in the Great Hall trees representing Christmas in other lands are decorated. These...

I was reminded earlier this week of something my daughter said. Actually it was a domino effect of little memories one after another. First my husband during an oratory he was delivering at church was reminded once of when our daughter was little more than a toddler and she was asked to clean up her toys. She explained as she sat in her chair upside down (this was not an unusual position for her; she often sat in chairs upside down, on her back or head with her feet in the air). She responded that she was being Mary and not a Martha, from the Gospel of John, Mary the one who dwelled with Jesus whilst Martha scurried about preparing food and doing necessary work. In my opinion Martha always got a bad rap. According to her 3- or 4-year-old theology she was choosing the “better” way. When actually she really just needed to get down off the chair, right-side up and help clean up her toys. His memory spurred me into one of my own. In this memory Grace is very, very young. In my...

All this week I have been having flashes. Memory flashes where I am suddenly reminded of something, and, then after another second, the flash is gone. Like so much in life. We had a baby, we had a little girl, we had this little tiny family. And then one day we are all on our separate paths. Maybe it is the holiday season that brings all this up. I am remembering all the hub-bub and chaos of Thanksgiving and Christmas with a young child. You see things through their eyes. Or maybe that is romanticizing things a bit. At the moment all we feel is chaos. The memory filters out the stress and I am left remembering the wonder. The pure joy. Little elemental transcendent sparkles like snowflakes on rosy cheeks—but only for a second, before melting away, and disappearing altogether. Each ornament, each stocking, each damaged school art project retrieved from the Xmas Decoration Bin pulled out of storage—each has a story to tell, some unintended spontaneous flash memory to...

In my flash memoir workshops I exhort my students to work on their mnemonic impulses, to take paper and pen and jot down that niggling memory that pops into their heads and in the next instance is gone. I had one the other day. Actually I get 6 or 7 in any given hour of the waking day, but they largely go ignored. But, this one, I actually wrote down. Cracking nuts. It begins smallish and then works on you. I asked myself: Who cracks nuts anymore? You see, it’s getting to that nut cracking time of year. And, on my counter I had a small bag of nuts given to me by a Polish man who said they were from his own tree over in the old country. This was around Marathon time when I was hosting. He also gave me 2 heirloom apples from his yard and those were the BEST APPLES EVER. So, I had high hopes for these walnuts. Except I had to find something to bust them open. All the while remembering. Remembering how my mother used to force us kids to crack nuts like chain-gang prisoners...

The latest Brown Sisters photo has gone up! It is the 41st, Nicholas Nixon started this on-going photo essay project in 1975 (the summer I was 16). Every step of his series I can relate to, the life stages of these wonderful sisters. I've blogged abut them before and continue to be fascinated by the 41 images. I wish them 41 more years!

I was riveted to the refresh button Friday night, trying to catch each news update coming out of Paris. It was unnerving. My husband was just there 2 weeks ago. Not that has anything to do with anything—except that more than ever I felt connected to Paris. I just hosted a family from France—not that they were directly in harm’s way, but to say I felt concerned. As I do sometimes on this blog I’ll comment on social media. For and against it, like most of us. Did anyone else notice that they received a safety check from friends in Paris? I’m not sure how I feel about this feature. I understand the utility of it, but am disheartened by the necessity. On one hand when there is a disaster such as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, friends and relatives bombard emergency services in hopes of locating and assessing the safety of loved ones. The “helpers” as Fred Rogers called them are overwhelmed and if there is an easy fix such as that loved one pinging or checking in...

Because I volunteer for the Chicago Humanities Festival I am allowed a few free tickets. This time I chose to go hear Pamela Smith Hill who is the editor of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography and Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life .  Hidden away since the 1930s, Laura Ingalls Wilder s never-before-published autobiography reveals the true stories of her pioneering life. Some of her experiences will be familiar; some will be a surprise. Hill clues us in. Laura worked outside the home beginning at around age 9.Her and her sister Mary (before her illness and eventual blindness) washed dishes at a hotel her mother and father, Ma and Pa, ran. There were times when Laura was not safe. Pioneer Girl includes dark material, details of domestic abuse, love triangles, alcoholism, and a near-sexual assault. This was LIW first attempt at memoir writing and had an adult audience in mind. It was only later, with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane alre...

All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doer This was such a beautiful book. Every word, every word was just so. But then I read a beautiful review of this book by my friend BethFinke that I asked if I could link/direct my readers to her blog . Yes!! Beth comes to her review from a very unique perspective and has also found Anthony’s writing superb because—well, I’ll let her explain. "I usually avoid reading novels and short stories with characters who are blind. Too many fiction writers portray blind characters one-dimensionally — we’re either heroic or tragic, bumbling or, particularly lately, blessed with super-powers. But Anthony Doerr isn’t like other authors . . . ." CLICK HERE for the rest. “When I lost my sight, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?”

This week I’ve been writing about flash, particularly memoir. Saturday, Nov. 14, 1 – 3 pm I will be giving a workshop at Chicago Publisher Resource Center, 858 N. Ashland Avenue, Chicago . Memoir today is being written as fiction and much of fiction is comprised of memoir. Flash is about writing small and using bits of your life story. This workshop will teach you how to take bite-size memories and weave them into narrative. Participants will be given examples of flash, writing prompts, and also a list of places to submit their own flash. When I wrote the above blurb I was thinking primarily of a new book out by Lily Tuck which I haven’t read, but have been intrigued by since I read a review about it in The Washington Post. The Double Life of Liliane is essentially an autobiographical novel. Okay, there’s a muddle. Which is it? Fiction or non-fiction. Life is all about compartmentalizing. Except not everything fits. There are times when fact and fiction are ...

My last post was about a random bag of clothes close to 40 years old. Stuff no one wanted—except when they were returned to the former owner Patti Smith, she burst into tears. At the very thought, the memories the clothes brought back. Consider other infamous lost items. There is a history of art stolen through the ages, later recovered. The current controversy concerns art taken and stored in Nazi warehouses eventually winding its way back to the original owners. Or whoever. Museums are full of objects “taken.” I did some research and came up with stories of lost and found. Peter Frampton had an incident similar to Patti’s while on tour. His plane crashed—and his equipment in the cargo bay, or so he thought.   http://www.npr.org/2012/01/07/144799712/framptons-dream-guitar-recovered-decades-later Another mystery of a missing musical instrument solved: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/07/144799712/framptons-dream-guitar-recovered-decades-later There’s a group tha...

Lost and Found How many of you were captured by these headlines: Woman interruptsconcert to give the singer a bag of her possessions, taken from her tour truckin 1979 That’s right—someone gave Patti Smith her clothes back after 36 years. This blog is about memories. How many memories are stitched into the clothes we wear . . . or used to wear? The dress you wore to your son’s wedding, your favorite sweatshirt that always gets rotated to the front of the drawer, the mini-skirt that got you through your darkest days after the breakup, that sheer blouse that always makes you feel ravishing, that hopelessly out-of-date tie that you somehow cannot bring yourself to forsake. Who is it that said we are the clothes we wear? But, styles change. Yesterday’s punk is today’s conservative. Remember your goth phase when everything you wore was black. I wouldn’t be caught dead in an 80s dress with poof sleeves. The free bins are full of fuchsia jackets with padded shoulders....

Just like many of you this past week I was sickened—yes, that’s the word I would use—by a video that went viral . Viral like a disease that’s infecting way too many in our communities. A good portion of our population. I think it’s called racial prejudice. The same disease that drives some of us to download apps like GroupMe meant to spot potential shoplifters, but which turned into racial profiling . The same hair-trigger reaction that caused a shopkeeper to fear a really large black man approaching his store (he wasn’t even in the store because they saw him coming and locked the door) who turned out to be an NBA player. The young woman’s crime: She was texting. Obviously other kids had their phones out because there are SEVERAL videos of this incident on-line. People text in their cars and they don’t get pulled over and thrown to the pavement. (I wish.) We are a society used to live-blogging, simultaneously walking, eating, and tweeting. Congress does it when th...

2015 Flashcard Flash Fiction Contest Judged in-house. First Prize:  $100, publication online, and publication on a Flashcard that will be distributed with  Sycamore Review  at AWP GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS Submission Deadline:  February 1, 2015 (Contest opens January 1, 2015) 1. For each submission, send a piece of flash fiction of no more than 500 words. 2. A reading fee of $5 (submitted online) must accompany each submission. 3. Additional flash pieces may be submitted for an additional reading fee of $5 for per piece. Please submit each piece individually. 4. Manuscript pages should be numbered and should include the title of the piece. 5. All entries will be read blind. Information that identifies the author should NOT appear on the manuscript itself. 6. All pieces of flash fiction must be previously unpublished. 7. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable only if  Sycamore Review  is notified immediately upon acceptance el...

Rarely have I walked into a room where I felt an emotional coldness, a sense of dread, abandon all hope. Except perhaps a haunted house. Through the ages there have been rooms. The grand duke Franz Ferdinand had a room devoted to his game hunting skills. Approximately 100,000 trophies were on exhibit at his Bohemian castle. Wealthy industrialists have sought to have rooms reconstructed after the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Henry Clay Frick who made his money from coke (coal) had installed in his Fifth Avenue mansion panels painted by Fragonard, “The Cycle of Love”, with a drawing room designed around them in 1915/16. The boiseries, or painted wall panels, were designed and executed in Paris by Auguste Decour in the Louis XVI style. There have been rooms inspired by Japanese aesthetics or by nature. Frank Lloyd Wright designed his house/studio around a willow tree that would eventually “grow” in the front entryway. Indeed one can easily identify a Wright ro...