Turkey Day

Turkey Day is nearly here. The radio is my head playing “Over the River and Through the Woods,” that old Thanksgiving classic I learned in second or third grade. I love that song, even though I never have seen that much snow as early as Thanksgiving. The other traditional Thanksgiving tune that stick in mind is the hymn, “Come Ye Thankful People, Come,” which I just discovered was written in 1844, the same year as “Over the River.”

Thinking back over my personal Thanksgiving history, I find a lot of variation. Childhood Thanksgivings in New Mexico varied. Some years we visited my mother’s family in Las Cruces, where most of my cousins lived. Those years enough food for a small army filled my aunt’s kitchen table, and tables for eating were set up in the living room for adults and an enclosed porch for the kids. Other years we went to visit my father’s parents in Clovis where things were a little quieter. Or we stayed home in Los Alamos, enjoying the meal with various combinations of friends and/or visiting relatives.

When Mother fixed the dinner, we always had turkey stuffed with my mother’s cornbread dressing. She left the seasoning of that dressing to my father, which baffled me at the time. Aside from making pancakes on weekends, seasoning the stuffing was his only contribution to cooking. We always had mashed potatoes with giblet gravy, candied sweet potatoes with toasty marshmallow topping, green beans (plain ones, not the soupy casserole version), 24-hour salad and fresh cranberry-orange relish. Dessert always included both pumpkin and mince pies, with lots of whipped cream.

During the years our children were growing up, Thanksgiving was always at our house, with my parents and brother joining us. In later years my brother's growing family was added. The menu remained stable, though the dressing was never quite the same without my father’s deft touch to season it. The last twenty-some years, the feast has changed. The distance between most family members has multiplied by a factor of ten. We alternate between staying home, often including assorted friends whose families are also far away, or going to visit my mother-in-law, who lives just east of Philadelphia.

Although this is not a tradition in our family, many families center the food preparation and meal around television with the Macy’s parade in the morning and football later in the day.

Isn’t it ironic how most of us primarily connect this holiday with turkey, travel, and television, followed by Black Friday shopping sprees? The holiday was instituted to remind us to be thankful for the many blessings we enjoy in this land of plenty. Even this year as the economy is melting like ice cream on hot pie, there is plenty to be thankful for, and I hope you’ll join me in recording some of those many blessings in stories. Encourage family members to share stories as you gather. Keep a recorder running, and/or make notes. In future years, your family will have a collection of stories to add to their Gratitude lists on Thanksgiving.

Among the many things I’m thankful for is the technology that allows me to create this blog, and for all my many readers. I wish each and every one of you the very best Thanksgiving ever, and another year of blessings.

Write now: a list of things you are thankful for, and then go on to write about your memories of Thanksgivings, past and present. Gather a collection of your family’s traditional recipes. Do you always stick to the same ones or vary the menu? What other traditions do you have? Do you recall unusual events or circumstances? How were people arranged for eating — all around one table, or a separate one for children? Keep those fingers moving and get it all down!

Sisterhood Is Powerful

Those who've seen us
know that not a thing could come between us.
Many men have tried to split us up, but no one can.
Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister,
and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man.

I remember hearing this song on the radio as a very young girl, and again in junior high, sung in a school talent show by two cheerleaders who were best friends, as close as sisters. These lyrics, excerpted from a song originally written by Irving Berlin, have been adapted and recorded by a long line of singers, and they express the ideal of sisterhood: women bonded by birth, presenting a united front against all odds — yet sometimes turning against each other.

Memoirs about the mother-daughter relationship would fill several shelves, but none that I’m aware of focus on the sisterly one. My thoughts have ranged in that direction the last few days, and I’m surprised that this niche seems to have been overlooked.

Thinking back through stories told by friends through the years about their sisters, I recall countless accounts of love and support, but I also recall tales of sisters left in the cold, sisters who sat in the shadow of a dominant sibling, women who bear a variety of emotional scars inflicted on purpose or otherwise by their sisters. This is the dark side of sisterhood.

The concept of sisterhood ranges beyond biological bounds. Convents have been full of “sisters” since the early years of Christianity. Sorority members are considered to be sisters. Especially in the 1960s and 70s, as the feminist movement gained momentum, sisterhood was a rallying theme. Sisterhood Is Powerful, the “bible” of the movement, was carried at all times by enlightened coeds on many campuses across the USA. Here again, stories of love and light predominate, but dark ones are not unknown as power is wielded for various forms of control. In addition to its inner dynamics, this sort of sisterhood uses circles of inclusion to exclude others, creating elaborate forms of tension and intrigue.

Lastly I thought of another form of sisterhood — soul sisters, best friends who may be closer than those born into the same family. These are the friends who are always there for us, who listen to our hopes and dreams as well as our fears and pains, with the tenderest of encouragement and care. They are balm for our souls. These friends are the richest sort of blessing one could hope for.

Sisterhood is powerful in so many ways, and a juicy topic for life writers of all sorts. Whatever the nature of your relationships with sisters of various sorts, they are sure to generate plenty of tales and insights, and writing your truth about some of the darker elements may bring unexpected closure and healing.

Write now: a story full of tension about the darker side of sisterhood as you have experienced it, a time when you were excluded, jeered at, bullied, betrayed, or otherwise tormented by a birth sister or members of a collective sisterhood. Follow this with a tribute to a beloved sister, whether bonded by birth or acquired later in life. Include details of what happened and how you felt. You may choose to share your tribute story with the person you write about. Make your own decision about sharing the darker one. Men, you can write about brothers, or anyone could expand this to siblings and friends in general

National Day of Listening: an Adventure in Multimedia

Have you ever wished you could watch movies of your ancestors and how they lived, or at least hear their voices? Although it's too late to capture your ancestors on video StoryCorp is doing something about that for future generations. They recognize the value of hearing voices from the past and are dedicated to preserving them. They are an independent nonprofit project whose mission is “to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.” Jerry Waxler wrote an inspiring blog post on Memory Writers Network about his heartwarming experience with StoryCorp.

Realizing that a very small percentage of the world’s population will ever be able to visit a StoryCorp studio, they have begun urging people to use their own equipment to record interviews with family members and others they care about. This Thanksgiving, “StoryCorps asks you to start a new holiday tradition—set aside one hour on Friday, November 28th, to record a conversation with someone important to you. You can interview anyone you choose: an older relative, a friend, a teacher, or a familiar face from the neighborhood.” You can learn more about this and find detailed guidelines to help by visiting their National Day of Listening website.

This StoryCorp request and nudge toward multi-media lifestory and family history projects seems timely. I still advocate print and written stories as the basic medium, because it is the most durable and accessible, but sound recordings, video, digital scrapbooks and photo albums definitely add impact to your stories by involving more channels of sensory input, and younger generations are becoming increasingly used to multi-media, even if they are avid readers.

If all you have available is a tape recorder or an older video camera that records on tape, don’t hesitate to use it. Just keep in mind that both audio and video tapes tend to deteriorate over time, and it’s becoming difficult to purchase players for them, so as soon as possible, get any tapes you have, new or old, transferred to digital format and burned to CD or DVD disks for storage. You can convert audio tapes yourself with a tape player that has a port for connecting to an external speaker, an audio cable (available for a few dollars at any electronics department), and the free open source Audacity sound capture program. If you ask around, you probably know someone with a combination VCR/DVD recorder to use for playing the tape and simultaneously recording it to a DVD disk, or you can purchase such a device for as little as $59 online (check reviews!).

If and when if your budget allows, prices for digital recorders and camcorders are plummeting. If you already have an iPod or other mp3 player, it may have a voice recorder function that will do the trick. My Creative Zen V Plus mp3 player that I spent $79 for a year ago isn’t quite studio quality, but it’s as good as most tape recorders and quite adequate for the purpose. Cnet.com offers excellent product reviews along with buying guides such as this one for mp3 players to help you choose.

Most digital cameras today have a video mode. It may produce a rather small image, but it’s better than nothing, and you won’t be able to turn the clock back later when you get a better one. Even if the video is less than the best, you'll have the audio. Start with an empty card, the largest you have, and set the camera on a tripod or prop it on a solid surface while you do your interview.

A scanner is the only equipment you need to take old photos and pop them into PowerPoint (or the free OpenOffice equivalent, Impress). Add captions, and get as creative as you want with special effects. You can even record a voice track and add music if you feel adventurous and dig around in Help to figure out how.

Think out of the box and use the toys you already have to create something wonderful. Your imagination will be stretched, you’ll form lots of new neural connections to keep your brain healthy as you learn new tricks to use the software involved, and your family will love the results.

Write now: inventory your gear and use the guidelines on the National Day of Listening site to make plans for recording an audio and/or video interview on the National Day of Listening this year. Find half a dozen old photos, scan them into the computer if you haven’t already done so, and make a simple PowerPoint slide show.

November is National Life Writing Month

Yesterday in what I just discovered was an ironic twist, I learned that November is National Life Writing Month. I learned about it when Linda Joy Myers mentioned the occasion while introducing Denis Ledoux, author of Turning Memories into Memoir, as her guest on the National Association of Memoir Writers monthly teleseminar. “As you know,” she said, “November is National Lifewriting Month.” Without elaborating, he confirmed that he knew. Then he went on to enchant us with a sticky web of thoughts about finding the myths in our lives and stories.

This morning I discovered the irony. Denis Ledoux is the originator of National Life Writing Month, but I did not discover this from him. I learned of it when Google led me to a page on Angie Pedersen’s Scrap Your Stories site. She tells how he has been helping both new and experienced memoirists find and express their stories since 1988, and includes a list of Denis’s tips for writing lifestories, and a link to his resource page.

Linda Austin also mentions National Life Writing Month in Cherry Blossom Memories, along with a review and link to Marlys Styne’s blog, Write Your Life, and her helpful book, Senior Writing: A Brief Guide for Seniors Who Want to Write.

Elizabeth Scott includes mention of the therapeutic value of writing to relieve stress in her About.com Stress Management blog.

Since I tuned in late (better late than never, and just wait until next year!) I’m glad National Life Writing Month lasts a month rather than just being a week, and I'm glad it was Denis who launched this month-long observance. His book was one of the first I read ten years ago when I was diving headfirst into this fascinating journey which lent such depth and color to my experience of life in general, and the efforts of Denis and his corps of affiliated teachers have surely had much to do with the explosion of interest in life writing, whether it takes the form of homespun stories, journaling, or literary memoir. I would have begun in any event. Denis's book made it easier and eventually inspired my own.

And, I’m reminded once again of the power of connection and how we learn from and support each other. I feel richly blessed to live in this age of instant communication with its global support web and community. I’m filled with a sense of awe and wonder, and see an image of the circus, with a huge net under the trapeze. That net takes the fear out of flying high! I’m tempted to drop down into it for the sheer joy of bouncing around.

Write now: pick a story from your story idea list and get those fingers moving, and extend your support web by joining the stimulating discussions of various aspects of life writing on the Life Writers’ Forum on YahooGroups and the National Association of Memoir Writers.

The Ultimate Oak Leaf

I occasionally use the following two paragraphs in a PowerPoint presentation during writing classes to illustrate the point that stripping words to their bare essence is one of the most effective ways to emphasize the power of your message:

I look up at the gnarled oak tree, starkly outlined against the sky and see a single dry leaf clinging tenaciously to the largest limb. Every other leaf in the woods fell to the ground weeks ago when we had that last fierce wind, but this leaf may still be there until the tree buds in the spring. The leaf reminds me of my mother, clinging stubbornly to life long past the time when it seemed her body was ready to let go. (83 words)

Lifeless oak leaves cling tenaciously to skeletal branches. Well into winter, they stubbornly resist gales, unwilling to separate from the reality they've known. My mother was the ultimate oak leaf. (30 words)

The most common response after several seconds of silence is “How do you get from number one to number two?

I can answer with assurance, because I wrote those two paragraphs several years ago in response to a writing group challenge to pare a paragraph by at least fifty percent to expose the key message. I rose to the challenge. The process was similar to stripping layers of paint from a flea market find to expose the beautiful wood underneath. This second paragraph is only thirty- six percent of the original, and the uncluttered point is in sharp focus. I assure you that getting it to that point took more than ten minutes! I nipped, tucked, rearranged, and reworded. I kept pecking away, leaving and coming back over the course of nearly a week. I probably revised it thirty-seven times before I got it to the point where I’m no longer tempted to change anything.

Even those of us who know that stories are much like infants (emerging from the womb pliable and bloody) tend to forget the amount of work polished writers put into their creations. Keep that in mind as you do battle with that inner critic lashing out at you with statements like “You’ll never be able to write like that!” or “You aren’t creative enough to come up with such stunning images.”

Talk back to your critic. Firmly insist that you can do anything if you practice and learn. You need time and patience, and you are entitled to as many drafts as it takes. Add words where they are needed to flesh out a description, and then get out the pruning shears. Remember that less is more.

Write now: take a first draft paragraph and remove at least twenty-five percent of the words to strengthen the message. Rewording is allowed. The focus is on thought and word count, not the specific words. Post a comment and let us know how you did.

Joy Writing

Photo by Jurvetson

You know the image of the writer as a starving, tortured soul, each agonized word blurred on the page by sweat beads dripping from his brow. He writes in longhand, on a hand-hewn log desk, by candlelight, wrapped in rags against the wintry blast, with only a crust of bread to sustain his unworthy efforts, and page after page of tormented efforts are wadded into balls and tossed into the fireplace for a bit of added warmth. He makes frequent stops to sharpen the quill with which he writes or to fill the inkwell into which he dips that plume. He may occasionally resort to chopping kindling to gather his erratic thoughts, mind churning in sync with his stomach. In the depths of his heart, he knows these efforts will pay off. His words will be pressed upon millions of pages and stir the hearts of readers with passion second only to his.

You know the image. You may even relate to that image and fear to write because of it. I say to you now, forget it! It’s only a myth. Writing doesn’t have to be this way. Listen to your muse. Loosen up. Write for the sheer fun of it.

“Fun?” Your unspoken question reverberates even unto my heart and ears. Yes! I said fun. Joy. Pick up your pencil and take a joy break.

Maybe before you take write for joy, a little physical action is in order. When was the last time you zoomed around your yard, arms dipping and rising like an airplane? I admit this is not one of my daily activities, but I did try it last summer. I swooped around, dipping and diving, making airplane sounds. I marched like a majorette with knees rising high. I whirled and twirled, stopping just short of falling in a heap on the asphalt. After six or seven minutes, I felt loose as a goose, both mentally and physically. I felt young at heart, and considerably younger in body.

You can do the same thing indoors, moving wildly to magic music, something with a strong beat and lots of energy. For now, try it alone. Or blow some bubbles if you have a bottle around. Catch a few on your hand.

Now, you are ready to write. Start a story with “Once upon a time there was a little (girl or boy, your pick). S/he lived in ...” You take it from there. Make it wild. Transcend gravity. Fly. Swim under the sea. Leap tall buildings with a single bound. Be totally outrageous. Nobody is going to read this, unless you decide to share.

How did that feel? Why don’t you write this way all the time? Because your inner critic won’t let you, that’s why. Talk back to your critic (in my case, Gretchen). Say something like, “Gretchen, I know you have my best interests at heart, but I need a break. I need some joy. Please sit back, have some milk and cookies while I write. You can check it over later.”

By the way, your words will surely flow most freely if you write by hand, on paper, but that’s only one option. Do what feels write to you. Write it your way, with joy.

Start out with easy, childlike topics, and as you grow more comfortable, you’ll find it ever easier to write joy-fully, even about dark topics, knowing that your playful spirit will find the hidden blessing within. You’ll have a fresher attitude, less stress, brighter descriptions. You’ll knock away your blocks with a writer’s rush, and generally juice up your writing. Your writer’s voice will sing. But best of all, it’s fun!

Just in case you were wondering, this child-like joy writing originates on the creative, write side of your brain, not the reasonable, rational, linear left.

Write now: with joy. Follow the directions above and write something fun, like blowing bubbles and hopping inside one to travel away to a magical place.