Work history

Here is an interesting list to create:

Make a list of all the jobs you have ever had, the age you were when you had them and what you learned from each job. Start with your very first job and move forward to your current job. Now write about the lessons/values/truths you have learned about work.

Here's a partial list of mine:

Five & Dime store, age 14--worked the popcorn machine during the Christmas holdiays. Learned to be very, very careful around hot oil and to fight the urge to lick salty, greasy fingers between filling bags of freshly popped corn.

Babysitting, age 15-16--The dean of the music department and his wife often went to Houston for late night partying, and I babysat their four children. The oldest kid, Will Lee, is the bass player for the David Letterman Late Night Show. Yes, I feel old.

Reporter & Proofreader for weekly small town paper, age 20--the editor was a character, just like the Editor-in-Chief Perry White in the Superman black & white television series--steely, professional, hard-nosed and demanding. I learned never to miss a deadline.

High school journalism teacher, age 21-23--taught sophomores, juniors and seniors how to produce an award-winning newspaper. I learned that high school principals in Texas schools are usually former football coaches and have no tolerance for journalism teachers. I was fired at the end of my second year, despite statewide recognition for the newspaper and many individual student awards for reporting excellence.

Community college instructor, age 23-29--hired to develop journalism program for small community college in a "company town" (the company being EXXON). I loved this job, and I was really proud of the work I did. Students won lots of awards and many transferred to universities with great portfolios.

etc.

Death and aging

My friend Lee died last week. He was recovering from a heart attack, and he just slipped away in his sleep. He was 57 years old. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.

I met Lee in 1976. He was so handsome and so bright. (Weren't we all--we were in our late 20s and early 30s and full of life's possibilities.)

He and my ex-husband became like brothers, and Lee was best man in our wedding in 1981; then, he stood by both of us when we divorced in 1991--something only an authentic friend with great integrity could have done.

Lee walked me down the aisle when my son married in 2002.

Three years ago my best girlfriend died suddenly from a complication in what was supposed to be routine surgery. She was 55. Lee stood by my side and helped me survive the loss of my childhood friend. (Charlotte and I had been friends since we were in the third grade. She was my matron of honor in my wedding.)

At every life changing event in my adult life, these two friends were present, supporting me, advising me, joking with me, prodding me, hugging me, loving me.

What the hell is going on? We are the Boomer generation--we're supposed to live into our 80s.

The hollowness in my life--the large spaces these two great friends occupied--is immense. I cannot count the times this week that I've reached for the phone to call Lee and say, "You won't believe what just happened!" And I still miss Charlotte so much, too. She was so smart and had such great advice. They both did. Now they are gone, and I am left here to be an adult all by myself.

I do not fear death. I believe in an afterlife, and I know that my friends are at peace. I am the one suffering, because I miss them. And I've been thinking about that.

People who are in their 70s and 80s are often the ones who have outlived their family and friends. They become invisible in our culture. Or, they are treated like children instead of revered for being the sages they are.

My mother is 84. She believes she has lived a grand life and that she's made a contribution to humanity, which she has! While she doesn't have a death wish, she tells me that she feels at peace and she is ready anytime God is ready for her to take her final breath. I understand that feeling. When your contemporaries die and the younger generation is busy with making its own mark, you feel lonelier on this side and going to the other side--while not wishing for it--is not unseemly.

No, it's not a death wish, but it is a new perspective.

What is Truth?

The first time I wrote a family memoir, my older brother argued with me about the way things happened. He remembered things just a little differently and of course, he thought his memory was/is superior to mine. (Never mind that he is in his sixties and constantly confuses me with his daughter, so much so that my name has become "Tracie-I, uh, mean-Joyce.")

Anyway, his argument brings up a question that many people struggle with as they write their life stories. Author/memoirist Maureen Murdock even wrote a book about it (Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory, 2003). She makes the point that when we write from memory, we may not remember the exact words that people said, or the specific colors splaying across the sky at dusk, or the if the food was Korean or Vietnamese. But so what? The truth that is important in memoir is not so much factual truth as it is emotional truth. How did we feel when we were experiencing an event (e.g., earning our first merit badge in Scouts, picking out our first car, getting our first traffic ticket, failing a test, winning an award) and how did the event change us (e.g., gave us confidence, taught us responsibility, helped us understand the concept of consequences).

Emotional truth is very individualist, so in writing our life stories, the question becomes Whose truth is it? And the answer to that question is simple: It is the writer's truth.

So when my brother questions the truth of one of my stories, I just pat him on the shoulder and say, "You tell your story your way, and I'll tell my story mine."

Memoirist Mary Jane Moffat (City of Roses: Stories from Girlhood, 1986) makes the distinction between factual history and artistic truth. Author Toni Morrison has been quoted saying that making things up and sticking to facts are two different things, but that you need both to get to the truth. Tristin Rainer (Your Life as Story, 1997) reminds us that the ultimate meaning of life stories is not hidden in the literal facts, but rather in the emotional truth.

In writing life stories, then, it is important to be authentic and real about the emotional truth--something that many celebrities tend to gloss over in their tell-all books. However, I believe the reason that memoirs by everyday folks like you and me are so popular in our culture and in literature today is because of the emotional truth we reveal in our stories. Readers may not have the exact experience as the author of a memoir, but they sure identify with the feelings.

Bottom line: Write from the heart and keep it real.

Where do I Begin?

"I have so much to say; I just don't know where to start!"

(If I lost an ounce for every time I've heard someone say this, I'd be one skinny woman.)

One of the distinguishing characteristics of memoir writing is that one's memoirs are cut into slices so that each slice makes a good story. And that may be one of the reasons it is hard to know where to start. Autobiographies begin in the beginning, but memoirs may--and do!--start anywhere.

Here's a couple of ideas:

Begin right before a turning point in your life. What did you want right before the turning point? Begin with your desire. A soldier might desire to be courageous in a firefight. A young woman who is up for a promotion might want to be the most sophisticated and intelligent candidate. A man who is proposing to his beloved might want to quell the acid burning a hole in his gut while, at the same time, winning his darling's heart. A younger brother might desire to be accepted by his older brothers as they go out on the town.

Begin in the middle of a crisis. For example, in telling the story of sneaking out with buddies/girlfriends, begin with your mother's fury when she meets you at the door the next morning: "Where were you last night?"

Begin with the inner conflict. Often what we wanted growing up and what our parents wanted for us were in opposition. This is a story of struggle for sure, and, perhaps compromise, perhaps regret, perhaps triumph, perhaps courage, perhaps "mom/dad knew best" or perhaps not.

Memoir Writing

I am a writer, editor, author and college professor (earned my doctorate from Texas A&M University and completed post-doctoral work in creative writing under the tutelage of Southern writer Paul Ruffin at Sam Houston State), and I have started this blog to examine the fourth genre of literature that has come of age: creative nonfiction, especially memoir writing.

The initial desire to tell your story often comes from the desire to make sense of your life. One of the reasons blog journals haved become so popular, in my opinion, is seeded by this desire. But a major difference between many blogs and memoir writing is that blog journals are more of a stream of consciousness writing--this is what I am thinking, unedited--while retorying your life, writing your memoirs, includes the added necessary ingrediate of reflection.

Interested in this topic? Then, by all means, blog in and contribute, and tell your friends to visit as well.