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Trying to rearrange memories

December 9th, 2014
writing is power in its own right

writing is power in its own right

Editor Mary Rakow recently suggested that I write the next phase of my manuscript differently, when I met her in San Francisco.  We brainstormed ways to braid together life stories into descending and ascending arcs, that deliver a different experience for the reader than the saga I wrote about my time on this planet.  Like most people,  I usually tell my story in chronological order, but what happened doesn’t really need linear chronology.

For example, starting my life story with both sides of my grandparents doesn’t move my story.  It provides context for who I think I am, but other people probably don’t care about my grandparents.  When I jumble up personal anecdotes, people and events change.  My memory changes when I jumble it up. Continue reading “Trying to rearrange memories” »

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Proust and Thanksgiving

November 25th, 2014
seven county view

seven county view

We know nothing lasts forever.  “The places that we have known belong not only to that little world of space on which we map them for our own convenience.  None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; remembrance of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment;  and houses, roads and avenues are as fugitive, alas! as the years.”  Well stated, Marcel Proust!

I remember old days and olden times.  I can describe every step going up to my childhood tree fort.  We lived in a new cul-de-sac between Mill Valley and Tiburon, California.  Before I walked my hills, the place was called Reed Station.  My husband Fred’s great grandfather and grandfather lived on the exact spot more than one hundred years earlier. The Portuguese side of Fred’s family came from the Azore Islands after Gold Rush times, and they ran and owned dairies. Continue reading “Proust and Thanksgiving” »

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I am familiar with suicide

August 12th, 2014
gorilla

Koko the firecracker

Suicide runs in families, and my family’s first suicide was when my grandfather gassed himself in his office.  His two surviving sons were kids, and when they grew up, they both killed themselves, bullet and gas.  Robin Williams lived in my town. He was on the same track team as my high school boyfriend. We were in the same high school drama department.  Although I didn’t know him as a famous man, I know what depression and a substance problem do to people. He described the issues clearly during many personal interviews. Continue reading “I am familiar with suicide” »

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