A Love Letter To My Memoir

Dear Memoir,

I met you for the first time in a writing workshop facilitated by Jill Badonsky. You were scribbles and snippets that filled my notebooks. Some of those bits were silly and some were too personal to share, but those bits were life rafts that kept me afloat when I was sinking: my sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer (for the second time) and my granddad had died. We were selling the house, which meant culling through over 30 years of stuff: old Navy uniforms, photos of people none of us remembered, and bank statements and receipts dating back to the 40s. As the boxes were sorted, I kept writing. Writing became self-care. Writing saved me.

I soon began sharing those bits in public as 3-minute stories I read at the DimeStories (nee First Fridays) open mic in San Diego hosted by Amy Wallen. Writing became my social network and my entertainment. Writing also gave me confidence. One DimeStory, “The Letter” was recorded for the Year 3 CD. Writing became my jam.

When I realized that my scribbles and 3-minute stories were all about my mother, I began to wonder, who was she? Could I find her in the boxes in the garage? in old letters? would I learn something about her from the old yearbooks? from her engagement scrapbook?

For a long time you were a story I was working on, not a “memoir”. I really didn’t know what you were, what our relationship was–and you know how it goes, I needed to define it. Was this just a casual daliance or were we in committed relationship territory? I signed up for a read and critique group facilitated by Judy Reeves, my 3-minute stories began to look like chapters. I began researching, reaching out to to my mother’s friends, reaching into the boxes, I even tracked down an old boyfriend. It was then I called you memoir and named you Reconstructing My Mother. I wanted more.

I took you to a writers’ conference in Taos, New Mexico, the first big test of our relationship. We attended a workshop called Introduction to Memoir and the instructor, Greg Martin, taught me a whole new language of craft, and challenged our relationship. “Jennifer will never find what she is looking for,” he said. But that didn’t discourage me, it only solidified my resolve to make this work. I would, I could, I told myself as I wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more. Two years later I signed up for the Memoir Master Class (also taught by Greg). I put you into a three-ring binder and called you a manuscript.

The workshop was filled with real writers with PhDs, MAs, JDs, and me with my BA in Spanish. They had real memoirs; I had a collection of prose. Once again, Greg challenged me: “You make a lot of self deprecating remarks about not having an advanced degree,” he said. “Why don’t you get one.”

So I applied to MFA programs–actually I only applied to one–and off we went to the University of New Mexico. Talk about testing a relationship!

In grad school I dallied. I wrote some fiction, some poetry, and even considered writing another book for my dissertation project. I always came back to you. You got me through my MFA program and I crafted you into a not-quite-ready-to-be-published book that I successfully defended to my committee. That was the last step to graduation. We were really there for each other. Until we weren’t.

When times got tough I walked away. Being with you was just too difficult. But now I’m finding our separation has been even more difficult. I’m back, but we have changed. Well, I have changed: I’m older, maybe wiser, and definitely a better writer.

We survived, Memoir, and now you are at my dining room table. A printout of you is waiting for my red pen. Papers of you are strewn across the formica top. Some pieces will be left out and some will be repurposed. I’ve pulled together some short prose pieces and some poems, pieces from the cutting room floor, for a chapbook, a precursor to the larger work I will name that book My Grief Memoir, 3 Minutes at a Time. Our child. Something to show for the last ten years, something to hold in my arms and say “I made this.”

And I am ready to take our relationship to the next level; I am not forgetting you. In fact, I’m falling in love all over again. I’m reading comments from friends on the complete manuscript. I’m considering the larger work, the through lines, the reflective voice, the ways to deepen the work, focus the lens. I’m even working on a book proposal. But our time apart, the years of writing with you and without you, the living and the deep thinking has changed us. I will have to rename you.

Whatever your name becomes, please know I love you still, maybe even more than when we first got together. You are a part of me in a way no one else will ever be.

All My Love,

Jennifer