On Family History

My own, that is. Not the title of the novel–which, though many readers assumed otherwise, was not my own Family History! Jacob’s fourth grade class is concentrating on immigration between now and spring break, culminating in a trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Ellis Island at the end of February. (I’m definitely going with the class. I’ve never been to Ellis Island.) His first assignment was to come up with a family tree. In every family there is a keeper of the tree–a cousin or an uncle who develops an interest. I have not been that person, and wasn’t very helpful when it came to filling in the missing pieces: whom among our ancestors came through Ellis Island? What year? From where? I called cousins and aunts to try to get some answers, and I also dug out a treasure that I feel so grateful to have:

That’s my great grandfather on the right, and my grandfather on the left. This is a still captured from a documentary film, “Image Before My Eyes”, that came out when I was in college. It’s a history of shtetl life in Poland before the war, and contains five precious minutes of footage of my grandfather, who traveled from New York City with his father back to the ancestral shtetl to say Kaddish at the grave of his father’s father. So the other night, Michael, Jacob and I curled up on the sofa in our library, the dogs at our feet, and took a voyage to the past. I showed Jacob the moving images of his great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and the gravestone of his great-great-great-grandfather.

From this–

To this–

In just a few generations.

On Literary Friendship

Sometimes writers just need to be around other writers. It’s such a bizarre thing we all do, sitting alone, day after day, untangling the brambles of our imagination. When we used to live in Brooklyn, sometimes I felt overwhelmed by being around so many people who did what I do. I couldn’t take a walk without running into a friend, a foe, or just some poet or essayist or novelist I knew slightly, out walking her dog. Back in those days, I felt oppressed by so much close literary contact. There were just too many of us! How could we all be doing interesting work? But here in the country, I would welcome bumping into a fellow writer at the local cafe.

How’s the book going?
We would recognize the wild look in each other’s eyes.
The shaking of the head.
The little, helpless shrug.
Then smile, knowing we weren’t alone doing this weird thing we do.

The problem is, it almost never happens. Partly because there are very few writers where I live (well, there are some living legends but I don’t see them too often) and partly because there’s so little human contact at all. Don’t get me wrong. I like that about living in the country. It’s actually good for my work, and good for my head, if you can even distinguish the two. But sometimes I just need to get out of here. So yesterday, we all took a little ride to visit my friend Jane.

Our work couldn’t be more different. She’s a mega-bestselling writer of books that have their own kiosks in airports. I’m…well, let’s just say I’m not. She writes a book a year. I…well, let’s just say I don’t. When we’re together, we rarely talk about our work. We talk about our kids, and houses, and cooking, and how we’re feeling, and all the stuff of life. But what we see in each other is a kindred spirit: another woman who lives in her imagination and still lives in the real world, who makes something out of nothing every single day.

On Memory

The latest memoir-publishing scandal hit me even harder than all the others. Herman Rosenblat, in turns out, invented the story about his meeting his wife because she passed him apples through the fence of the concentration camp where he survived the war. The concentration camp part is true. Mr. Rosenblat is indeed a Holocaust survivor. Which, I suppose, is what makes this story sting. Why make up a story about the Holocaust, then pass it off as true? Wasn’t there drama enough? The book has been canceled (though now it may be published as fiction!) and the outcry has died down. But the cumulative lasting effect of these scandals makes me sad. I know they’re affecting the way readers approach memoir. I’ve seen the distrust, the cynicism in my students, who wonder: why should I believe this? How does the writer remember all that? Prove to me that it’s true. Show me.

The way the publishing industry is addressing this is to suggest that memoirs now be fact-checked. But how do you fact-check memory? How do you fact-check childhood? To think that memoir can be fact-checked is to misunderstand the whole idea of what memoir is. Which is to say, a story. A story told by a writer who is plumbing the depths of her memory. Who understands the sacred pact she is making with the reader. This story is what I remember. This is the truth of my memory–which is faulty, singular, mine alone. It is not The Truth. It is a small, personal attempt to wrestle with the recesses of time and history and the way memory plays on one’s mind. It is not invention. A writer writing memoir (unless that writer is actively attempting to trick the reader like Mr. Rosenblat and his fellow scammers) is engaged in the deep and very genuine process of piecing together a patchwork quilt of the past.

When I sit down each morning to work on Devotion, especially when I am writing the pieces of the quilt involving my childhood, that is where I’m headed. The past: my own history. I’m not inventing it, or supplying details that would make it better–or worse, or more dramatic–than it was. I don’t understand what the point of that would be. If I were doing that, wouldn’t I be writing fiction?

On Impermanence

We lost power for about an hour and a half last night. We had just finished dinner and I was in the middle of one of those ridiculous parental power struggles with Jacob, who was insisting that the brand of ice cream sandwiches we had in the freezer wasn’t the “right kind”. I was in the middle (I swear this is true) of saying something about starving children in Africa. Michael was smirking at me. Then–just like that–all went dark and silent. The hum of the freezer, the ticking of the clocks, the low level constant noise that we live with, without ever noticing. We lit candles, started a fire in the fireplace, found flashlights. As power outages go, it was perfect. It lasted exactly the right amount of time. Long enough to feel like an adventure, but brief enough to avoid becoming a huge problem.

An ice storm had been hitting us all day, the trees, bushes, windowsills encased and glittering. This morning, when we woke up, the world outside our windows shone silvery in the sunlight. Our post-ice-storm world has a bleak, bittersweet kind of beauty. It’s hard to take it in and enjoy it, knowing how much damage will be wrought, how many branches will crack, how many trees will fall.

I keep a book of Buddhist wisdom open on our kitchen table, and we turn a page each morning. The entry for today–a piece of wisdom from Shabkar–is this:

“Like the birds that gather in the treetops at night
And scatter in all directions at the coming of dawn,
Phenomena are impermanent.”

The awareness of this impermanence–in myself, in the world around me–can, at its best, force me into the present moment. The ice on the trees. The sun streaming in. The sound of a snow plow in the distance. My manuscript waiting for me to enter it, this morning. The boy back at school. The husband cozy in his office. The dogs sleeping. This, right now, is all there is.

On New Beginnings

Happy New Year. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some peace and quiet. The holidays, while lovely, were also way too busy. Today is Jacob’s first day back at school, and tomorrow it’s meant to snow. A lot. Which probably means that I have to adjust my expectations about what kind of week this is going to be (e.g. highly productive). Unless it can be considered productive to bake more cookies and cook more soup, which is what we seem to do on snow days.

I’ve been thinking about what it means to begin–both as a creative act, and in life generally. It was Joseph Brodsky who once said: “Endings are difficult, beginnings are nowhere to be found. But oh, to begin, to begin, to begin…” In working on Devotion I am beginning again constantly. I finish one piece of the puzzle and there is empty space, blank white space before the next one begins. On good days this feels exciting, associative, an adventure. On not-so-good days, it feels more like my head is going to pop off and go flying into the ether. But it doesn’t matter how I feel. All that matters is that I sit down and do the work.

The other day, Jacob and I were leaving a hotel together, and I left my laptop case along with the manuscript for Devotion with the lady behind the check-out desk while I went to dig the car out of the snow. Jacob asked:

“Mommy, what would happen if you lost Devotion?”
“I don’t know honey. I don’t want to lose Devotion–that much I know.”
“But if you lost it, would you have to start all over again?”
“I guess I would have to start all over again.”

The nature of this book has turned my attention to the beauty that can be found in randomness. In the connections that are made, seemingly with no order, that make something surprising happen. Something out of the ordinary, special, and somehow true. This morning I stumbled on this youtube video made by a writer from Chicago, Amy Krause Rosenthal. I don’t know her, though we exchanged emails a few years back after I admired a piece of hers about motherhood and midlife. Take five minutes and watch it. It made me smile, and it started my day on a hopeful note. Thanks, Amy.

On the Inner Critic

We all have one. Some of us have a whole chorus of them. That little voice whispering in your ear, that gremlin sitting on your shoulder as you write. The sole purpose of this whispering gremlin is to tell you some version of the following:

You can’t do this.
Who do you think you are?
You’ve done it before, but this time, you’ll fail.
This project is worthless.
You’ve lost it, babe.
Better throw in the towel.
Or just simply: this sucks.

When I was starting out as a writer, I used to think that after I finished my first book, that little voice would go away. It didn’t. Then I thought that after I got my first positive review in the New York Times Book Review, it would go away. It didn’t. Then I thought that when I started publishing in The New Yorker, it would go away. Or had a bestseller. Or…I think you’re getting the point. Not only does that little whispering voice not go away…it gets louder. Seven books later, sometimes it practically shouts. Precisely because it’s an inner voice. Your inner critic doesn’t actually care what happens in the outer world. Accolades don’t silence it. If anything, it gets fed by success, because on top of “you can’t do it” comes the particularly insidious “you’ll never be able to do it again”.

It can be confusing, too, the inner critic, because sometimes he (or she) is right. Suppose the work really does suck! Sometimes it’s best to throw in the towel. So how’s a writer supposed to know when to listen? I think the answer is this: it’s best never to listen to the inner critic. A writer has to develop her own other way of judging her own work–and only after the work is well underway. The inner critic tends to leap in at the beginning, or even before the beginning.

You can’t do that!
Why even try?
That’s a silly idea.

This–certainly–is not the time to listen. This is the time to make peace with the inner voice. I’ve come to think of it as an animal whose ruffled feathers I can tame. I try talking to it. Later, I’ll say, soothingly. I’ll check back in with you later. But for now…what the hell. I’m going to shut you up, and take a flying leap.

On Slowness

Last night, at a Christmas party, at least ten people asked me how the book is going. How’s the book going? Are you still working on that book? How far along are you? Do you have a deadline? I wish I could carry around a series of small, laminated index cards, printed with my answers. I would pull them out of my jeans pocket, one by one, hand them to the well-meaning party guests with a smile: It’s going. I’m working on it. Every day. I’m about halfway through. Yes, I have a deadline. No, I don’t know when I’ll be done. Presumably by the deadline. Yes indeed, that would be a good idea.

There are only a few things to say when in the middle of the book, and all of them feel boring, or like lies. A high school intern wanted to work with me last year, so that she could learn something about the life of a writer. I couldn’t imagine what she could learn from watching me sit in my desk chair, staring into space; occasionally stretching and letting out a big sigh; drinking far too many cappuccinos. The thing is, writing a book–at least the kinds of books I write and like to read–is a painstakingly slow process. In the beginning, there is nothing. For a long time, there are a few pages. Eventually there’s a pile of pages, as I have now, next to my computer. It looks like a book-length manuscript, but it’s nowhere near finished. Some days, I like it okay. Other days, I am plagued by insecurity and doubt. There is no in between. No gray area whatsoever. Yesterday I wrote a page and a half. The day before yesterday, I wrote half a page. These few pages took me all day. Lately, I feel like a woodworker. The written word on the page is the wood. It’s only the beginning. Once I have the wood, the material itself, I begin to whittle. I chip away a bit here, a bit there. I turn it this way and that, until it assumes its proper shape. Sometimes it doesn’t ever assume its proper shape, and into the dust bin it goes. There are days when nothing happens. Days when it feels to me that nothing ever will. Days when my brain is on fire. Days when I am surrounded by a fog and nothing gets in or out. Still, I whittle.

On Living in Two Spheres

The very best way for me to start the day–or rather, re-start the day after sending the boy off to winter horse camp in his new riding boots (“Mommy, they’re uncomfortable! They don’t fit!” Me, through gritted teeth: “Yes, they do. They’d better fit!”)–is to spend a few minutes with Virginia Woolf. Once again, her Writer’s Diary offers me what I need on this blustery morning. Uncanny, the way I open to a random page and find a bit of useful writerly wisdom. Here, she has just returned after many days away from her desk:

“Yes, but of all things coming home from a holiday is undoubtedly the most damned. Never was there such aimlessness, such depression. Can’t read, write or think. There’s no climax here. Comfort yes: but the coffee’s not so good as I expected. And my brain is extinct–literally hasn’t the power to lift a pen. What one must do is to set it–my machine I mean–in the rails and give it a push.”

And this:

“It strikes me–what are these sudden fits of complete exhaustion? I come in here to write: can’t even finish a sentence; and am pulled under; now is this some odd effort; the subconscious pulling me down into her? …I’m not evading anything. No, I think the effort to live in two spheres: the novel; and life; is a strain. I only want walking and perfectly spontaneous childish life with L. and the accustomed when I’m writing at full tilt; to have to behave with circumspection and decision to strangers wrenches me into another region; hence the collapse.”

Since the perfectly spontaneous childish life is a distant dream of the past, there must be another way. As usual, Woolf offers it: Time to set it…my machine…on the rails and give it a push.

On Snow Days

There’s writing and then there’s living. Can the two possibly be compatible? I know what Thoreau would say. Thoreau went to Walden “…to transact some private business with the fewest ostacles.” Thoreau apparently didn’t have snow days–at least not the kind you have when you’re a mom. We’re in the midst of a two-day blizzard and the land around our house is a winter wonderland. Our windows are caked with snow. Yesterday, while I was practicing yoga, I kept catching glimpses, out of those snow-caked windows, of Jacob barreling downhill on his new sled, the puppy chasing him all the way down to the woods. I stood there, grinning. The boy and his pup. The fire crackling in the fireplace. The day’s plans to go to various holiday parties–canceled. Nothing but the snow. I baked cookies for two days running. (Note to self: black and white cookies–Jacob’s choice–are better bought in the bakery. They took four hours!)

And yet…the manuscript of Devotion is languishing on my desk. I can feel the pressure of it building inside of me. Days away from my work cost me dearly–finding my way back inside requires an effort so intense it feels physical. I want to stay connected to my book, to my work, to the inner mosaic of it–and yet how do I do that, on these snow days? There is the push of one, the pull of the other. Balance–all working mothers know this–is elusive. But particularly for writers, striving for that balance can feel impossible. After all, the work is right there, so tantalizingly close at hand, and not off in some office that’s already closed up for the holidays.

All I know is this: at some point, the snow will stop falling. The boy will grow up and lose interest in sleds and puppies. The book will be finished. As will the next one, and the next–God willing. I will not bend as far in tree pose, nor swing myself up into handstands. This moment–this blizzard to usher out 2008–is here now. And it would be a shame not to take it all in.

On Patience

Yesterday morning I spent the better part of an hour untangling a set of wind chimes that Jacob had brought home from school. They had become impossibly tangled, the clear plastic threads all knotted up. I told myself to be patient. Slowly I tried to unknot the half-dozen threads that had wound themselves around and around each other. In the end, I gave up. I cut the threads, undid the knots, re-attached the moons and stars, and–voila–less than perfect but nonetheless serviceable wind chimes, which are now dangling from our tree out back.

As I was working on the wind chimes, I thought about writers. In particular, I thought about myself, and my friends. How is it that the world’s most impatient people choose to spend their lives doing something a bit like pulling apart clear plastic, nearly invisible bits of thread? Cutting, re-tying, when all else fails? I could recount for you the history of each of my books. The way, in Picturing the Wreck, I wound up with a six hundred page draft that I had to re-imagine and re-structure until it was a lean, mean three-hundred. The way, when I walked into my editor’s office after she read that first draft, she held it–the whole massive pile of it–in her hands, as if weighing it, and said: “Can you believe you wrote all this?” I didn’t hurl myself out the window. I do vaguely remember standing at a pay phone afterward (this was 1995) and crying to a friend. How was I ever going to do what needed to be done?

I do think that writing books is a bit like having babies. Once finished, the experience sort of wipes itself out, so that eventually you can consider the lunacy of doing it again. Once a book is finished, truly finished and I’m holding it in my hands, I can’t for the life of me imagine how I ever wrote it. It’s almost as if the experience of the writing itself happened in fugue state. How did I figure it out? How did I put it together? How will I ever do it again? You’d think, after six books, I’d have a bit more confidence in the process, but the fact is that my own impatience gets in my way. I don’t want it to be a process–even though I can talk until I’m blue in the face about how it is a process. I want to blink and be done. I know, one day, I will hold a copy of my new book in my hands and have no idea how I did it. But right now, on a gloomy Monday morning, I know that it involves a daily triumph over my own impatience, and a willingness to untangle the threads.