The Power of Memoir

A door that demands to be heard in Barcelona, Spain 

The last unit of study with the freshman in my school is on memoir writing. I love teaching writing, as my students have so many incredible stories to tell.

I run this class like a writing workshop where we listen to music (today was classical guitar!), write, and ultimately sit in a circle and share out a line or the entire piece. The stories that organically emerge are ones that are powerful and transformative. I also think that it is cathartic to slam thoughts at a non-judgmental piece of paper and then, perhaps, tentatively, begin to share.

This morning, one of my students came running in and said, "I know what I am going to write my memoir about!" She wound up sharing two paragraphs of her piece at the end of class: Over the weekend, she witnessed a man violently beating his girlfriend. She stood in the window and watched, begging her mother to call the 911, but her mother said it was "none of their business." Breathless from her passionate retelling, she paused to say softly, but with a firm resolve, "I will remember this the rest of my life. I know I will."

In addition to teaching memoir, I am currently midway through my latest read, which is also a memoir. If this book were in paper form, the dog-eared pages would look like an accordion.

Anna Quindlen is an author with whom I have a superficial relationship, as I have only read one of her books and here I am diving voyeuristically into her life. That said, this is a memoir that has gripped me from the first page. As she looks back on her life, she writes about the importance of friends and of love, and the unimportance of things and of status...but I have read many authors who proclaim these same virtues. For me, what makes this book special is her ability to share those mundane moments we all experience which, though her mundane may be different than my own, still resonate powerfully.

The two images from her life that have struck me most so far were first, her description of her relationship with her husband:


"We're not two hearts that beat as one (In any marriage I've ever known in which two hearts beat as one, the one is his. Here's to you Abigail Adams.) Instead we're two strong minded people who have divergent talents and habits. Gerry loves the fall and hates the heat; I prefer the summer and I am sanguine about humidity...He balances his checkbook, and I'm pretty sure that everything will come out okay at the end of the month.


...He's mainly Irish, which means loyalty is somewhere between a physical reflex and a neurological response. He holds a grudge against anyone who has done me wrong. He may not remember our social schedule or the name of some of our kids' friends, but he never forgets who wrote a bad review of my last book. And woe betide that individual if they ever met him at a cocktail party. I like that in a man. Actually, I love that in a man."


Now, while I am not a big fan of attributing certain qualities to people based on heritage, the overall message was powerful. That, and I had to laugh as I thought of how the opposite, often cacophonous rhythms of M. and I are often what makes it all work.

The second part of this memoir that really resonated with me was Quindlen's description of her girlfriends, as I feel so lucky to have the people in my life that I do. I found myself nodding as I read this:


"Ask any woman how she makes it through her day, and she may mention her calendar, her to-do lists, her babysitter...But if you push her on how she really makes it through her day, or, more important, her months and years, how she stays steady when things get rocky, who she calls when the doctor says, "I'd like to run a few more tests" or when her son moves in with the girl she's never much liked or trusted, she won't mention any of those things. She will mention her girlfriends. The older we get, the more we understand that the women who know and love us--and love us despite what they know about us--are the joists that hold up the house of our existence. Everything depends on them."

Once again, while I am not a big fan of the gender-binary look at women and men that Quindlen carries throughout her book, I really love her message. She goes on to share a hilarious anecdote about the friend she has talked to nearly every day since high school and how her husband frequently asks her, "What on earth do you two talk about every day?" and how this reminds her of being in high school with her dad asking her, "What on earth do you two talk about every day?" I laughed out loud as I thought  of M. asking me, "What on earth do you two talk about every day?"

As I read on, I am looking forward to more tidbits of wisdom and mirrored experiences. This is a book in which Quindlen reflects on various stages of her life, and I imagine as I reach those disparate stages in my own life, this is a book I will return to again and again. Memoir, in the least, is a reminder that we are not alone. Our experiences are shared and, as Quindlen asserts, we should appreciate all of the candles and cake in our life and not worry too much about all of the other stuff.

Happy Reading!