Dress Your Family in Plaids and Spread Collars
My brother and me, fashion-forward Midwestern boys, circa 1980.
So this weird thing happened when I gave that reading the other night. I got choked up. This surprised and embarrassed me – I’d been working on the book for several years and I figured by now that I had enough emotional distance from the material, the distance that making a good book pretty much requires. By getting choked up I felt as though I were letting everyone know that I hadn’t yet achieved that distance. And that the book would be closer to an undigested therapy session than to something like literature.
I guess by most standards I did not have a happy childhood. And the excerpt I read the other night comes from a time of enormous upheaval in the story, just after my parents split up and begin dating people of the same sex, when I was ten and my brother five, about a year after this photo was taken. For several years I’ve steered my way through this book, afraid above all else of falling into self-pity. And I think I steered it too sharply in the other direction, away from the hard feelings.
So with this latest draft I tried to delve a little deeper into each scene, and to just say what was going on in my little head and little heart at the time, and I can already tell it’s a stronger story as a result. Whether I can do so and still keep it from teetering into self-pity, well, time will tell. But those feelings were closer to my surface, I guess, the night of the reading, because of this recent draft. The choked-back tears came early, and I fought them down pretty much the whole time I was reading. At one point I looked up and made eye contact with the Manly Fireplug, but then had to look away. He may look like a tough cookie on the outside, but really he’s a big softie (it’s this combination of bad boy looks and good boy heart that makes me love him), and there’s a scene on a tractor that always makes him cry. The tears in his eyes triggered my own, and I had to look elsewhere the rest of the reading.
Thanks to everyone who showed up, and to those who gave me feedback. It was a good night – it energized me to keep working, and to finally finish (again) this damn thing.
I’m unfortunately familiar with at least one unhappy childhood, since both of my parents were professional thieves and IV drug addicts, and I was emotionally and physically abused and neglected, not only by them, but by all the adults in my extended family until I was 18.
Many of us with unhappy childhoods, especially men, try to shut themselves off completely from the painful past where they were made to feel so powerless and insignificant. I have few memories before I turned 18 and left that abusive environment, but I know what happened to me then influences almost every decision I make every day. It’s a strange feeling to have such a vaguely remembered past that influences your present and your future. I admire your ability to still be in touch, not just with your memories, but with your feelings at that age– that’s a gift.
I think that the more honestly your writing conveys your thoughts and feelings at that age, the more powerful and alive your writing will be, and the more your readers will be able to identify. Besides, it is normal and healthy for children in some situations to feel self-pity, since they do not have the confidence nor ability to cope with the situations in other ways. Especially when they are forced into situations where most adults would have trouble.
“All writing is therapy. To some extent all writers seek their craft to heal a wound in themselves, to make themselves whole.”
- Graham Greene
and
“Better to have a miserable childhood than a miserable adulthood. The first is so much shorter.”
- Bette Midler
June 17th, 2010 at 2:20 pmNot unlike many gay men and women, Just once I wish I could have a childhood memory that didn’t need to be repressed….
Looking forward to reading the published work
June 17th, 2010 at 3:11 pmI like what the husband of Jeannette Walls (who wrote The Glass Castle) told her: Everyone who is interesting has a past.
June 17th, 2010 at 5:54 pmHugs to you, and bravo to you. Can’t wait to read the final product, as I have always loved your writing on this blog and other places. By the way, I vastly prefer the black jockstrap you, over the plaid / spread collar you. I think we all have these funny / scary fashion nightmare photos from the past. I think it was the famous writer Virginia Slims who said, “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”
June 18th, 2010 at 7:32 amGranted, I’ve only ever seen photos of you, AND it’s a strange thing to say since you are, of course, you…but you look like the picture of you. Alot.
June 18th, 2010 at 7:33 amFunny thing about those images staring back at us, that once were us. They are 100% reliable. Mike, you are the best friend you’ve ever had and that best friend has got one hell of a story to tell. I’d drive as far as it took to show up at that book signing. So, those weren’t Sears toughskins were they? You know— the ones with the reinforced knees?
June 18th, 2010 at 9:22 pmWish I could have been there, Mike.
June 19th, 2010 at 11:08 pmi think it’s great when someone has an emotional connection to something else like a story or writing. it’s what makes us human, among other things. wish i could have been there.
June 23rd, 2010 at 11:40 am