Flowers for My Family

I was a teenager when my grandmother passed away, I think about thirteen years old or so, but she has always been one of the greatest influences on my life. Particularly after I took on the idea that my thesis would be centered on her. My favorite impression or idea of her was that, when I knew her, she was a devout Catholic, straight-laced, mostly no-nonsense but still with a sense of humor, and she loved her kids and grandkids and cooking--baking cakes--just being your favorite idea of what a grandma should be. Then, as I started digging in to the past and my roots, a whole other woman came out: a young woman, a mysterious, flirtatious seeker of a love that always seemed to be a step ahead of her. Somewhere along the way, it became a "she's me, and I'm her, and this is my quest for an identity too" kind of trip.

As a writer, you have to submerge yourself into the lives of the people you're writing about. It's a really emotional, sometimes depressing, job, because you have to feel what you believe that they were feeling. You have to conjure up all of your similar experiences, thrust them into your work, and just, more or less, become two different people at once. It also makes you stop to take a good look at your own life, which is terrifying. Especially when you start comparing your lives, developing expectations, etc.

I was really sad to leave Murray this time, because it's an environment where I feel most like myself. Whatever I have to say, I can say it. Most of the time, someone there is going to know exactly how I feel, and we can talk about it. We can talk about writing, we can talk about things that don't matter, and then when we are done talking, we know when it's time to cut off, go back to our rooms, and write. And everyone is always supportive, even when your stuff comes out as complete crap. And at night, you don't have to do anything but sprawl out across your bed, look up at the ceiling, and think. Think about anything, about life, poetry, whatever. You can listen to music, talk to yourself, jot down notes in a notebook. The whole point of the residency is to embrace the side of you that's a writer and generate work. I came back home this time and submitted work to five places, because I know, I just know, that this is it. This is what makes me most happy. Even if no one ever likes what I write. And, believe me, I've agonized over it. Before I got into grad school: what am I going to do with my life? That sort of deal.

But this is it. I feel like I'm slowly starting to discover who I am, and who I want to be, and what I want to do with my life. It's difficult and scary, but I've got to stop being afraid of taking the chances that would be most painful to fail at, because, as I am reminded constantly whenever I write about my family, we only get one life, one chance to screw up big on the hopes of getting what we want.

When my grandma passed away, she wasn't married--she never found her one big love that stuck around--but she had more people in her life that loved her than most of us can be lucky enough to have. She was happy, I think, and blessed. She was a lot of what I want to be: kind, generous, but always with that certain air of reserve and mystery. I want to do her, and every member of my family that shows up in my poetry, justice, and I want to her to be proud of whoever it is that I'm going to become.

But I also want to be proud of who I am. I have a lot of ideas for change this year, but we'll see how it goes.