Memoir - Blog Posts

ESSAY; adapted from "Hysterical: A Memoirs"

By Elissa Bassist

Light reading.....

memoir. Evert success and failure that happens in your life is going to help you for tomorrow, every mistake will guide you to be better and taking good decisions, but one thing for sure; remember all of those, they will help you to be the person you want to be. memoria. Cada éxito y fracaso que sucede en tu vida te ayudará para mañana, cada error te guiará a ser mejor y tomar buenas decisiones, pero una cosa es segura; recuerda todo esto, te ayudarán a ser la persona que quieres ser. #auraedit #bestvisualz #churchmedia #crtv #creative #christianphotoshop #cinematic #design #designer #enter_imagination #instaquotes #jesus #launchdesigns #milliondollarvisuals #manipulationclan #mediachallenge #photomanipulation #photoshop #photoediting #surrealistart #surreal42 #thecreativers #visualambassadors #visualedits #visualdesign #wisdomteachings #xceptionaledits #memories #memoir (at New York, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CH0jcDmn303/?igshid=eiqddhj3zx45

Home with Alice by S Fallon

Home with Alice by S Fallon

I came across this title when I was shelving books at work – as I was walking by the travel books and having a quick squiz for something to read.  This book is more of a memoir than it is a travel book and that made it interesting for me. Full disclosure – I’ve been a little bit obsessed with Ireland since my first trip there in 2017, around the time of my last book “review”.  A lot of what I’ve…

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Fog-Borne Snapshots

All would be consumed by shadow if not for an unseen, smudged streetlamp blanketing all beneath it in everlasting burgundy mist. In some space-time ripples, it is evergreen. For other eternities, it is cerulean. Despite the variance, universal commonality is found in its blurred glow.

This light delineates all forms, together interlocked in a state of static, monochrome bliss. These relics change, but never while I see them. Those that have graced my apertures in eye and mind include wet playground equipment, monoliths with tops trapped in mist, and abandoned antique cars.

The aura that permeates my body remains the same. It is the tinge of warmth felt within someone’s embrace, somehow gleaned from facing someplace where this had last occurred at least a decade ago. It is a sign of life found in one of countless mounds of dilapidated structures in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It is a spiritual sign of the possibility of solace within the cold, concrete walls of an insane asylum whose inhabitants offer only volatility. It is an infinitesimal, but nonetheless unmoving constant in the midst of chaos, contained and concealed forever from the surrounding universe.

In my disillusion, I believe in the approach of a day when I may graze my fingertips across all of the surfaces. Thought ensnares me while my frozen body maintains a glassy stare as my daydreams and memories, whether fabricated or true, turn to burning rubble where no flame dances. I once again watch the fog-borne snapshots fade to charred blackness behind my eyelids.

https://twwrt.wordpress.com/2023/08/04/fog-borne-snapshots/

Perhaps there are no plagues, only the fickleness of nature. Perhaps there are no consequences, just ugliness. Maybe punishment is something that only comes from people, not from God.

Deborah Feldman, Unorthodox pg.80

The Mouse and the Shoe Box

I am not exactly sure what was done that night was the right thing, but this is what happened. It was during my sophomore year of college back in St. Louis during the spring when I and two of my friends, Mandy and Angela went out for a walk through Washington University’s campus one night.

It sat directly across the street from us with lights and black gates surrounding it like the jewels of an oversized crown. I tended to go along because it was the size of a small city compared to ours and I think I just liked to be part of something bigger than myself. I always felt like that place was consciously trying to swallow up as much space as possible.

I can’t recall what was said in particular during our walk, but something stifled our habitual chatter that was our nightly ritual. This was when we saw the mouse. It mustn’t have been any bigger than a golf ball. Its tail bent at an almost perfect 90 degree angle and uselessly dangled at the broken joint.

Upon noticing our presence, it tried to flee as one would when one finds three giants of unknown species lumbering towards you at night. But without the aid of a working tail for balance, its intended trajectory towards a nearby bush fell apart. It slowly and involuntarily drifted towards its left. Constantly it tried righting itself only to veer off course away from the apparent safety of the shrubbery. It looked to me like a ship trying to dock only to be pushed back out by the tide. The frustration from its little ruddy brown frame was palpable.

My two companions went into a frenzy of compassion for this creature as they stooped closer to examine it. I stayed behind, watching the scene a few steps back. Soon they concocted a plan to save this unfortunate thing.

For we all thought, in its present state, it was easy prey for something bigger and faster than itself. Mandy kept watch over the mouse as Angela ran back to her dorm room to grab an old converse shoe box. I slowly let out a sigh of resignation for the night.

When she returned, the two of them tried coaxing the now equally confused and frightened mouse inside.  As the two finally managed the task by lightly shoving it inside with the shoe box lid, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by the whole thing unfolding before me.

To this day I’m not sure if my embarrassment was for me or the mouse - maybe for the both of us. When we got back to our campus they tried feeding it leaves of lettuce. Hoping that by tomorrow it would be able to fend for itself. Angela volunteered to keep it in her room to supervise their furry refugee.

The mouse was dead by morning. I don’t know exactly when but from what she told me when she went to check on it, it was motionless in one corner of the box, its lettuce untouched in the opposite end.

Even now, I still remember it trying so desperately to get to that bush, and away from us. I wonder what would have happened if we never found it: Would it have really died? Would it have eventually made it to the bush? Would it have mattered either way in the grand scheme of things? I think in the end, I will never know for we intervened or, more aptly, interrupted nature’s course. We know no more than the mouse in that respect.  

Short Fiction- Untitled

In the backyard sat a camper van, spacious enough to fit a family of eight, a trampoline, and a large above-ground pool. Their house was one of those rich, suburban houses, with a white mother and father and their three children- two boys and a girl. Seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, a decked-out kitchen perfect for hosting holidays, and a special living room for hosting Bible Study on Wednesday nights. Toys piled up and the latest video games were always around. It was a house my family dreamed of living in, and we did live in it. Downstairs sat an uninhabited basement, fully finished with a small kitchen and living space, and three of the house’s bedrooms. This was where my family of seven moved. The best part about the house wasn’t the pool and it certainly wasn’t the trampoline; it was that we were not homeless for the five months that family allowed our stay.

The Way Smell Evokes Memory

            On a hot summer afternoon, after a day of playing in the sun but before retiring to play video games, my mother would always shower. She loved spending time with us on those rare free days when all five of her girls were home, and she wasn’t working one of many jobs she held down simultaneously to provide. Our job was to set the living room up, since she didn’t understand and wasn’t willing to learn how to work the equipment. She would emerge in a puff of steam and a waft of perfume. Unwilling to wear shorts outside, those days she was even willing to don a light summer nightdress. We each peeled off at different times in the night, smart enough and independent enough to dictate our own bedtimes. With a yawn, I’d announce my departure. My mother was never short on hugs, pulling me in and holding me, understanding of the importance of that contact. Rich vanilla and rose and a creamy, heavy shea butter: the last things I’d smell for the night.

            When riffling through the cabinet before moving out, I discovered the exact lotion she would use. Her ‘yes’ when I asked to take it was distracted, unaware of the significance. Although, I don’t use it much.

Sticky Buns

            There were several things about mini-me that were embarrassing. First of all, I was held back in kindergarten for being “too small.” My teachers were worried that me, a tiny brown girl with curly hair bigger than her head, would get bullied if I wasn’t the same size as the other kids. I waited the extra year in hopes of catching up, but I got bullied anyways. Secondly, I was a nerd. Not a cute quiet nerd, mind you, but an obnoxious, always-carrying-a-book-and-reading-aloud-to-herself type of nerd. Finally, and probably most insufferably, I was known as the teacher’s pet. If all of that wasn’t enough, I was that kid. I was the kid in school who peed her pants.

            After the first few accidents, Mom found that I was simply unable to ‘hold it’. She chuckled as she wrote the note to my teachers that made it official: I had to go when I said. Because my hand was annoyingly stuck in the air anyways, it made notifying teachers easy. Once I hit middle school, my reputation preceded me. When I wiggled around in my seat like I had ants in my pants, and waved more fervently that normal, the teachers would sigh and point to the door. My wiggly dance down the hall was a sight to see.

Tiny me thought this worked pretty well. I was getting out of class as much as I could want, no questions asked. Since I was a ‘good kid’, I never took this for granted (Of course I did, how could you believe a child?!). Mom and the doctor had other plans for me. Something about getting a diagnosis for what made my bladder weak, but I think the word they were looking for was ‘Loser’. I peed in a cup seven times before starting treatment. Most people never have had to pee in a cup once. I’m jealous.

            Homework was not foreign to me. In fact, homework was my favorite pastime (I told you I was insufferable), until the doctor gave me bladder homework. Did you know you could educate your bladder? After weeks of this at-home ball-squeezing and hip-flexing homework, I went back in for testing. My new routine was: get to the pee doctor’s, drink as much water as I could hold, get the cup from my mom, and send my pee away for Science. That day held other plans, for which my mom promised me McDonald’s. Before I even processed how these new plans would help me exactly, five extremely sticky nodes were attached to my butt.

            If you’re wondering how terrible it is to be hooked up to the Butt-o-Matic, I couldn’t tell you because I promptly zoned out for the rest of the visit. All I knew was that I was being rewarded for this discomfort with salty fries and a thick shake. I pictured bringing my meal in when I was dropped back off at school, flexing on my classmates with the greasy bag. For once, I would lord over my class.

  After a half an hour of doing the exercises with nodes hanging off my butt, I was finished. On my way out, I was offered a Princess Jasmine sticker. Letting my face show my sadness and, blinking at the doctor, I asked if I could also have the Princess Ariel one. The doctor’s face shifted into one of pity. She gave me both stickers.

Mom fulfilled her promise, swinging by the Drive Thru while pulling her Aldi’s employee sweater on. The water I’d had from the water fountain was starting to make its appearance and, since I hadn’t peed in the cup, I had critically miscalculated. As she pulled to the first window to pay, I leapt out of the car, slamming the door shut on my mom’s surprise. I barely made it in time. She was laughing when she swung the car around the front of the building and I came out. “Welcome back, Sticky Buns,” is all she said before driving me the rest of the way to school.

I sauntered into the building with the aromatic McDonald’s bag swinging from my grasp, my tattered Percy Jackson book in the other, and my buns still slightly sticky.

Forever Writing,

quill rose

Mini Review: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Literally one of my FAVORITE books in 2024. This memoir blew my socks off with the level of craft. Highly recommend to read this is you are on the fence about reading memoirs. This is unlike anything I have yet to read in the memoir genre.

I'm scared to form friendships because I know I'm going to give it my all. I'll be loyal every single time. I'll stay up with them until 3AM if they just need to talk. I'll never abandon them. I'll comfort them and give them letters. I'll do everything. But for me? They'll be interested for a little bit. Then they'll drift away and abandon me. They won't care. They won't even think of me. This is why I don't make friendships; because I'll get hurt all over again and I need to protect myself.

- Dreaming of Wolves//Memoir

Image credit: Penguin Random House, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/248239/lab-girl-by-hope-jahren/9781101874936/#

Marita here with a super-long review of a book I’m super passionate about. This book isn’t out until spring, but I am counting the minutes because I am going to tell everyone and their mother to read it.

I like my biology on the cellular level or smaller. I like thinking about viruses and bacteria and antibodies. Plants, geology, and ecology are not my cup of tea at all. I’ll admit that a part of that bias is that the more controlled, rigorous, replicable sciences are seen as more “pure” or “hard.” I’m into molecular biology, and molecular biology believes itself more scientific than botany and ecology. You can’t even do your experiments indoors in a controlled environment! You have to rely largely on unpredictable natural events to supply data! Freakin’ hippies. As such, I was a very skeptical when this botanist’s memoir came to my attention.

Oh boy, was I ever blown away.

Hope Jahren is a rare find. She is a scientist who has managed to write a memoir that is humble and grateful. In my experience, intellectual types tend to backhandedly brag about the burden of being a genius at least a little bit in their memoirs. Our author doesn’t fall into that rut. Oh, she describes in great detail the hours, weeks, and months that get swallowed up by lab work. But not once does she imply that it is her natural brilliance that fuels her--she runs on nothing but curiosity and perseverance. Any success she’s experienced is the result of hard work, not natural talent.

And even better--Jahren is an exquisite writer. She speaks of running the shell of a Hawthorne tree’s seed through a mass spectrometer (normally a very dry, incredibly boring procedure), and her description of the incident brought tears to my eyes. 

This is a mass spec readout. Hope Jahren makes this seem like a thing of transcendent beauty. Image credit: IB Chemistry, http://www.ibchem.com/IB/ibnotes/full/ato_htm/12.1.2.htm

Jahren speaks of science the way I think about it, but have never found the right words for. I look at DNA and I see magic and beauty, but when I try to explain my experience to non-science people, their eyes glaze over. Jahren, on the other hand, speaks of the natural world with affection and wonder and joy. She captures that awe in the face of life’s mysteries. In her hands, science becomes a lens through which we can properly appreciate the glory of existence.

This is a book by a female scientist, so I imagine a lot of people will be expecting lots of commentary on how academia is a sexist boys’ club. Well, there isn’t. She’s been underestimated because of her gender; that’s an unavoidable fact for any woman in STEM fields. What I love about this memoir is that she acknowledges this fact and then moves on with her life. She doesn’t give those chauvinists any more of her attention than they deserve, which is none. She’s not a female scientist, she’s a scientist who happens to be female. She’s there to do a job, and that job is not to be offended. It’s to do science.

She does something special in this book, and I’ll love her forever for it: She gives us a peek behind the curtain. Her subject is the nitty-gritty of the scientific process--the undignified, inglorious, ridiculous mishaps and struggles that will never be published in a neat six-page Nature article. We live in a society where scientists present themselves as infallible and enlightened and progressive. If “science” says something, it takes precedent over any other form of knowledge. Jahren shines a light on just how dogmatic and backwards and resistant to change the world of science can be--a lesson we’d all do well to remember the next time a headline screams “Study Reveals Chocolate Helps Fight Cancer.”

Alternating chapters offer a peek into the inner lives of plants (and they are far more alive than we think). It’s a wonderful examination of these organisms we depend on, but often take for granted. Here’s how much these chapters got under my skin: Recently, while watching the Mythbusters episode where they strip a tree of its branches of its branches to make a catapult, I felt outraged at their mutilation of a living thing for entertainment.

And, of course, it would be unforgivable if I didn’t mention Bill. Oh, Bill. Partner-in-crime, best friend, collaborator, Bill is Jahren’s platonic soul mate. He’s the longtime lab partner that has been carted along with her since grad school, through three separate laboratories. He’s also quite possibly the most fun part of this book--or at least his interactions with Jahren are. What otherwise would have been a gorgeous examination of life in research is infused with humor and adventure and the best kind of weirdness thanks to him.

I love this book. It’s one of those books that feels tailor-made for me. But I want the rest of the world to read it, too. I want them to know the sacrifice and toil that went in to every line of those textbooks they fell asleep reading in high school. I want them to know that science isn’t perfect--it’s a conversation between a scientist and her data, and like all conversations, it can have awkward silences and may go in a direction you’re not comfortable with. I want them to know that life, the biological concept of life, is astounding and intrepid and precious. I want them to know that curiosity is a vital resource that should be cherished and nurtured. And I want them to know that fantastic people like Hope Jahren and Bill exist in the world. 

Image credit: The Science Mom, http://the-science-mom.com/1020/growing-plants-seed-germination/

TL;DR Science! Please, please, please read this book.

I’m reading a book of micro-memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly and it’s a lot of fun so far.