Overshare?

So it was Thursday (AGAIN), and therefore writer’s group day. 

Theme for the month:  When I was young…

Shortly after the theme was set, my mother (who I maintain a degree of contact with) made a comment about all the reading she did with us when we were little.

I don’t remember it.  Neither does my sister.

Unremarkable, except that I have very vivid memories of my young life, and they are perfectly carbon dated by the details of the house we moved out of when I was four.  I remember being a baby on my tummy, and being able to see the underside of the couch. That was when the floor was still sea-grass matting, and a long time before my mother went wild with the funky wallpaper and a can of lime green paint. 

I remember the morning of my 2^nd birthday, and my 3rd, and the desolate footage of Cyclone Tracy on our black and white telly on Christmas morning when I was three.  I remember the arrival and mysterious departure of various furred and feathered family members, and a million small details like the cupboard where Dad kept his liquorice, the pattern on the floor in the kitchen, the smell of the flowers along the side of the newly poured concrete driveway.  But I don’t remember her reading to me. 

I remember our books, and I remember sitting by myself trying to read them.  The day I started school, the teacher explained that you sound out the letters and run them together, and I remember my astonishment that it was so easy, and the anger that no one had explained the single crucial detail that meant I could now read.  But I don’t recall any moments of closeness, snuggled up, listening to my mother’s voice.

Interesting disconnect, don’t you think?

So I thought I would explore this more, by letting the books in my life tell a story.  I was interested in the device of writing about one thing (the books) to talk about something else (the real story).  I got to the point where, at age 10, I decided I was a writer.  Short of time, I finished it, gave it a quick edit, printed it off and headed out straightaway for the meeting. 

I prefaced my reading with a request for people to comment on the effectiveness of the device.  I thought I had achieved a fairly dispassionate telling of the details, without straying into the emotive.  I was wrong.

I read aloud ok right up until I got to this:

Then one day she buys me and my sister new zip-up cardigans and packs a pair of jeans that are too small into a Jetset overnight bag, and puts us on a plane.  I’m nine years old and clutching a soft toy dog.

The sobs rose up in me.  Someone offered to read on for me, but in that moment there was nothing more important than speaking the words myself.  I pulled out a tissue, took a deep breath, and continued reading with my voice and face contorted with emotion.  

 Without warning or even shoes, we are going to live at Nanna’s.  Mum doesn’t look sick at the airport, but it must be very bad because she doesn’t ring us or write any letters, except once, when she sends us a bookmark. Mine is a kitten sitting on a stack of books.  It is instantly my most treasured possession. I hold it while I read, and keep it inside its grubby yellow envelope until the edges are so worn they fall apart.  When the colour wears off, I carefully restore its tabby striped tail with coloured pencils.  I read a lot.

So, I guess this counts as a Public Ugly Cry.

Overshare?  Or free therapy?

I have lived with this experience for thirty years now, but never openly grieved it.  I guess it took looking at the stark, unadorned details through the eyes of someone else to realise the depth of the injury to the child who was me.  It’s only one paragraph in a long catalogue of displacement, disregard, and disempowerment.

The group was kind. Afterwards, one person said to me that I should always feel like I can read whatever I want to, and how important a process that was for her.  Another spoke to me of all the 9 year old children she had taught with stories like mine, and how powerful it was for her to hear mine and know something of the ending.  Maybe there are some in the group that resent me serving up another chunk of me-me-me, but there again, this may give them permission to reach a little deeper next time they sit down to write. 

The next meeting will be in a month’s time, and by then we’ll all have moved onto the next thing.