Submissions

I recently submitted some poems to a fancy magazine with a glossy cover. The photos are artsy and writers deftly place their adjectives in exactly the right places and I admire that. I also emailed two short snapshot pieces about my relationship with my sister and mother to a writers’ group.
I wrote these vignettes while they were both alive, so it’s strange to revisit the two most important female relatives in my life only on paper and in dreams. Editing scenes between us now gives me a sense of wanting to grasp each detail and hold it until I re-remember what each woman said and did. As I read about the dead, my mind polishes fragments of memory, so I can take a closer look and see the white hair framing my mother’s face and my sister laughing as her fat cheeks turned red.
The three of us had an interesting synergy: my mother was often exasperated about something, my sister was always mischievous and I attempted to be a mediator, even though no one asked. Reading through pages I hadn’t seen for a while helped me be slightly more objective and I was in awe to see myself left to tell their stories. In writing nonfiction, I make an effort to be understanding and compassionate in order to have a balanced view of people — writing with compassion is much more challenging than a flat dismissal of people and the hard work that may have been their lives. I’ve often heard writers speak about how writing about the dead proffered a sense of liberation because they could ‘write things as they really were,’but I feel a deeper sense of responsibility to tell stories about the dead. As I write about complex and painful experiences with certain people now deceased, I also have a desire to show each person from as many angles as possible; in their lifetime, a multitude of perspectives told their stories.
In telling of the flawed and wholly human time a person spends on this earth, forgiveness, compassion and understanding allow for a more compelling portrait.