You Know About The Goldfish: A Writing Pep Talk
The fact is I was the oldest grad student in the MFA program I attended. I was older than one of my mentors. And I wasn’t the only parent, but I was one of two mothers.
I’m not proud of this fact. Well, at least I wasn’t proud of it then. I felt pretty ashamed that it took me until I became a mother to admit I wanted to write. I wished I’d been more linear about it: say, high school newspaper and maybe the yearbook, a degree in English, graduate school, a few years to establish a career, and then motherhood. Instead, on the cusp of my oldest daughter beginning kindergarten, I was on an airplane to Santa Fe, New Mexico, completely sure I was doing something wrong but hoping something within me would be righted by doing it anyway.
I knew what I was doing would be difficult. I had no dreams that reading and writing were not going to be seamless now that I was in graduate school. If anything, I had a hunch all this would become more complicated. I think I was somewhat prepared for that. What I wasn’t prepared for was how difficult it would be to fit in. Let’s face it, there’s a bit of humor in a stay-at- home mom in a room with 20 and barely 30 career somethings trying to discuss Gerard Manley Hopkins and Flannery O’Connor.
For the most part, a few people were kind, several minded me, others were aloof. I mostly tried to keep to myself because that’s what I prefer, but the school I went to was small and we were all around each other a lot: in class, at meals, at nightly get togethers. I was disappointed that I was around people who loved language as much as I did, and instead of feeling as though these were my comrades, I felt more like a frat mama.
I think doing something hard illuminates any sensitivities, flaws (real or imagined), and weaknesses we have. I think this is a good thing as it gives us a chance to sharpen, strengthen, and perhaps learn that what we perceive as “bad” is actually something that could be used for good.
I also think that unfortunately, these experiences of blossoming and growth come with pain. During my first residency, and actually each residency I ever attended, I had to sit with the fact that I was in a different stage of life than these other people whom I hoped to call my colleagues. That I had space in my brain for how to potty train and not as much for Annie Dillard’s plight and lessons in Tinker Creek made me feel as though motherhood was too encompassing.
One day during lunch I was sitting with a group of writers who I can only describe as the hippest of the hip. Think Langston Hughes, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Joan Didion. I have no clue what they were talking about–partly because I’ve forgotten, and partly because I asked and was told in a perfect blend of words and facial gestures that I was late to the party. I wouldn’t understand.
And probably they were right, but I stayed anyway. I was hungry, for one thing. I had nowhere else to go, for another. I figured I’d sit quietly, eat, and be on my way.
At one point though, the conversation changed to packing lunches. Much of the table mentioned how nice it was to have these three meals provided with no concern for prep and clean up. I nodded along vigorously.
A few mentioned making bulk meals–salads, oatmeal, soups for the week to save time. “Then just throw in a bag of chips or a granola bar,” someone said.
So they discussed the best flavor, crunch, salt ratio for a chip. Fritos, Lays ripples, and Doritos were all up there, but they had a high calorie intake, they said.
“You know what has a great flavor, salt, and crunch situation,” I began. It’s ridiculous that my voice was shaky, and that my cheeks flushed, but there you have it. Someone laughed through her nose, when I said “situation,” but she grinned, too, and I could tell it wasn’t a courtesy laugh, so I went on.
“Goldfish crackers.”
The table was silent. I don’t think anyone even chewed. “You know, “ I said, “they have that great cheesy–salt combo,” I continued, even making eye contact with a couple of them. “Plus, you can eat a lot of them.”
“GOLDFISH CRACKERS!” one of them said. “I totally forgot about those!”
Suddenly, a flood of memories burst forth from all them: goldfish crackers at the park, in school lunches, in paper Dixie Cups during Sunday School.
“Those ARE good,” someone else said, and I nodded along, satisfied.
I’d said nothing important about literature, or writing. I’d made no witty remark; no glorious observation from the mundane. All I did was attempt to connect using what I knew about life and the world, and who I was at the moment.
And at that moment, I was a mother who was also becoming a writer, and who knew from the little people in her house who devoured them by the fistful, that Goldfish crackers are delicious. I think one of the biggest disservices we can do to ourselves is decide that who we are as mothers has no business in our writing. Use all that you have and all that you are in your writing. We know the weight of a sleepy head on our shoulder, we know how much time–down to the second–Sesame Street buys us. We have been altered and stretched in every possible way for and because of our children. Of course we must write from these experiences. Writing anything else would be a lie. I do not suggest everything you’re writing should only be about motherhood, but never entertain the idea that because you are now a mother, you can’t write. Reframe the statement to this: I am a mother, so now I get to write. Besides, you know all the best snacks.
Exercise: Make a list of the little things you’ve done in the past 24 hours that have to do with motherhood. The smaller the better. Can you write a poem or a scene from this list that shows the strength, creativity, patience, uncertainty, sadness, and all around whirlwind of motherhood?
