On my walk this morning I was thinking of a family story that I want to explore further and document, and I was feeling afraid of causing pain by asking the person who knows most to tell me about it. I can’t say your essay has resolved that dilemma or made it less relevant but it has reminded me of why the risk may be worth it—otherwise there’s nothing to lose.
It's a complicated one, isn't it? I wonder if it might make sense, in that case, to distinguish between a story that one wants to explore and document for one's own interest, and a story that one thinks ought to be given independent existence out in the world? Which one it is might help to clarify why you'd be asking, and what the benefit/costs might be… I've noticed too that Lily Dunn here on Substack has been writing on similar issues (if not precisely this one of asking questions) in the context of teaching the writing of memoir. Wish my piece could have helped more, and thanks so much for restacking it!
Hey, just briefly…I want to reply properly to your post, just need some time (!)…I too read, and was very interested in, this post by What To Read If. So, reading yours today, really carried resonances from it.
It is sometimes the way that we keep coming upon different writings, or works, or people who in some way continue a train of thinking.
I'm glad! Often want to share links to someone's essay in the comments of someone else's, when I see what feels like a nice overlap, but usually hold off in case it puts either writer in an awkward position. So it was nice when it happened to be my own comments for once. Glad you enjoyed WTRI's and also saw a kind of link to this one.
I remember talking to a friend one evening about our paternal grandfathers - neither of whom we had ever met, because they killed themselves before either of us were born. I realised then what a long, long shadow the past casts on us.
My god. Yes — after the book was done, someone pointed out that projects like these can dissipate shadows that are felt, but not necessarily seen or understood, by successive generations. I hadn't had that thought in mind at all — most of the stories are just stories — but it rang true.
There is much in this beautifully written post, and indeed in some of the comments, that touch me, that resonate.
I was very struck by the almost celebratory choice of the word ‘glorious’ in your thinking about the externalisation of the self in the making of art, and the sharing of the specific and the personal. I think your thoughts here might be more about the work of others before us, the memories and stories of our grandparents and parents…Homer…, than about our own. But, I think it applies to both: the self and the work of those who touch us. I have been thinking about it very much recently and, somehow, about the what and the how of doing that in my own work on Substack both in the story I write and on Notes meaningfully as an artistic and a personal.
Your point about the understanding of the self, and the mind, mattering seems to me to be about the truth mattering, and the showing and telling of that truth being part of the artistic, creative process. When I started my Stack here, I don’t think I foresaw quite the tip over into that I would take. So, your piece has been something of an inspiration to me, a kind of confirmation of - to use your words - the necessity and value in sharing what is specific and personal, and the value to oneself, and hopefully to others, in allowing it to continue actually beyond oneself.
Thanks so much! I'm so glad to read this, and am indeed thinking of one's own work as well as the work of others.
I might add — and this is related to the discussion with Abra below as well — that for myself, I don't consider the kind of writing I do in notebooks to be ”permanent” in the sense that it has here. That's because that writing is free-form, written with only myself in mind; it's not shaped or crafted to carry meaning for anyone else.
That makes it not quite an externalization, which in this is art or story that is aware of and deliberately shaped to work for other people. The other people might be only a handful, of course! Maybe even only one person, as in a letter! But the deliberately communicative aspect is there I think, and seemed worth bringing into the conversation.
Beautiful, revelatory meander from Alfred Lord to Larkin to Mary Had a Little Lamb (have I reversed Mary and Larkin?). The more specific the memory conjured and shared by the artist, the more universal it will be. Specific detail encourages the reader to recall their own specifics.
I was talking to a friend last week about the family stories that go back the furthest. In his case he had heard a story passed down for about 200 years about the circumstances of his family leaving a particular place, and recently he had uncovered documentary evidence that backed it up. I have one that’s been passed down for 150 years or more, and lots that are at least 100 years old. It creates a feeling of connection, and of being part of a chain of story - though that only works if I pass them on in turn, so thank you for the reminder.
Oh my heavens — that's extraordinary. And wonderful. Have yours been oral tradition all the way through, or have they been written down from time to time? Are you the only person who holds them in your generation? Yes, such a powerful thing, the passing on of stories. It really hit me this year, in a way it hadn't before.
I don’t think they’ve been written down, and I may well be the only one in my generation who knows. The 150 years must be at least 170 actually because it’s a tale from when the family was in Ireland that I heard from my mum who heard it from her uncle who heard it from his grandmother who left Ireland in the 1850s.
Without knowing the content of the story, so just based on this alone, I'm picturing being in the audience at the kind of lovely spoken word/live music event that you shared a recording of (still haven't listened to the second one, so this was the radio version that you posted), and imagining an intro like this to one of the pieces. I would be completely enthralled.
Thank you! This is so perfectly expressed, that wonderful moment when you had that thought, and the flatness when no one reacted. It makes me think of Robyn Davidson's recent memoir which I loved (& wrote about for the TLS) the moment when, as a very young child, she realized she had composed music in her head, but when she went inside to hum it to her mother, it was lost.
Thank you for picking up on that! I wanted that moment to be at the core of the essay. Am so glad that it resonated. Robyn Davidson sounds fascinating, and what a story. A little similarly, Georgia O'Keeffe wrote somewhere — I can't remember where; maybe in the preface to a collection of her paintings? — a fairly detailed account of remembering noticing a specific color from her crib when she was a year or so old, before she could speak. I wish I could remember it better — it was really interesting,
I will look out for O'Keeffe's writing. It's a lovely description of yours - central to your essay as you say -and brings back the intensity of noticing in early childhood, and perhaps the awareness that others experienced the world differently than you (the boys with their Hot Wheels is a lovely touch!).
I love this! What a perfect essay for me to read today - for me to have *time* to read. The memory of you as a young child realizing you could talk to yourself in your mind — the birth of your interiority — is just wonderful. I also like the way you push against Larkin's poem.
On my walk this morning I was thinking of a family story that I want to explore further and document, and I was feeling afraid of causing pain by asking the person who knows most to tell me about it. I can’t say your essay has resolved that dilemma or made it less relevant but it has reminded me of why the risk may be worth it—otherwise there’s nothing to lose.
It's a complicated one, isn't it? I wonder if it might make sense, in that case, to distinguish between a story that one wants to explore and document for one's own interest, and a story that one thinks ought to be given independent existence out in the world? Which one it is might help to clarify why you'd be asking, and what the benefit/costs might be… I've noticed too that Lily Dunn here on Substack has been writing on similar issues (if not precisely this one of asking questions) in the context of teaching the writing of memoir. Wish my piece could have helped more, and thanks so much for restacking it!
I will think on that.
The further duscussion below in the comments too might be of interest? It's an added element I hadn't thought of when I replied to your note…
After I wrote this I came across a reference to a piece of criticism by T.S. Eliot in a recent Substack essay by What To read If. The line seems somehow relevant here, so I thought I'd share it: 'the artist “out of his own personality, build[ing] a world of art,” as Eliot describes it.’ The essay is here: https://open.substack.com/pub/whatoreadif/p/what-to-read-if-youre-roaming-the?r=2u2cxe&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Hey, just briefly…I want to reply properly to your post, just need some time (!)…I too read, and was very interested in, this post by What To Read If. So, reading yours today, really carried resonances from it.
It is sometimes the way that we keep coming upon different writings, or works, or people who in some way continue a train of thinking.
I'm glad! Often want to share links to someone's essay in the comments of someone else's, when I see what feels like a nice overlap, but usually hold off in case it puts either writer in an awkward position. So it was nice when it happened to be my own comments for once. Glad you enjoyed WTRI's and also saw a kind of link to this one.
I remember talking to a friend one evening about our paternal grandfathers - neither of whom we had ever met, because they killed themselves before either of us were born. I realised then what a long, long shadow the past casts on us.
This piece is beautiful, by the way.
Thank you so much — that means a lot!
My god. Yes — after the book was done, someone pointed out that projects like these can dissipate shadows that are felt, but not necessarily seen or understood, by successive generations. I hadn't had that thought in mind at all — most of the stories are just stories — but it rang true.
There is much in this beautifully written post, and indeed in some of the comments, that touch me, that resonate.
I was very struck by the almost celebratory choice of the word ‘glorious’ in your thinking about the externalisation of the self in the making of art, and the sharing of the specific and the personal. I think your thoughts here might be more about the work of others before us, the memories and stories of our grandparents and parents…Homer…, than about our own. But, I think it applies to both: the self and the work of those who touch us. I have been thinking about it very much recently and, somehow, about the what and the how of doing that in my own work on Substack both in the story I write and on Notes meaningfully as an artistic and a personal.
Your point about the understanding of the self, and the mind, mattering seems to me to be about the truth mattering, and the showing and telling of that truth being part of the artistic, creative process. When I started my Stack here, I don’t think I foresaw quite the tip over into that I would take. So, your piece has been something of an inspiration to me, a kind of confirmation of - to use your words - the necessity and value in sharing what is specific and personal, and the value to oneself, and hopefully to others, in allowing it to continue actually beyond oneself.
Thanks so much! I'm so glad to read this, and am indeed thinking of one's own work as well as the work of others.
I might add — and this is related to the discussion with Abra below as well — that for myself, I don't consider the kind of writing I do in notebooks to be ”permanent” in the sense that it has here. That's because that writing is free-form, written with only myself in mind; it's not shaped or crafted to carry meaning for anyone else.
That makes it not quite an externalization, which in this is art or story that is aware of and deliberately shaped to work for other people. The other people might be only a handful, of course! Maybe even only one person, as in a letter! But the deliberately communicative aspect is there I think, and seemed worth bringing into the conversation.
And now another new Substack piece with a line that speaks so much to the topic of this essay that I wanted to share it with readers here:
‘“Every death is like the burning of a library,” said Alex Haley, adapting an African proverb.’
From Rona Maynard's deeply moving essay at https://open.substack.com/pub/ronamaynard/p/what-i-wish-i-could-tell-my-gay-boyfriend?r=2u2cxe&utm_medium=ios
Beautiful, revelatory meander from Alfred Lord to Larkin to Mary Had a Little Lamb (have I reversed Mary and Larkin?). The more specific the memory conjured and shared by the artist, the more universal it will be. Specific detail encourages the reader to recall their own specifics.
Thank you so much. I think that you must have been writing this just as I quoted one of your pieces in the comment above!
I was talking to a friend last week about the family stories that go back the furthest. In his case he had heard a story passed down for about 200 years about the circumstances of his family leaving a particular place, and recently he had uncovered documentary evidence that backed it up. I have one that’s been passed down for 150 years or more, and lots that are at least 100 years old. It creates a feeling of connection, and of being part of a chain of story - though that only works if I pass them on in turn, so thank you for the reminder.
Oh my heavens — that's extraordinary. And wonderful. Have yours been oral tradition all the way through, or have they been written down from time to time? Are you the only person who holds them in your generation? Yes, such a powerful thing, the passing on of stories. It really hit me this year, in a way it hadn't before.
I don’t think they’ve been written down, and I may well be the only one in my generation who knows. The 150 years must be at least 170 actually because it’s a tale from when the family was in Ireland that I heard from my mum who heard it from her uncle who heard it from his grandmother who left Ireland in the 1850s.
Without knowing the content of the story, so just based on this alone, I'm picturing being in the audience at the kind of lovely spoken word/live music event that you shared a recording of (still haven't listened to the second one, so this was the radio version that you posted), and imagining an intro like this to one of the pieces. I would be completely enthralled.
Thank you! This is so perfectly expressed, that wonderful moment when you had that thought, and the flatness when no one reacted. It makes me think of Robyn Davidson's recent memoir which I loved (& wrote about for the TLS) the moment when, as a very young child, she realized she had composed music in her head, but when she went inside to hum it to her mother, it was lost.
Thank you for picking up on that! I wanted that moment to be at the core of the essay. Am so glad that it resonated. Robyn Davidson sounds fascinating, and what a story. A little similarly, Georgia O'Keeffe wrote somewhere — I can't remember where; maybe in the preface to a collection of her paintings? — a fairly detailed account of remembering noticing a specific color from her crib when she was a year or so old, before she could speak. I wish I could remember it better — it was really interesting,
I will look out for O'Keeffe's writing. It's a lovely description of yours - central to your essay as you say -and brings back the intensity of noticing in early childhood, and perhaps the awareness that others experienced the world differently than you (the boys with their Hot Wheels is a lovely touch!).
I have to say that the boys were incredibly cool, doing circles to see just what the limits of their machines were!
I love this! What a perfect essay for me to read today - for me to have *time* to read. The memory of you as a young child realizing you could talk to yourself in your mind — the birth of your interiority — is just wonderful. I also like the way you push against Larkin's poem.
I'm so glad!