Post #29 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing and Healing – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
The Transformative Power of the Past for Memoir Writers
by Pamela Jane Bell, guest blogger, children’s book author and currently writing her memoir
Diane Keaton in "Radio Days"
“…I recall so many personal experiences from when I grew up and listened to one [radio] show after another…
now it’s all gone, except for the memories.”–Woody Allen, Radio Days
Writing and Healing Memoir Story and Prompt
When I visit schools as a children’s author, I tell the kids about how, back in 1970, the hunter’s cabin I lived in burned to the ground on Thanksgiving day. I was twenty-five at the time and in the process of divorcing my first husband. Just the night before, I had sat curled on the braided rug in front of the glowing woodstove thinking about how, in years to come, I would tell my grandchildren the story of the winter I spent alone in a rustic hunter’s cabin with no running water or electricity. It would be a story of survival, endurance, and triumph.
I was out feeding the horses when the cabin caught fire that Thanksgiving morning. A passing hunter discovered the blaze and called the fire department. It was a good thing I wasn’t home. The fire was so hot that the cabin literally evaporated. The cinderblocks that supported it turned to dust; even the glass melted. While I was thankful to be alive, I was devastated by the loss of all my stories, journals, and poems – dreams turned to dust.
At this point in my school talk, having already illustrated the importance of imagination, I point to my head and say, “There was one thing I didn’t lose in the fire. Can you guess what it was?”
Once, when I asked this question, a little girl waved her hand wildly in the air.
“Your hair?” she said.
Pamela Jane at an author visit
I laughed. “Yes, I still had my hair,” I admitted. “But I also had my imagination – and my memories. With these things, which took up no space in my little Volkswagen, I moved across the country to San Francisco.”
I go on to tell the kids about how hard I worked on my writing after the move. In truth, it took many years to recover from the loss of my writing. For me, the cardboard box full of papers that went up in smoke was a history of who I was and where I had been. Most of all, it was the hope of what I might become.
Twenty-five years after the fire, I was happily married, and once again living in the country and writing. It was 1985, and I was waiting for my first children’s book, Noelle of the Nutcracker, to come out. One October day I walked down our long dirt driveway, past glowing maple trees to the mailbox where I pulled out a large brown envelope from my publisher. Standing there, I ripped it open, my heart pounding. I pulled out my first book – a living, palpable thing I could hold in my hands, the child of so much heartbreak, despair, and love.
Noelle of the Nutcracker Houghton Mifflin illus copyright 1985 by Jan Brett
When Christmastime came, I went into New York and peered into the glittering windows of the bookstores on Fifth Avenue. There was Noelle. I had often dreamed I would have a book of mine prominently displayed in store windows, but never thought it would actually happen.
For many years after the fire, I had a recurring dream. In my dream, the hunter who had discovered the fire went into the burning cabin and was overwhelmed by a feeling that something was asking to be saved. The dream-hunter rescued my childhood china doll, Rosmyrelda. I had her again, whole and unharmed – her smooth milky face, her shiny auburn hair with her china waves, her calico dress and her soft cloth body.
“But didn’t you know that my writing was also asking to be saved?” I said to the hunter in my dream.
Eventually, I came to understand that the doll was my writing; it was my childhood the hunter had saved, and the memory of a beloved doll that would one day inspire my first published book for children.
When I lost my writing that long-ago Thanksgiving, I didn’t realize that the true treasures – my imagination and my memories – were within.
But I have to admit, I’m glad I have my hair, too.
Writing and Healing Prompt for Memoir Writers
Some memories are evocative; we’re drawn to them and sense they contain the possibility for a rich narrative. They almost seem to glow, like the coals in my cabin stove.
Close your eyes and allow an evocative memory or image to come to the surface. Write about this memory for 10-15 minutes. Do you sense a new story emerging, or an old one deepening?
When we transform our memories into stories, we do more than endure our struggles. We triumph over them.
Pamela Jane Bell is the author of twenty-six children’s books, and is currently completing her memoir on how she became a children’s book author.
Her new children’s book Little Goblins Ten (Harper, illustrated by Jane Manning) is a humorous riff on of the classic country rhyme “Over in the Meadow.” Little Goblins Ten was recently reviewed in The New York Times:
“Readers are rewarded with ample humor and wit… there’s a sweetness to the parental-offspring interactions in the playful, alliterative text.”—New York Times Book Review
Pamela Jane’s first book, Noelle of the Nutcracker (Houghton Mifflin, illustrated by Jan Brett) is still in print:
“Jane’s first book magically captures the dreams-can-come-true atmosphere of the holiday season…Jane is a skillful storyteller. A lovely novella any time of the year.”— Publishers Weekly
Pamela Jane Bell always gives us something new to consider and today’s post is no exception. — Little Goblins Ten
Pamela’s other hat, that of a children’s author, gives her a unique perspective. The holidays are coming and we suggest that if you have children or grandchildren you’ll want to check out Pamela’s new lovely, illustrated book that received a starred review by Kirkus and a review by Publishers Weekly that said, “In a gently spooky spin on “Over in the Meadow” that counts up to 10, various ghouls and beasts groan, swoop, and haunt. Jane has fun playing within the nursery rhyme’s parameters…”
