Tag: writing

Blog, Writing

Memory Vs. Facts

Alexandra Alessandri

As one who writes memoir and personal essay, memory is at the front of my creative needs. When I’ve taught the memoir in my composition courses, I tell my students that memoir is true insofar as memory permits. And this is because memory is fragmented. When we remember, we do so it bits and pieces, in starts and stalls. We might not remember the entire scene as a movie developing from start to finish. We remember enough of that scene to piece it together and to know what happened.

I find myself now, marveling at how deceiving memory can be. I’m revising a short story I wrote, hoping to send it out to a few places. It’s the story of a mother who was exiled to the States after witnessing a murder during the drug war days of Medellin and who is now trying to go back and find the kids she left behind.

I thought I had the dates all down. The last time I went to Colombia was in 1992… I think. I was always convinced it was 1992, but now that I’m dissecting dates, I wonder if it was ’91 or ’93. I (think I) was thirteen. Anyway, the last time I went to Colombia I was in Manizales and kissed a boy who had been my pen pal since ’89 when I met him at my aunt’s music school – La Rafael Pombo. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was my first kiss with a boy I liked (my first was on a dare). After that trip, it was no longer safe to go. Family came and visited, but we never went back. I’d hear my father talking about car bombs, about an explosion in Unicentro, about my cousin getting hurt (but thankfully not seriously). In my mind, the worst of the worst with the drug wars happened in the mid-to-late 1990’s.

Now that I’m writing my story, I had these dates preset by my memory. I had to check my facts, though, and would you imagine my surprise when I realized the heydays of the Medellin Cartel were in the late 80’s and Pablo Escobar, that much-hated and much-revered drug lord (depending on whom you asked) was killed in December of 1993? Right around that last time I was in Colombia. Such is memory, I guess.

Now on to changing some specifics in my story to match the facts.

Blog, Writing

What Motherhood Means to Me

Alexandra Alessandri

I became a mother when Hurricane Dean was crossing over Jamaica in 2007. In the midst of reading the last Harry Potter book, my water broke, and when we reached the hospital, my son held on just long enough to be born on a Monday morning.

To describe those moments of first meeting him is next to impossible. Helplessness and awe, exhaustion and exhilaration accompanied those first moments when I saw this little creature, wrinkled, bloody, pink and hairy. I took in his scent, the sound of his whimpers, the feel of his skin, still flaking. There was nothing in this world I wanted to be more than his mom.

There still isn’t.

But motherhood is a different game today. Today, I have choices. Do I breast feed, or bottle feed? Do I use disposable diapers and further the decay of our earth, or use cloth diapers and simply waste water? Do I start solids at four months, like my pediatrician recommends, or at two months like my mother insists? My mother is adamant on imposing her views; after all, she raised me and I turned out just fine, didn’t I?

Motherhood is a tug of power.

When I go to the grocery store or the mall, there are other mothers, their children in strollers, arms, slings. Older children are running, crying, throwing, laughing. If a toddler is having a tantrum, other mothers throw disapproving glares. Other mothers immediately criticize and judge in whispers loud enough for the intended target to overhear. How dare that woman take her month-old-infant out to a public place. Or, I would never think about having my child out without shoes or socks. The comments differ, but the tone remains harsh, critical, unforgiving.

As part of this club, I’m not exempt. Every action I take with my son is analyzed. Whether I have my son sleep in his room or co-sleep with us. Whether I take away the pacifier or the bottle at two-years-old. Whether I let him eat pizza, or chocolate. Whether he watches TV or not. Usually, my mom is at the front of the inquisition, but I hear this from other young moms as well. Every member in this exclusive club believes only she knows best. That there’s only one way of doing things right and every other member is scarring her child for life.

Motherhood is full of judgment.

More personally, though, motherhood means a re-negotiation of personal identity. It means losing myself in a new category of craziness and tearing myself into several women, one for each duty I have to accomplish: as wife, as mother, as daughter, as professional. It’s easy to lose sight of who I am in this constant re-assignment of roles.

But ultimately, I revel in the benefits that come with motherhood. When my son, now almost three, leans over unexpectedly and embraces me, his tiny arms wrapping around my neck and his lips smacking against my cheek. When he stops in the middle of racing his trains and looks up at me, smiling, and says, “Mommy, I love you.” When he asks for “agua, please” and then, without prompting, says, “Thank you, mommy.” When he wakes up in the mornings and runs to our room, the pat, pat, pat of his little feet sounding on the wooden floor.

Motherhood means seeing time rush before my eyes, without stopping or hitting pause. I can’t blink because if I do, I miss another kiss, another I love you.

This is what matters most about motherhood.

7/2010

Blog, Writing

It’s a Writer’s Life for Me

Alexandra Alessandri

In the lull between semesters, as I scurry to get the grades in for one semester and the courses set up for the next, I find myself wanting to wedge between responsibility and whim. After all, what’s paying the bills is my teaching, not my writing.

But in that lull (a word which, really, is ironic as it’s applied to that space in time between semesters that’s neither here nor there), as it often happens when I’m overwhelmed or ecstatic or sorrowful or angry, I am consumed with the need to write. Any emotion that courses through me becomes a flame igniting the desire and need to put into words said emotions – either in the form of characters in a story, a personal essay, a poem, or just some scribbles somewhere.

I’ve often contemplated what a “writer’s life” means. Does it mean, as the romanticized version leads us to believe, that one must sequester oneself from the world, live in misery and abuse, contemplate suicide, and skirt the borders of sanity? Does it mean that a wife and mother with a day job can’t live the writer’s life? Absolutely not! A writer’s life means the dedication and commitment to keep pursuing that passion of words that brings about a flurry of emotions to oneself and one’s readers. It means carving out some time of one’s busy schedule (and we all know our schedules are busy) to read and write and learn. Because a writer’s life is one of constant sacrifice and discovery.

I’m leading a writer’s life by writing every day as much as I can. By giving life to characters and stories, either made up or real, and by discovering and rediscovering who I am in relation to those characters of my past and present. I’m navigating through this uncertain territory of writing and publication, redefining who I am, and learning that there’s more than one way of having a writer’s life. Though some aspects of a writer’s life might be ideal (as in weeks or months of solitude to only write), the ideal is what we make of it. I take the minutes and hours I can get – in between naps, a night’s stay at grandma’s, a day out with daddy, some hours at Starbucks – and make a writer’s life out of it.

Blog, Ramblings, Writing

Lazy Afternoons in the Backyard

Alexandra Alessandri

I’m sitting in my backyard today with my husband and son, amidst a lazy afternoon. The smoke from nearby brushfires is, thankfully, not blowing in our direction, and we can enjoy the sunshine (or in my case, the shade). A small child’s sprinkler – a kaleidoscope of greens, oranges, purples and blues – waves its arms relentlessly, spraying cool water as my son jumps and runs, squealing and giggling. My husband has fired up his grill, and the scent of the turkey burgers cooking reminds me I’m hungry. Our outdoor rock-inspired speakers sound off an eclectic array of tunes: 80’s, Disney, country, and pop/alternative. The simple breeze adds a backdrop to the tunes, a soft whisper. I love lazy afternoons like this; they make me feel content.

They also remind me of my childhood. I lived most of my adventures in the backyard of my Westchester home, la casita de Westchester. Though it was a humble home on the inside, just right for a family of three, its backyard was what dreams were made of – or at least, dreams for a six-year-old or eight-year-old. Or an eleven-year-old.

I can’t say exactly how big the backyard was; such exact measurements escaped my interest as a child. Instead, I was more interested in the ampleness of the grass, where I could try my headstands and cartwheels, falling laughing and laying there, arms stretched out, the soft prick of grass comforting as I stared out into the sky bright with the South Florida sun, imagining castles in the clouds and princesses waiting to be rescued.

Or, I was more interested in the two dips in the ground, one towards the center of the yard, the other towards the left, right outside my bedroom window. They became fortresses, lakes, obstacles. The one on the left became a pet-cemetary for my two parakeets when I was about seven.

Or, I would run with my dog, Lucky, waving an adult-sized full skirt, part of the traditional Colombian costume that my aunt (though which one, I don’t remember now) had brought me. Though I loved that skirt and how it made me feel (like a princess, beautiful and delicate), it was much too large, and it was much more fun to wave it around and watching Lucky snap at it erratically until he finally caught the material in between his teeth. I’d tug and pull and he’d growl, and then I’d turn round and round until Lucky would lift slightly off the ground, teeth still attached to skirt. When we both let go, he’d run to me as I lay on the floor, and I’d laugh while he licked my face.

Or, I would sit on the outside air-conditioner unit after having a fight with my father, my face tear-streaked and my chest heaving. The hum, and Lucky’s wet licks on my hands, would comfort me and there I’d imagine I lived somewhere else where “life wouldn’t be so unfair.”

That backyard was my haven, my domain. I could be anyone or anything.

At one time, my father said he’d build me a small house in the backyard and I could live there. I think I might have imagined that, but I remember the dreaming vividly: a small, wooden “house,” just one room with a cot and a window with flowers. It would be right next to the dip in the center, and I could enter and exit into my backyard as I pleased. I would have the stars at night for company and the next-door-neighbor’s banana tree for food. I really wanted that backyard house, like I wanted the Barbie doll house my father had started building me, but alas, neither became reality. The first was never started; the second, he destroyed half-way in a rage.

But sitting out here, in my own backyard now, watching my son play, I remember those afternoons in that backyard so many years ago. Much has changed since then, but the peace and possibility that arises from a simple backyard – that is still intact.

Blog, Writing

Remembering Papi

Alexandra Alessandri

I’ve been remembering my father quite a bit lately. Not that I had forgotten him and somehow stumbled across his memory. No, it’s more like I now have an inkling of the pain he must have felt, and I get it, or at least, I get some of it.

I still see him, in his later years, sitting at the dinning table in his wheelchair, a small glass of lukewarm water to his right (he sipped water all day), a bottle of tylenol to his left. He was always taking tylenol because of his headaches and my mother was always arguing with him that it was going to fry his liver. Or his kidneys. But he always took those small, white pills, in hopes of relieving a smidgen of the pain he was feeling, or maybe just in hopes of taking the edge off of the pain. His face was leathery, worn, and his eyebrows were more often than not scrunched up; he winced often. I imagine his whole body hurt, with deep aches and a never ending loneliness because of it. I imagine he missed his younger, healthier self. I do know he wished often to be taken in his sleep, so he could suffer no more.

Before the leg amputation that sentenced him to the wheelchair, his walk was slow, steady. He wouldn’t drive; instead, he’d take it to walking from our apartment, eight blocks south to Publix or eight blocks north to Navarro. Those were his daily outings. I remember walking with him, I was in my mid-teens, and trying to have conversations. As judgmental as he could be, my father was a talker and he’d talk to anyone who’d listen to him. At times, on the bench outside of Navarro, my father would sit, and whoever was sitting there would soon find himself/herself in a tete-a-tete about current world affairs or the downward spiral this country was facing.

Immediately following his amputation and after he’d outlived his hospital stay, he was in a recovery home for several weeks. We’d visit him every day, bringing in chicken, rice and beans from the nearby Pollo Tropical. There, we’d find my father rolling around in his wheelchair from room to room, chatting up the little ol’ ladies in the neighboring rooms. In between the groans and cries, you’d hear some laughter.

I do miss him. I see his character in my son, in his stubborn refusal for help or in his angry outbursts because something went wrong. I also see him in my son’s eyes – dark, round and bright with mischief and imagination.

Blog, Writing

I Remember: Middle School (7th Grade)

Alexandra Alessandri

I remember middle school. Seventh grade to be exact. I was in that awkward transition from girl to preteen and trying my hardest to be “cool” – what “cool” meant at that time is a foggy memory, though. I wanted shaved legs (the memory of the previous summer in Colombia and the ambush to see my hairy legs still a vivid hue of humiliation), I wanted make up. I wanted a boyfriend.

Of course, my father wouldn’t hear of it. Me estaba madurando biche, or growing up ahead of my time. Like a fruit, I wasn’t ripe enough, and yet that’s what I wanted to be: ripe. After the short taste of freedom in Colombia, where I spent three months with aunts and uncles, away from my father’s gaze, and after I realized that women, in order to receive men’s attention (or, in my case, for girls to receive boys’ attention), needed smooth legs, painted lips, I sought that in my small, Westchester house. When I pleaded to shave my legs, and my father responded with a short “no,” I proceeded to sneak my mother’s razor into my bathroom and, with lukewarm water and some soap, I shaved my legs. That was my first act of rebellion, and it came with some sharp, stinging cuts. I don’t remember my punishment, but perhaps my mother interceded for me and I was allowed to continue shaving my legs. For me, it was a blessing; I was cursed with pale skin and dark hair, something that didn’t quite cry feminine for me.

When I started middle school, it was the first year that six graders would be moved to middle school, and I was in seventh grade, so I never got to be in the bottom of the hierarchy. Other seventh grade girls were showing their legs, in rolled-up or cuffed shorts, or skirts. They wore their big hair, bangs stiff with hairspray and teasing. And they wore makeup. I wanted to be like them, but when I asked permission for at least a little blush and lipstick, I was told, again, absolutely not. So I snuck it.

I took a small, private bus to school then. Camacho’s Bus Service, with Camacho being our driver. I would sit by the window and, when we were a safe distance away from my house, I would bring out the compact and lipstick. I didn’t choose anything loud. A simple mauve was my favorite shade. When I was on my way home, I’d quickly scrub the makeup off with some wet napkins and my parents never found out.

Blog, Writing

The Need to Write

Alexandra Alessandri

I never feel the need to write more than when I’m stressed, wedged between responsibility and whim, on the edge of my own sanity. The semester begins and so do the stacks of papers to grade, classes to plan, committees to attend (and now, chair). That leaves little time for my own writing. The weekly essays I was getting out have halted, a screeching, smoke-building halt. I just don’t have time.

But I have to make time because that writing is what keeps me sane. It’s that simple.

So I’m stealing a few seconds between papers to come on here and blog. Because I don’t have the time to work on anything longer. Because my trips in quiet solitude (or Starbucks solitude) are too few now to allow me to type out anything longer than a couple paragraphs of meandering thoughts. Because I want to write these stories that are swimming in my mind, reminding me of their existence, but I don’t have the time to get them out. And it’s frustrating. Infuriatingly frustrating.

It’s not all gloom, however. In two weeks, I’ll be attending the Sanibel Island Writer’s Conference. I’m excited because I’ll finally have a few days to write – just write. I’m hoping to attend some workshops on memoir, fiction, and young adult fiction. Maybe poetry, too, if I can fit the schedule. But my main projects now involve memoir/personal essay, fiction and young adult fiction, so that’s where I hope to be. My hubby and son can enjoy the beaches and I’ll enjoy the writing. I’m also excited because I have a manuscript consultation. I prepared and sent out the 10-page scene of my father’s death and look forward to receiving feedback on it. At least I feel as if I’m getting some work done on my memoir.

I’m also waiting to hear back from Creative Nonfiction magazine and Brevity.com. I keep receiving rejections, but they haven’t kept me down. Each rejection I receive puts me that much closer to receiving an acceptance. It also makes me better. I take that rejected piece, review it again, revise further, and resubmit. Sometimes, the piece is finished, for me, so I just resubmit. I wanted to submit a couple more pieces to Narrative Magazine and Glimmer Train (among others), but I haven’t been able to work on those essays. We’ll see if I get to make the deadlines.

But right now, my priority is to keep the words moving, dancing on the screen (or the page). My anxiety/panic attack this week is a confirmation that I need an outlet for my stress, and while others need to exercise, I need to write. Somehow, someway, I need to make that time.

Blog, Ramblings

My Love Affair: Starbucks

Alexandra Alessandri

I admit it, rather candidly at first, my eyes downcast, my cheeks flushed: I have a love affair with Starbucks. Or, rather, with coffee shops with writing-inducing, relaxing atmospheres. There’s just something about walking into a Starbucks (or the like), and inhaling deeply the rich scent of brewing coffee, that sets me right. It’s my happy place. I can get a quick fix and just drop by to get my usual: a tall Caramel Macchiato; or, as I prefer, I can claim a table, bring out my laptop, set up my station, and just lean back and dive into my world, my memories. This is my time.

Not all coffee shops are created equal, not even all Starbucks’s. The ideal ones have a few things in common: friendly baristas, good music that’s not too loud (and I have no specifics for good music; I have an eclectic taste), and a collection of customers that come and go, leaving whispers of their days behind. That, for me, is perfection. Is that such a bad thing? Perhaps for my wallet and my waist line, though I do have my rewards card (so I can indulge in free coffee periodically) and I do limit myself (to one or two treats a day, depending on how hectic the day is).

So there. My confession for today.

Blog, Ramblings, Writing

Lost Treasures

Alexandra Alessandri

Today I relished in a day off from having to drive up to work. No thirty-six-mile commute for me. Instead, after dropping my son off at school, I drove three minutes to the nearest Starbucks, where everyone knows my name (I have the melody from Cheers in my mind…) I parked myself there, with a venti Caramel Macchiato, and proceeded to rewrite the scene of my father’s death. I had decided that would be the scene I wanted to benefit from the manuscript consultation at Sanibel Island Writer’s Conference because it’s been one of the hardest to write. It will more than likely be one of the last chapters in my book, and one that is still raw. It’s been two and a half-years since he died, but I still remember every second of that day (though some parts have begun to fade along the edges and time has warped a little.)

I sat for almost four hours. I had a six-page “draft” I had churned out about a year and a half-ago. But it was all telling. It was a synopsis of what happened, but not real writing. So I put it aside and started fresh from memory, choosing a starting point that wasn’t the beginning, and worked it. I ended with ten pages, the limit I needed for the manuscript consultation. I know I can expand it more, though I don’t know if I need to. We’ll see how the consultation goes. It’s a deeply personal piece, one that I hope can stand on its own (in narrative) and that will be a part of the bigger picture (the book.)

After I finished, I had a quick bite at Subway (the usual – six-inch turkey and provolone cheese with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper – I don’t stray from that either.) Then I  returned a pair of shoes, and sat in my car, not sure where to next. I had at least another hour before I could go pick up my little one, since he was napping at school, and then it hit me: Go to mom’s house. I had to go anyway, because she’d made some Abui yogurt and soup, so it was the perfect excuse to go and esculcarle for the music sheets my dad had written me.

It’s always the same when I go to my mom’s house: I expect to see my dad. Even though a chair now sits at the head of the dining table, which was his place, and since he was in a wheelchair, didn’t need a chair, there was a glass of water on the table and a small prescription drug bottle on that side. My mom’s taken it over, but it reminds me of him.

(Note: I keep saying house, but it’s an apartment. We just always called it la casita when referring to it among ourselves.)

Anyway, my first greeting was a large roach on its back, dying. I sprayed some Raid on it, which caused it to start wiggling, causing me to itch. I despise roaches. I emptied out a small, white trashcan my mom had and placed it over the roach, giving it privacy while it died and giving me comfort that it wouldn’t suddenly spring back to life and chase me. Ha!

I went into my old bedroom, where I last knew the music sheets were, and I started searching. I looked around, moved books and boxes, removed bags, and found nothing. I prayed – Lord, illuminate me, give me an inclination where these things may be – and then I looked up. On the uppermost shelf of the closet where things, only I couldn’t tell exactly what those things were. So I moved a chair, climbed up, and moved some more. Sure enough, all the way to the back and right was a stack of folders and a white box. I got them and saw what I’d been looking for and so much more: awards, certificates, letters, music sheets, pictures, my baby book, school years memories, and old stories and poems I’d written! There was also a folder with information, schedule, etc. of when I played the bells for the superintendent of schools back in 1990 representing Everglades Elementary. Cool!

I came home with my treasure, eager to sift through it. I discovered (and somehow, I’d forgotten) that I wrote short stories when I was in high school, the early years. I remember writing poetry (really cliched, love-struck, rhyming poetry) because poems plagued my journals. But in a notebook, there they were: typed short stories with character development on a side sheet, typed in the first computer I owned: a hand-me-down dot-matrix computer! Insane. They were better than the poems I wrote (though that doesn’t necessarily say much about my writing back then)!

The best part, by far, has been the letters written to my mom and me by my dad, back in early 1990 when he went through a health crisis. He went to Colombia to get better, believing more in the doctors there than those here. These letters now give me a glimpse into his desperation, frustration and, more importantly, love. His love for us. His affection. I don’t remember that, and I wish I did. I wish I remember his telling me he loved me and he was proud of me. I wish I remember that affection. I don’t, but I now have these letters as proof they were real.

What prompted the search, though, and which I found, was the song he wrote for me when I turned nine. He played the piano, and he wanted me to learn. He also wrote music and lyrics, mostly religious ones when he was a priest. (I have recently found his collection of sheet music with church songs.) Well, he wrote two songs for me, that I remember: when I turned nine and when I went to Colombia by myself (I was also nine, almost ten.)

Here are the words to my daddy’s song (in Spanish, of course):

Mujercita eres ya
nueve son tus añitos. (Repeat)
El señor, que es tu Padre,
no te fallará jamás.
Siempre fiel a su amor.
Conducir te sabrá
por senderos oscuros
y llevarte a la gloria
de la ciencia y la virtud.

So yep, that was it. Short, but sweet and spiritual.

Blog, Writing

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Alexandra Alessandri
This is going to be on the short side, and while I should be going straight to sleep, I have to make this transition from end of book to the mundane (have I mentioned I like that word?).

I just finished The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and I had to take a deep breath. This was a toughie for me. I spent the good first half of the memoir shaking my head and wondering whether I really wanted to keep reading through this dysfunctional family. I kept wanting the Department of Children and Families to go in and swoop the four kids away from those reckless parents. But then again, it wouldn’t have left as much of an imprint, I think. By the end of the memoir, I want to know what happens and I’m rooting for Jeannette and her siblings to get out of that oppressive hole.

The Glass Castle is certainly a memoir about acceptance. Where Eat, Pray, Love contained a self-conscious, woe-is-me tone, Walls writes without blame. She is matter-of-fact, here is what happened, and she doesn’t succumb to lamenting her childhood. It proves how strong she really is.
It’s also a memoir about love, in a dysfunctional, different kind of way. It astounds me that two brilliant people like her parents could be so irresponsible. I have an almost-three-year-old son and I could never imagine doing the things Walls’s mom did. I shook my head many times during this past week, while I read her memoir. I shook my head in incredulity.
I brought out my imaginary pom-poms, though, when she finally had enough and told her mom and dad off, and when she and her sisters and brother broke free. The parents became the children and the children the parents. Sometimes it’s more obvious than others, and in The Glass Castle it certainly was obvious.
But the end. Oh the end. The part when her dad asks to speak to her and, in the same call, asks for a bottle of Vodka – that part reminded me of my dad. Not because of the alcohol, because my dad didn’t drink, but because my dad’s addiction to smoking was just as bad as her dad’s with alcohol. In the end, I gave up fighting his smoking habits and indulged him. It killed him indirectly, in the end, but I still indulged him.
So I definitely recommend this memoir, but it’s not for the faint of mind. Those with children, beware, because it has you clutching on to your own kids more dearly. I’m still amazed that after going through such a childhood, Jeannette Walls came out brilliant and overcame the set backs in which she was born.