The power of personal story

I’m working with my friend Pat LaPointe to develop a workshop curriculum for women writers, tentatively titled Life in Transition. The project has caused me to reflect on the power of words, especially the power of personal story.

Christina Baldwin, author, journal keeper, and teacher, states in her book Storycatcher: “Writing organizes the mind and the actions that lead from the mind. Over time, the decisions and choices we make in the rush of the moment are informed by the self-knowledge our story gives us. We learn that if we practiced articulating our story, if we have honored the path to this moment of writing it down, the choices we make are congruent with who we are. That is one of the primary promises of story—we live it twice: once in the experience, and again in the recording and reflecting upon our experience.”

Think about your family: who was the brightest, who was the troublemaker, the quiet one, the stubborn one, the peacemaker, the artist, the nurturer, the lost one? As children, we’re under the dominion of adults who begin to shape us by telling us we have our grandmother’s eyes, our dad’s curly hair, our uncle’s temperament… the list goes on. But as we grow into adolescence, we begin to differentiate ourselves from our family’s view of us. We try on various personas out of curiosity to see if there’s a better fit. 

I have a friend who was painfully shy as a girl, but when she got to high school, she decided she was going to shed that role and abandon her shell. She joined every school club she could fit into her schedule, and from a secure cocoon, she emerged a social butterfly. How cool is that? The point is, our fates are not necessarily determined by the dictates of our familly.  

It is written that God gives us free will, so we are (at least) co-creators of our life’s plotline. We have choices regarding the outcome of the twists and turns of our lives. Paying attention to the choices we have in life gives us the ability to be intentional and to live out loud.

A woman’s life has four distinct transitional points: girlhood, adolescence, womanhood, and elderhood. Menses heralds adolescence, and menopause announces elderhood. Each stage impacts our story, for our roles change as we leave one stage and enter another. Do we have any say in how our story develops? Of course we do. Each of us is the author of her life story. 

Pat and I are developing a program that gives you an outline of what your personal story may look like—but while our journeys may be similar, the details are unique to each of us, and it’s in the details that a story’s richness is found. In a journal, it is raw and unleashed and instructive. When it is shared, it is powerful, both for the writer and the reader/listener.

Share your story

America is known for its excess, and no other time is it more obvious than during the holidays. We're slammed with ads for Star Wars toys, Chi pets, dozens of style choices in boots, sweaters, jewelry, and cars, domestic and foreign.

Sit down and make a list of the gifts you received and gave to your beloved over the last 5 years. Some may be able to remember what you got and gave last year, but I bet you'll not remember much more than a year or two back. Never mind that the gifts probably cost a great deal of time and money.

I have a better idea this year. Consider giving your family/friends the gift of story... specifically the story of a Christmas past filled with memories you made with your beloved(s). My OWL (Older Women's Legacy) writers did that this year and shared them with each other at our annual holiday luncheon at Beverly Barissi's home before mailing them. The stories were printed on holiday-themed paper that you can get at a stationery store or online.

The stories were simple and heart-warming. Stories about sleighing downhill on snow-packed hills back East, about Grandmother's gingerbread cookies, about baby Jesus and Midnight Mass, about Christmas tamales, about heirloom and homemade decorations, about military brothers and sister coming home for the holidays, about the love and fellowship.

Sit quietly and let your mind wander to the holidays of your youth and the traditions you embraced. What sounds, sights, and aromas do you recall? What did the Christmas of past  feel like? what did it taste like? As these memories drift through your mind, let one experience grow in focus. Concentrate on the details, the joy, and let your senses flood through your pen or computer keyboard.

When you are finished, print your story on holiday paper... and share so others may re-live the memory as well. Merry, merry memories to all my friends and family!

Holiday Cooking

‘Tis the season for holiday celebrations, family traditions and making memories.

One of the most sacred customs is home cooking. Turkeys are the focal point for many family tables, but how the turkey is prepared depends on regional traditions—from deep fried turkeys with cornbread dressing to roasted turkey with oyster stuffing and every variation imaginable. The side dishes vary a bit also, but traditional recipes and menu selections run as deeply as family roots. 

Some of my favorite family stories come from my younger brother’s adherence to our mother’s choice of meal preparation. When Mark married Michelle, an ardent healthy eating homemaker, he introduced Michelle’s young son to at least two menu items he’d never experienced: white bread and beef. As Mark remembers, Kolby loved the purity of the white bread over wheat, and when the youngster tasted beef for the first time, he opined: “This is the best chicken I’ve ever eaten!”

In contrast, Mark is not as adventurous in his eating habits and resists changes to his diet. As I indicated before, he is faithful to the food he grew up with. Take, for instance, the first time Michelle cooked for Thanksgiving. She bought a free-range turkey, organic cranberries, and fresh green beans from the Farmer’s Market, among other things. Mark was mortified. “Where’d you get this stuff? Our turkey needs to be a Butterball! And this cranberry relish is all wrong. We have to have Ocean Spray cranberry sauce. And Del Monte canned beans, honey, you should have gotten Del Monte—and the string beans, not the fancy French cut.” (Oh the trials and errors we go through as newly married.)

I cooked for Thanksgiving this year. Yes, I cooked a Butterball turkey, made green bean casserole (made with Del Monte green beans, Campbell’s, cream of mushroom soup and French’s fried onion rings), along with Mother’s recipe for cornbread stuffing, Del Monte canned corn, fruit salad, and dinner rolls (with real butter not margarine). The pumpkin and pecan pies were “homemade” from HEB, but tasted as well or better than I could have done. I cooked for my man, my son and a neighbor. Afterwards Ronnie asked: “How did you know how to cook all this?” Why, from my momma, of course.

Since then I have asked my colleagues at work how they made their family holiday meal and I was so surprised to hear the younger ones (ages 30s and 40s) don’t have recipes. If they don’t go to their mother’s house, they buy the cooked turkeys and all the trimmings from grocery stores—or they take the family out to a restaurant or hotel. Okay, I Admit, I’ve done the same, but I do know how to do it myself and these friends are saying they do not.

I’m saddened. The holidays are times for family gatherings, and mealtime is the best part of it because everyone is at the same table and talking with each other… assuming the TV trays in front of the big screen and the smart phones are banned. I feel the tradition may be endangered, and that is not a good thing for us as a people.

I believe the importance of Thanksgiving and Christmas and other December family celebrations ought to be embraced and cherished. It is a time for us to reacquaint ourselves with one another in our immediate family and/or our family of choice, along with our extended family. We do this best over a beautiful meal prepared by loving hands.

I will yield to the idea that the holiday menu does not necessarily have to be rigidly followed, from mother to daughter ad infinitum, and that even favorite sons should be more open to the gifts of their wives. Michelle eased Mark away from his questionable tastes by replacing the traditional dinner of his childhood with a delicious one fit for his manly tastes, and now a tradition in their home. Among other things, it includes a prime rib roast instead of a Butterball turkey.

As for my family here in Navasota, my guys will joyfully eat anything I prepare, but I know their favorites so I think, for Christmas, I’ll prepare the first thing I ever learned to cook as a young girl in Texas: chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and cream gravy. Oh, and canned green beans and corn… you know which brand.

HAPPY HOLIDAY COOKING, Y’ALL.

Passing on the family history

Jean Murray Parker is 86 years old and very frail. Barbara Jean and I have been talking about making a visit to Norman, OK, where she lives. Aunt Jean is guardian to us both, serving that role since our Catholic baptisms, and she is the oldest living relative in our family.

I've often told people that we all have a story to tell. My aunt is the keeper of the Murray story, the story of growing up third generation Irish Catholic with an alcoholic father. She also is keeper of the early stories of her siblings--my dad and Barbara Jean's mom. Those stories are sketchy because Daddy and Aunt Kay were 13 and 10 years older than Aunt Jean. But they are long gone and any hope we have of getting any facts to go with the mythical tales our parents told us rest with Aunt Jean. So we plan to fly to Oklahoma as soon as the college breaks for the holidays. We'd drive, but the roads north of Dallas are icy and better weather is not in the forecast. With ISIS on a killing rampage in Paris, Yemen, Tunisia and Turkey and threats they will bring the bombings across the Atlantic, we know flying is risky, but we remember the terrorist who bombed Oklahoma was an American.

I'm a great believer in recollecting and recording one's life experiences, challenges, triumphs, and yes, even--and maybe especially--family secrets, so the generations to come will have access to their family history. I often give workshop participants a quick quiz, which includes questions like these:

1. What was life like when your grandparents grew up?
2. Where did they go to school? What were their interests?
3. What was their hometown like? Their home?
4. How did your grandparents meet? What was their courtship like? Their wedding?
5. What were their biggest challenges as parents?
6. What job(s) did they have?
7. Did they struggle or thrive during economic hard times?
8. What were the  traditions of the family?
9. What was the hardest lesson(s) they learned?
10. What were their values?

Can you answer these questions about your grandparents? Can your grandchildren answer these questions about you? It's only been recently--with the popularity of FaceBook and other social media--that people have begun to track their happy moments and sad times. Going public, however, isn't necessary. There's a reason we all know what TMI stands for. Having said that, I believe your family should know about the lives and lessons of their relatives. Family history provides a moral compass for descendants.

Mosquito Control

My cousin Barbara Jean is visiting us this week, and we’ve entertained each other with tales of growing up in the late 1950s. It is amazing to me that children of this era share similar stories even though they lived miles and miles from each other.

Sitting on the porch and drinking coffee this morning, Ronnie told us about the trucks that drove up and down the alleys in Pampa, TX, spraying chemicals to rid the night of biting mosquitos.  They called the drivers “smoke men” and chased after them, inhaling the sweet aroma of DDT. Since DDT has no odor, the scent must have been added by the city’s public works department—or maybe from the manufacturers—so people could be assured the pesticide was saturating the air.

Barbara Jean and I responded with our own stories of the numerous times my family visited hers in Baytown, TX. Our parents, enjoying their cocktail hour, frequently sent us children outside to play in the dusk. More times than not, that meant chasing the mosquito killing trucks that drove around the neighborhood. Summer after summer, we probably inhaled enough DDT to grow an extra set of ears.

Breathing DDT particles in the air, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, affects the nervous system.  The government agency says the pesticide was used on insects that carried malaria, so Americans had a choice: Would folks rather be eaten alive by mosquitos that might be carrying deadly diseases or douse themselves with harmful repellents full of potentially dangerous chemicals? In the 1950s manufacturers convinced the public to choose the latter.  Given the choice, the danger of malaria trumped any concerns about neurological problems.

Times have changed. Today, DDT is banned in the U.S. and has been since 1972.

The replacements for DDT, however, are not free of side effects. Products with high concentrates of DEET can cause rashes, disorientation, and seizures. Picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus are two other repellents that have come to stores in the last decade. Experts say these repellents make good alternatives to DEET. They also have side effects, but they are less serious… temporary irritation of the skin, eyes, and/or lungs. (I guess temporary is the descriptor that makes them less serious.)

The fact is, three-fourths of the American public, according to Consumer Reports, are more concerned about West Nile and other deadly diseases carried by those pesky flying insects that populate warmer climates than any side effects the pesticides have. As the old saying goes, “Better living through chemistry.”

But is it the right call? I don’t know.

I can only tell you this, decades later, neither Barbara Jean, Ronnie, nor I have any more visible ears than the original two God gave us. As for the mosquitoes that are swarming around us in the late afternoons, they are keeping their distance. Our nervous systems? That’s a different story.

Sisterhood Retreat

I'm getting my groove on.

In another week I will be host the Sisterhood Retreat for a group of Lone Star College female students. A group of them came last year and we had such a delightful time that my colleague Cassandra Boyd and I decided to make it an annual event. I affectionately call my small town Nava-slow-da, and it is, which makes it a perfect place for students to get away from the frantic scrabble of college-work-family and slow their pace for reflection and renewal.

I’m welcoming these female students into my 1875 Victorian home, which sits on a corner in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Navasota. I’m creating a space where they can search inside their heads and hearts and share their stories of struggle and triumph. They will write, they will dance, they will talk, and in doing so, they will honor and support each other’s dreams.

Nothing is stronger than a circle of women sharing their stories.

Día de Muertos/ Day of the Dead

Today is Día de Muertos — the Day of the Dead —one of the biggest holidays in Mexico, and its celebration has crossed the Texas-Mexican border. Tradition says during the time of the Aztecs, a month-long summer celebration was overseen by the goddess Mictecacihuatl, the Lady of the Dead. After the Aztecs were conquered by Catholic Spaniards, the customs became intertwined with the Christian commemoration of All Saints' Day.

I love the tradition, mostly because it is so different from my Celtic Halloween tradition that fears death. Instead of scaring away ghosts, we welcome the souls of the departed on Día de Muertos.

Today I honor the deceased from my family two generations back: my maternal grandparents E.J. and Elise Porter Stone, my paternal grandparents Thomas J. and Elinor Meis Murray, my parents Thomas F. and Joyce Elaine (Lane) Stone Murray, my father’s sister Kathleen Murray Tarski and my mother’s brother Jack Porter Stone. My brothers and I are now the Elders of the family.

I also honor my childhood friend Charlotte Ann Stout Lynch. We became friends in the third grade. She grew up in a hotel with her father and grandmother. I lived down the street in a house my older brother dubbed the “slump,” part slum and part dump. I finished college in three years; Charlotte dropped out about 6 credits from having her bachelor’s degree. My dad convinced her to finish it long after she’d begun working as an accountant for Gulf Oil. After that, she earned her CPA and then went on to finish a law degree. That’s when I realized many people “stop out” of school rather than drop out.  Only governmental agencies and thoughtless people label them as losers. I was maid of honor in her wedding; she held the reception for mine in her home. We were planning a girlfriends’ weekend getaway on a Mexican beach when she died from a blood clot, a complication from minor surgery. I still miss her.

I honor Johnny Campbell who taught me to kiss one summer night on the back porch. He was a senior and my older brother’s best friend. I was a 15-year-old high school freshman and instantly in love after that long, steamy kiss. My mother made sure I never got another by forbidding me to date him. I never quite forgave her until I learned many, many years later that my mother was 15 and a freshman in college (she was incredibly smart, don’t you know) when a football player asked her out. Now I understand that she knew the regret that could come from kissing a boy who was too old and worldly. I thought she was being mean, but she was being protective.

And I honor James Alexander Scott who I never married, but loved so dearly throughout high school. We were so innocent and so hot for each other. If you ever saw the movie “Splendor in the Grass,” you know the teenage angst we felt. He went to Viet Nam when he was eighteen, and although he returned, he never came back, if you know what I mean. Jimmy’s job was to put the American dead in body bags before sending them home. He became part of the walking wounded, and he committed suicide in his sister’s backyard when he was forty. I still ache thinking about the twisted pain he must have felt all those years, and I curse my government for continuing to send our young to war on foreign soil.

Today especially, I honor the souls of these dearly departed who remain in my heart. They were important people in my younger life, for they helped shape me into the woman I am. God hold them close and fill them with heavenly bliss throughout eternity.