Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

motherhood

We Write from Memory, for Memory and Sometimes to Memory

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Memory is essential for everything we do. We learn through memory, understand through memory, forgive and even forget by way of memory. We revisit our past and consider our futures all through memories built from ours and others recall.

Recently, chatting with H. M. Jones whom I met on GooglePlus just a week or so after reading her book Monochrome (filled with the underpinnings of what motherhood is, not to mention the very important feature of memory) got me thinking back on the other avenues of writing I had taken.

Jones invited me to consider submitting a poem to a women’s online anthology she has started up to give a voice to women finding publication difficult. I haven’t tried to publish any poetry in many years, so I was surprised at how intrigued I was by the opportunity.

Memory: I remembered my pregnancy-inspired poetry from nearly twenty years ago.  I am certain her book and the various topics we touched on in our discussions were the trigger. I checked out Jones’s Brazen Bitches anthology link on her H. M. Jones Writes website. I knew instantly which one of my poems belonged among the selection she had already posted.

I searched for the one I had in mind within my file of long packed away poems. It was just as I remembered it. I returned to those strong maternal feelings for a child yet to be born and realized that my daughter had reached the age when seeing this poem inspired by her beginning would show her what my hopes had been and what they still are.

I sent “Sister Clytemnestra” to H. M. Jones and held my breath that it was ready to speak for itself.

Memory: without it writers have nothing to give. It is through memory that we find a way to speak for those not yet ready to voice for themselves or not yet filled with remembering or the remembered.

When Hannah Jones (H. M. Jones) let me know that she would be adding my poem to the anthology, I felt exuberant, and the first thought I had was that my daughter must see this poem.

I have to admit I was more excited to show her than she was to see it. But she did read it and we talked briefly about its origins and inspiration. I was expecting a, “Gee, mom, you really were thinking about me.”

That’s not what she said though. She saw familiar mythology, and remembered texts she has read and studied.

I had forgotten she was an aspiring/growing writer herself. I realize now it will be a bit before the intent of the poem and its direct connection to her rises past the other aspects she was more focused on noting.

My daughter is a designer/engineer at heart. What grabs her attention fits more under the vocabulary of “foundation,” “process,” “structure,” and “skill.” She was busy dissecting not appreciating.

But I remind myself of memory. She will remember after a bit that the poem I showed her belongs to her more than anyone else. It may speak to others, but it was speaking to her long before she was listening. And one day, she will get past the what of it and see the intent I had that she become the women that she has grown into without ever knowing that was my wish until it had already happened.

#memory
#motherhood

There are advantages to being a 50something writer

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50+ years of experience

I’ve been gathering experience for 50+ years

  1. I have already been told numerous times I was wrong and proved that I was right.
  2. I have been wrong before and survived and I will again
  3. I have paid my bills, and when I didn’t, I learned to pay them the next time.
  4. I found out I don’t have to answer any questions I don’t want to.
  5. I have learned how to ask questions so people want to answer them (they don’t always, but they want to).
  6. I refuse to sit in the corner and cry about it.  But I know some times a good cry works wonders.
  7. I know what my body does when it is terrified.
  8. I know what my body does when it is tired.
  9. I know what my body does when it hasn’t slept for three days. (My husband and I laughed our heads off about nothing funny, but it was a blast) Not recommended more than once a year.
  10. I know that how I react is not necessarily how another person will act.
  11. Now I decide what I am going to do about it and do it.
  12. I wrote a book.
  13. And then I wrote three more.
  14. I published a book, and then I published three more.
  15. So I am writing another book.
  16. I plan to publish it.
  17. Creativity is in the mind, of the mind, doesn’t always mind, but mind you, it never really leaves.
  18. There are days I don’t want to write.
  19. There are not many days I don’t want to write.
  20. I love my parents despite and in spite of all they did, tried to do and never got around to doing.
  21. I am a parent, and I think she’s going to love me in spite of and despite of all of it.
  22. I married the right man, and he agrees.
  23. What I really know, really experienced and really care about can be a great help with writing about the things I didn’t know until I looked it up, didn’t experience but have an idea about, and don’t care much about but can see how someone would.
  24. I know that crying is not proof that someone is hurt 
  25. I know that not crying is not proof that someone does not care.
  26. I know that silence is not agreement, and taking a stand is far more reliable.
  27. I know my opinion needs to matter to me more than it matters to anyone else.
  28. I have learned that opinion is not fact.
  29. I know that some believe opinion is enough to hang a hat on.
  30. I rarely wear a hat.  Don’t have the head for it.
  31. I can wait a long time, I already have.
  32. I will not wait long for things not worth waiting for or things that should not be allowed to wait.
  33. I have learned that criticism can hurt, but even that sort can be learned from.
  34. I have learned to give criticism that teaches.
  35. Nothing is forever except ideas.
  36. Escapism is not a bad thing.  Writers depend on it. Readers need it well done.
  37. Every day I need to seek out knowledge.
  38. As often as possible I need to share knowledge.
  39. I know how to say I am sorry and mean it. 
  40. I have learned that some of the closest friends a person can have shed, and their only flaw is the amount of hair that can accumulated in the corners.  Dogs, kindness in the warm, occasionally wet-nosed package, that renews itself every morning and sometimes numerous times in the course of the day if you step outside enough times and make a big deal every time you come back in.
  41. I have been an infant, a toddler, a pre-teen, a teenager, a lover, a newlywed, a pregnant woman, a new mother.  I remind my daughter I am old enough to be a grandmother, but I am not ready, nor is she ready to make me one.
  42. I have struggled with self-consciousness and reached a point of mostly not caring what people think about me.
  43. I have found meditation has numerous benefits
  44. I have struggled with achieving a pregnancy, giving up, gone a decade believing and accepting that it was not possible.
  45. I have lost a pregnancy, and helped a friend deal with losing her own pregnancy.
  46. I went preterm and held out for a full term delivery.
  47. I have had a child remind me to pay attention. And I listened. I held her sitting in the crook of my arm.  She placed two chubby hands on either side of my face, turned me to share an eye-to-eye look, and she said, “Momma?” with the firmness of a drill sergeant. 
  48. I know how to hide the fact that I am a shy person. (Head up, chin up, eye steady)
  49. I know how to say no and mean it.
  50. I found out why mothers are never shy when a child is involved.
  51. I learned how to give orders so students do what I say (but don’t ask me to explain how it works).
  52. I have made friends and lost friends and will forget neither.
  53. I have been lied to and lied, and carried the burden of both.
  54. I have fallen in love and worked hard not to climb out because holding onto love is not an easy thing.
  55. I know how it is to lose a parent to cancer.
  56. I know how it is to lose a parent to unexpected death.
  57. I know how it is to lose a parent to dementia.
  58. I have petted the family dog and felt her life flow out and cried for the loss. And I have explained to my daughter why she will not be coming back.
  59. I know how it is to watch my sister lose a child to a brain tumor.
  60. I know how it is to witness a miracle of survival.
  61. I have lived on the East Coast, the West Coast, the Northwest and South Coast.
  62. I have hiked the beginning of the Narragansett Trail and the end of Oregon Trail.  Missed the middle.
  63. I know the reality of not doing something now.  Do it now or it will never happen.
  64. I have graduated high school.
  65. I have graduated college, three times, different degrees.

I figure I still have plenty to learn, and all of it will be useful to me as a writer and a person.