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As I reconnect with
my writing self/selves, my autobiographical self/selves, I
listen in the fridge hum of the kitchen for my current thoughts,
try to burrow deep below the detritus of marking, final course
grades, upcoming course outlines, through to the persona who
contemplates, writes about, reflects upon matters other than
the everyday concerns and politics of teaching in the academy.
I am writing at the kitchen table. This is both my office
and my refuge. Outside the window, a light rain brushes the
branches of still-bare trees, promising spring. They sway
slightly in the wind, or is it me who moves? My dog lies patiently
by my feet, a black furry muse, a silent psychic presence.
This is where I plan my courses, mark and tally, and gather
myself when I feel I am fracturing into pieces. All evidence
of the paper flurry that accompanies the end of term is reduced
to my journal, my pen, and a neat stack of poetry and prose
written not by me, but by the women in the autobiography course
I taught.
 |
 |
It
is an irony that the busyness of this life leaves little space
for my own thought and writing. As I encouraged others to
write and made a place for autobiography, I could not seem
to make much of a place for mine.
But now at long last I write, and find beneath the layers,
all this:
Bank Statement for a Dead Father on a Cheque
iamwritingthisonthebackofachequetheonlypapericouldfind
inthecarwaitingoutsidetheschoolfordaughters
thishastobeasmallpoem
noroomforthefightwithmysister
she'sdoingtoomuchforourmotherandresentsme
thishastobetinynoroomforresiduemourning
adeadfathermychildhoodhomesoldcalgarysummersmemories
likecancelledchequesthishastobeshorthand
needtosaybasis
likeBLBST'SPTRYwithoutVWLS
headlinersMDLFSKSbut
heyi'malive
huntingforpiecesofpapershortpoems
waitingifillchequeswithwords
waitingforthepaintosubside
waitingfordaughters
nopaperonlyallthis |
 
And longing for your glance,
But you look the other way
|
As
I continue trying to make sense of my father's death, as I
witness my mother's difficult transition to widowhood, as
I mourn the sale of my childhood home, I temporarily set aside
my distress and re-read the incredible autobiographical writing
that the women in the course have written. And my anguish
is distilled in the tears I weep as I read their heartfelt
words about parents with Alzheimer's, about leaving family
and country for brave new wor(l)ds where they feel like outsiders,
about living as women between the hybrid places of ethnicity,
daughter/father/mother/ relations, disabled children, surgery,
childhood trauma and illness, and silences. Always silences,
that break sound barriers if only we could hear them with
the echo vision of bats, with the clairvoyance of soothsayers,
with the grace of angels. And as my distress is distilled
into women's tears, I recall the line from the Talmud that
I heard in a movie: God counts women's tears. I hope she is
counting ours. I feel such a connection between the powerful
words written by these women, whom I am encouraging to write,
and the words I write as I read and feel the words they are
writing.
During
the course we read and discussed "House of Mirrors,"
my book on women's autobiographical writing in/as re-search,
as well as other autobiographical writings by women authors
such as bell hooks, Elizabeth Smart, Zoe Landale, Mary McCarthy.
The students wrote autobiographical journals and episodes
in response to their own lives as well as the textual lives
they read about in the books. More layers!
Some of the women were inspired to write and share poems for
the first time, they said, though I think that they already
had so much poetry with/in them. (They ARE poems.) I was astounded
by the intertextual connections between my words, theirs,
and the time we spent together.
Perhaps it is in the doing that we find (our)selves
when we feel lost, in the doing that we lose (our)selves
so something can be
|
I'm alone in the silence |
Because
we were exploring the ethical issues of autobiographical writing
in re-search, as well as the way in which we construct our
lives through our words, I asked them to follow up an episode
they wrote by approaching those whom they wrote about, to
get other views and perspectives, to complicate the original
writing by considering the many complexities of how we see
ourselves, how we see others, how others see us, and how others
perceive how we see them.
How
can we consider such autobiographical writings in/as re-search?
Autobiographical
writing can be turned over and over, looking back at itself
reflexively. For example, I wrote about my two miscarriages
in four poems, a scene, and an article published in the newspaper.
Mirrors that evoke and displace this event. Or we can position
the writing so it is doubled on the page, one side mirroring
the other so that the writing, the meanings, turn. (For example,
in the Hannah section of my dissertation, I place 13 meditative
and poetic reflections with and against theoro-poetic writing.
In the Martha section, framed pages act as paper mirrors that
reflect back my musings). Even the same poem placed in different
contexts, a turning over of sorts, causes us to re-read and
re-think the writing. The way we have re-arranged pieces of
our texts here is yet another example of how our writing can
be turned over and over. And this re-arrangement adds to the
re-reading, the re-writing, the re-turning.
Such
writing and analysis constitute autobiography in/as re-search,
the additional preposition "in" floating back and
forth across a backslash and highlighting both the movement
and the turning as well as what is in-between autobiography
and re-search.
All
the women in the course wrote in some way or another about
the hidden, about silences, and these silences began to speak
by our acknowledgement of the unsaid, the unspeakable, the
in between. Most of the writings were about or involved relationships:
children, mothers, fathers, partners...But this theme was
played out very differently across cultures, across sexualities,
across languages, across ethnicities.
The Hidden
their eyes say it all
how they put words to memories
find warmth in the stark act
of writing selves
their I's say it all
how hungry they've become
for putting self first
feeding on stories
the satisfaction of the unspeakable
transformed to a thundering din |
And all is quiet tonight
|
|
| All
the women writers/autobiographers chose what they wrote
about out of desire and deep interest, what troubled or
fascinated them, what their re-search entailed. Some chose
to deal with painful or intimate details by distancing
through devices and conventions such as allegorical stories
or found poems. While this distance protected all of us
into the emotions connected to events, the writing remained
powerful and evocative, while avoiding the tell-all discomfort
of confessional disclosure. Those who wrote more openly
about a father, a lover, a mother, a child, maintained
an integrity that involved honour, compassion, ethical
motives, but a clear desire to tell a story that needed
to be told. What some women did not dare put into words,
they included with photographs. What some women did not
put into words, they included with artwork, a vital part
of their autobiographical re-presentation. |
It's Truly
Winter again |
my husband says
he will sue me if I publish that piece
Myra tells me over the phone
thanks me for my support
ensures I'll pick up the special candy
she's putting in my mail box on Monday
she wants to meet in two weeks
bring me another of her delicious cakes
I sample her imported recipes and longings
|
|
Angela mails me rice delights
writes she is back in Taiwan
returning soon
emails me poems to read
and her gratitude for a reference letter
I do not refer to loneliness
|
Tanya brings a beautiful plant
we laugh because I suggest Chukovsky
for her essay
did not know her Russian heritage
as if I breathed the Ukraine in the air
from her pores
the generosity of these women
is humbling
food and plants the offerings
that taste of otherness
but level difference as their fragrance
wafts hope, friendship, love |
My Face Wet With Tears |
At
our final gathering we read aloud some of our work, an emotional
and celebratory event. At least four women openly cried, a
chain reaction that had all of us close to tears at times,
a response to the strength and power of our wor(l)ds, finally
committed to paper and entered into the atmosphere. A meeting
of Autobiographers Anonymous (only we were not so anonymous)!
We, the members, stood up, disclosed some facet of our lives,
finding support and agency in the collective autobiographical
intent of the group.
Anonymous
wrote a lot of poems
afraid to pen ownership
the danger of disclosure
perhaps a husband lurking nearby
or a father
overseeing the Truth
rewritten by a thousand nameless women
their faces in the letters
|
When Cold does its part
And You Break my heart |
|
Autobiography
in/as Re-search and Pedagogy: 
