Memory Writers Network

by Jerry Waxler

I overcame a thrill of horror when I purchased Martha Beck’s memoir, “Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic” about giving birth to a child with Down Syndrome. I like to think of myself as an accepting person. But since deformity, by definition, breaks the mold, it challenges my acceptance. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to read Martha Beck’s book. I was hoping her love for her son would help me grow.

By the time I reached page 70 I had already cried four times. These were good tears, of empathy and insight. I am grateful for her ability to share her experience so clearly and compassionately. And while she does not mention any particular belief system, I find this to be one of the more spiritual books I have read in recent years. For some reason it reminded me of William Blake’s poem, Auguries of Innocence, about how spirituality is wrapped up neatly inside ordinary life.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

I looked up the text of this poem, and was surprised to discover how passionate Blake was about protecting those who are different or helpless. “Expecting Adam” also reminds me of my father’s brother Harry. My father Sam was six feet tall and lanky, a great looking guy with blue eyes and a gorgeous smile. His older sister was also tall and good looking, while his younger brother Harry was about three feet and change, with a flattened nose, a forehead that took up way too much of his face, and legs so short he scampered rather than walked, all symptoms of what is known as dwarfism, or achondroplasia. Harry was a kind and energetic member of the family, helping his father and sister take care of the apartments they owned. We never talked about his stature, and so it was almost invisible to me, other than unavoidable details like the way the foot pedals in his car were built out so he could reach them.

When I went away to school, Harry discovered Little People of America, and he converted from being a freak to an accepted member of his own clan. When I came home for holidays, Harry began acting more like teenager than a 50 year old, having discovered dating for the first time in his life. Then while I was off finding myself, Harry died and I have not thought about him since, until recently when folks of his stature showed up on a reality television show. Despite my affection for Harry and my lifetime striving to accept people in all their diversity, I still find it harder to embrace differences than I would like.

I suppose my life would be simpler if I pushed this problem aside, and loved only the people who look like me. But that would cut me off from all of humanity, one way or another because there are a zillion ways humans can be different, or at least 8 billion, anyway. We are all unique, even though we expend a lot of energy pretending we’re like everyone else. One of the reasons I love memoirs is that they give me the opportunity to see into the minds and hearts of individuals, and learn how life works for them. By sharing her love for her son, Martha Beck’s memoir Expecting Adam has assisted my project of respecting the entire human race, one individual at a time.

by Jerry Waxler

Of all the reasons people give for not writing their memoirs, two I find most amusing are that “I’m too old” and “I’m too young.” If you find yourself squeezed between the wrong ages to write your memoirs, here are some reasons to help you refute the “I’m too old” one. In another blog, I’ll offer reasons why you’re not too young. Ultimately, the best time is right now.

1) If you fear it’s too late to learn how to write, flip this reason upside down. Learning how to write is an excellent reason for writing your memoir. If you start today, by tomorrow you’ll know more.

2) There’s no upper limit. If you can think, you can write. If your fingers don’t work or you can’t see, you can use voice technology. Author Harry Bernstein wrote his memoir, The Invisible Wall when he was 93.

3) Writing about yourself breaks down the walls between people. Readers feel they know you, and open up more quickly, increasing the energy of your social network.

4) No matter what your age, you can gain peace and deeper insights about your life by understanding how events in earlier years affected you later.

5) You might assume younger people are not particularly interested in you because you’re out of step with the times. Flip this reason upside down. The long reach of your memory is potentially the most interesting thing about you. You’ve seen more, and seen it in different contexts. Offering your memories helps younger people gain a better understanding of their own world.

6) You might think no one will read your work because you’re not young and glamorous. But the value we seek from books works on other dimensions than the smoothness of the author’s skin. In fact, your wrinkles might even become a credential, proving you have the years of experience to speak with authority.

7) Writing is good for your brain and will help you stay mentally supple and vigorous.

Once you start looking into your memories, you’ll find your accomplishments tucked away in forgotten corners. Remembering them will help you appreciate what you’ve done and who you are.

9) Telling the story gives you a sense that life is a story. This helps you craft a more interesting story of the future.

10) By writing a memoir, you improve your ability to write all sorts of material, notes, letters, essays, articles in newsletters, blogs. You can use your enhanced writing skills to share yourself with others expanding your interaction with the world, and continuing the social graces, pleasures, and gifts of being a human being.

 by Jerry Waxler

According to caregiver.org 50 million people in North America are informally caring for the elderly while 8.9 million of those caregivers face the added burden of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Carol O’Dell, author of the memoir “Mothering Mother” was one of those people. Not only was her mother no longer able to care for herself. She had literally lost her mind.

There is nothing pretty about the helplessness of aging, but unless our parents and everyone we love die fast and young, at some point we can no longer push aside the recognition that aging happens. One way to prepare for that realization is by learning about the experiences of those who have gone before us. Through such lessons as offered by the memoir Mothering Mother, we gradually do the emotional and spiritual work to accept the variety of stages of our lifetime journey.

O’Dell built a room onto her house and invited her mother to live with her family. By becoming her mother’s primary caregiver, O’Dell immersed herself more deeply into caregiving than she anticipated. She had to set herself aside, the way a mother sets herself aside to care for a newborn. But this was no cuddly infant. This was her mother, lost in forgetting so profound, she not only forgot the past. She forgot how to be human. It’s like a horror movie in which some evil force has stolen the person’s true self, leaving behind the shell.

O’Dell didn’t have the choice to send her mother to a care facility. For one thing, she and her husband were concerned that they could not financially afford to get adequate care for her mother. For another thing, O’Dell had promised her mother for years that she would care for her at home. Despite the difficulties, O’Dell had to stay the course.

There were times the strain on O’Dell was so severe she felt she was losing her own mind. Her experience was consuming, draining, demoralizing, overwhelming, even traumatic. Her memoir gives me a powerful glimpse into her emotionally complex situation. And she does it without overwhelming me. I found myself wanting to know more, and actually raced along to see what would happen next.

One of the reasons I wanted to know more about her experience was to try to understand how she coped. If she could cope with this situation then there is hope for humanity. And in fact, she did exactly that. She cared for her aging, failing mother, and coped with it to the best of her ability, and in the process earned my respect as an expert. Her ordinary life gave her the material to inform millions of people what that experience was like. While O’Dell’s experience seems overwhelming, by sharing it with us, she also shares some of the strength and sanity she gained by immersing herself so deeply into the final throes of her mother’s life.

Writing a memoir is exactly the opposite of the mental deterioration of dementia. By writing a story about taking care of someone with Alzheimer’s, O’Dell was exercising that part of her brain, the prefrontal cortex, that distinguishes humans from the other creatures on the planet. The very act of writing helps the writer cope, and once the story is written, it can be reread, reorganized, and shared. This organizational ability of the brain is the basis for much of what we consider sane and sacred about being human. While Carol O’Dell can’t erase her mother’s suffering or her own, she can write about it, choosing her words and phrases and images. These simple tools let her organize events into a story. And through this process she can reclaim some of the humanity that was lost, and offer it to us as a gift.

 by Jerry Waxler

After hearing journalist Michael Vitez speak at the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference, I’m reading his book Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, And Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps by Michael Vitez, Sylvester Stallone, and Tom Gralish. Vitez and his Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Tom Gralish parked themselves at the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, made famous by Sylvester Stallone’s movies. The stairs are so famous that 30 years later, people from all over the world stop by so they can feel the Rocky Balboa’s victory run for themselves.

Vitez’s talk at the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference was about his experience as an immersion journalist. Immersion journalism is the practice of entering into a situation in order to write about it. For example, he researched a story about what it’s like to be a highway toll taker, by spending weeks parked inside a toll booth. Another time he hung out in an intensive care unit with families of patients in life or death situations. This is the story that earned him the Pulitzer Prize. When Vitez heard that people were still running up the Rocky Stairs, he took a break from his Philadelphia Inquirer office and went to see for himself. Within a few hours he realized he had discovered a cultural phenomenon. People pulled up in cabs, ran up the stairs, sometimes gasping for air, and when they reached the top they leapt, danced or whooped. Vitez decided it would make a good story, and so he and his Pulitzer winning photographer spent around 200 days through all four seasons on location. After Tom Gralish snapped the photos Vitez asked people what they were thinking.

Generally, they were thinking about their own dreams, and how the Rocky movies had awakened in them a sense of purpose and hope that they wanted to experience for themselves in Philadelphia. As I read through the 52 vignettes about the people from all over the world, I saw many of them as mini-memoirs. This landmark stirred up stories about overcoming obstacles on the way to achieving dreams. Sometimes they were already fulfilled and sometimes the dreams still pointed to the future.

Each of us has a life filled with experience but it’s not always easy turning that experience into a story worth reading. Vitez’s experiment at the Rocky Stairs could help. Just as those people who had just huffed up the stairs told Vitez about the upward journey of their lives, you could imagine doing the same thing. Or come to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and experience it yourself. From that exercise, distill the hopes and dreams that drove you to be who you are today, and continue to drive you to be who you will be tomorrow.

What did you long to accomplish? What big dreams called you to a different dimension, a new beginning, a lofty goal? Some of the dreams that drove you have long since drifted into the past, so you have to dig deep to recall the freshness and enthusiasm of your youth. Perhaps you stayed resolutely on course, letting your desire guide you like True North. Or your actual journey may have diverged from your plan. If you had to let go of dreams, remembering them now might awaken disappointment and even pain. But whatever your dreams were at any particular time in your life that was the force that drove you. By getting in touch with your longing, you will reveal vital, interesting aspects of your story.

At the Philadelphia Writers Conference, Michael Vitez told how when he first had the idea for the book, he reached out to Sylvester Stallone for an endorsement from Rocky himself. His attempts to get through to Stallone were rebuffed by an overzealous gatekeeper. After a year of trying, Vitez finally penetrated the walls surrounding Stallone, who immediately loved the book and agreed to participate. So Michael Vitez, whose mission was to report on other people’s Rocky Stories, told us a Rocky Story of his own.

Writing Prompt
Do you have a Rocky story waiting to be told? Do you see how a Rocky Story could help organize a memoir or essay?

by Jerry Waxler

A lot of people over 50 look down the road and spot what looks suspiciously like a finish line. We pause, ask a few questions and then shop for a sports car, an RV, or an affair. But after we pay for our fling we usually have more questions than when we started. For a more lasting solution, try writing your memoir. Yes, I know it doesn’t sound as glamorous as some of the more expensive responses to midlife but it turns out to be far more satisfying.

By finding the stories of our life we reclaim the adventure, the romance, and the mystery we’ve already lived through. When we put our youthful indiscretions on paper we gain insights not only about who we were then but who we are now. Rediscovering our youth, we see how our actions fit in the grander scheme of things. And we no longer take youth for granted. We savor it. This second look lets us endow youth with wisdom.

To understand how writing might work in your life, consider my mother. Starting from her 70’s, she woke early every morning and for the first hour or two of the day, she wrote. She wrote letters to old friends. She wrote notes about her past. She prepared talks to present to the clubs she belonged to. Occasionally she found a book she thought would interest her peers. The manager in her apartment campus posted a notice that Sylvia Waxler was giving a book review, and people showed up to listen. After staging a few such events, she became known as the book review lady. Strangers and acquaintances stopped her in the lobby to discuss her last review, and tell her about a book they were reading and why she might like it. They showered her with friendliness. She turned out to be one of the best liked 87 year old women I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

But it seems I have digressed. What does an 87 year old lady writing book reviews have to do with someone much younger trying to find a renewed sense of life? I think by writing every day Mom found the fountain of youth. And her audience knew it. They weren’t pouring admiration on her because she gave the best book review they ever heard. As she pried into the meaning of books, and then reached out to an audience to share her ideas, she was creating the story of an old woman who kept going. She wasn’t telling them what to do. She was showing them what one person could do. Her story gave them hope.

It turns out that stories are the only tool we humans have for understanding life’s trajectory. So if you want to enhance your experience of being you, haul your memories out of storage, line them up, and organize them. The mishmash of events falls into place. Armed with this organized view of your life, you begin to appreciate its form. By seeing where you’ve been, you open up to the possibilities of where you are going.

I can’t explain exactly how writing will help you feel better about your life journey, since you will approach it in your own unique way. But here’s how it has worked for me. After writing for a while, I realize I’m in the thick of my own vibrant story. Life becomes more engaging. Now, my curiosity propels me forward, and as I look down the road I see glimpses of the next chapter in this fascinating journey.

By Jerry Waxler

The one and only time I was on a white water rafting trip I was on business. We were wooing an important customer who insisted we join him on the water. Never a big fan of risky behavior, I found myself paddling a boat in water moving so fast it could kill me. My heart was pounding from more than exertion. As we steered our craft around yet another area where the surging river was trying to smash us against rocks my experienced raft partner screamed above the roar of the water, “Paddle, Paddle, Paddle.” The river is the Youghiogheny, a well known watering hole for whitewater enthusiasts located in southwest Pennsylvania in the town of Ohiopyle. Later, while the rest of the group slept in tents, I retired to a bed and breakfast, the Quiet House. It was comfortable, and lived up to its name.

One of the things I like about Bed and Breakfasts is that the owners are locals, and can offer insider tourist information. But I wasn’t in the market for Ohiopyle tourist information that day. I had already seen quite a bit of this area on other trips, and didn’t think I had much more to learn. I knew about the five star resort, the Nemacolin, former home to a PGA tour golf course. In fact, last year, I had a massage at their spa. And I had visited the nearby Frank Lloyd Wright house, the famous Falling Water museum. What more could there be in this backwoods town in Pennsylvania?

As I was saying goodbye, I mentioned that I had been boating on the Youghiogheny and asked my host if he goes out on the river much. Marty, said he goes out in February, when the river has been quiet, undisturbed by visitors. I caught a reverential glint in his eye. People fascinate me. You can walk past them in the supermarket and not give them a glance, and yet they may have lived complex, rich, and entertaining lives that could fill volumes. Standing up from breakfast, ready to head to the car, it occurred to me that this man had a profound connection with the area. I said, “You must know a lot about the history of this place.” That got him started and he told me the whole story.

When Marty first moved here, he was managing a family farm. There was no commercial interest in boating on the river, until a couple of guys recognized its potential. Soon people started paying them to lead rafting trips. These guys bought a piece of land in Ohiopyle, and that was the beginning of the whitewater tourism in the area. Their rafting customers needed lodging, so the brothers approached Marty. He rose to the occasion, started a campground and turned it into a successful business. Marty has watched the river go from being just a river to becoming a thriving sports and nature destination.

Then we got onto a subject that completely surprised me. It turns out George Washington not only slept here. He fought here. A couple of miles away was the site of his first military operation. In a fascinating twist of fate, in 1754, when George Washington was a 22 year old soldier in the Virginia Colonial army, he attacked some French soldiers a couple of miles away from where Marty and I were standing. This attack on the French was one of the triggers that started the French and Indian War. For you non-history buffs, this is the war featured in the movie The Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day Lewis. In those days, this area was considered the western frontier, fought over by the French and the English to gain control of the interior of the vast continent.

To gain more insights, I visited ,Fort Necessity National Park and Museum a couple of miles from the Quiet House Bed and Breakfast, and learned a boatload of background about how the area figured into the prelude to the American Revolution. Beyond the French and Indian war, the museum also exhibited artifacts and information about the National Road, which started out as a rough path along which settlers trudged on their journey west. Of course it also played a role in the tragic destruction of the indigenous people. When the United States was born, the National Road, which looks like little more than a country highway across the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, was the first federally funded road in the new country.

Such material seems at first glance more like a regional history than a memoir. But if Marty were to write about it, he could intertwine his entrepreneurial pursuits and his friendships with other entrepreneurs, his love for the river, and his knowledge of the history of the area. By using his life journey as the framework, the reader could see this part of the world through his knowledgeable eyes. And for me, this conversation was yet another proof that memoirs are everywhere. Here, tucked away in a little bed and breakfast in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, I saw a series of life events start to take the shape of a story. How many times has Marty told these stories? And how much more could he share if they were written?

By Jerry Waxler

Every year millions of people watch the movie “It’s a wonderful life” in which Jimmy Stewart’s guardian angel stops him from killing himself by showing him how his life has made a difference in people’s lives. Once he sees the bigger picture, he regains confidence and charges back into the fray. Why has this movie become an annual ritual for so many people? Of course, we love to see the hero overcome obstacles and save the town from the greedy landlord. But I think we are attracted to this movie for a much deeper reason. The fear that crept into Stewart’s mind, that his life was not worthwhile, could overtake any of us.

If we lose our sense of making a difference, we too start to lose our way, not necessarily contemplating suicide, but questions creep up. “If no one cares what I do, what’s the point?” So while for most of us, our situation is not as dramatic as Stewart’s, we can still empathize with his plight, as well as empathize with his need for deeper meaning. We would all benefit from finding that sense of engagement.

Fortunately, the movie is not about changing the past. The actions that restored Stewart’s faith took place years ago. The angel simply gave Stewart the gift of sight so he could see how these actions helped. I think this is what keeps us coming back to the movie year after year – the hope to see that we made a difference.

So while we’re waiting for our own angel, what can we do to find meaning in our lives? Try writing a memoir. Writing is the way we remind ourselves of all sorts of things. Take for example a shopping list. When I realize I need something at the store, the thought seems so real, so obvious, so compelling. But if I don’t write it on a list, that idea turns out to have been fleeting. I’ll stand at the store surrounded by thousands of items, but the one I wanted a few days before now simply blends in.

It’s the same thing with memories. As they occur, they seem so vivid. By writing them, I gradually compile a list of times I was able to help people. The efforts I made at work kept not only my own paycheck coming but also contributed to the business that supports many other people as well. My presence at a funeral or during a divorce offered support exactly when it was needed. I list moments of generosity and victories over my own limitations.

Am I going to find only times I saved people from despair and ruin? Of course not. I’m not a character in a movie. I see plenty of times when taking care of myself obscured my concern for others. In fact, when I was younger, I rarely thought about my impact on other people.

Seeing less than perfect actions in the past seems like it should upset me, but instead it has turned out to be exhilarating. By looking squarely at the way my life played out, I understand more about who I am, and how my story interacts with the world. Instead of feeling worse about my life, I see those events as part of a dynamic force. I grew, I tried things, made mistakes, learned from them, and kept going. The story with all its ups and downs had a continuity that carried me through the years.

Telling about the past at first seems like a simple act of remembering. But then out of the story emerge lessons that help me make the most of my actions today, so I can move in a worthwhile direction, and do things that make a difference tomorrow. In the movie, the angel didn’t say much. He just showed Stewart how the story works. Based on those observations Stewart drew his own conclusions. As I write, I go through the same process he did, and I’m drawing the same conclusion, too. It turns out it really is a wonderful life.

By Jerry Waxler

The first time I heard about a Round Tuit was in the early seventies. I was working at my first real job after college, at United Engineers in Philadelphia. As I tried to understand how to cope with the working life, the old timers generously dispensed their wisdom in the form of witty expressions, like “Nolo Bastardo Carborundum.” (Don’t let the bastards wear you down). The first time I saw the word “TUIT” on a round pin, and someone explained what it was, I thought it was the funniest thing I ever heard.

It turns out, like so much of the humor of an office environment, there is pain behind the joke. Many things we want to do must wait until we get around to it. And those are quite often valuable activities that can contribute to the quality of our lives. One such project is writing my memoir. Writing the stories of my life would let me gather my memories, organize them, and share them with others. But who has time?

Perhaps if someone handed me one of those “round tuits” I’d be ready. But if no one hands me one, how can I create my own? Recognizing the life altering power of “round tuits,” I made it a personal challenge to find strategies that would help me convert desire into action. Some of my favorite ideas came from Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” a book so insightful I give it credit for changing my life. And Tony Robbins’ “Awaken the Giant Within” is so full of useful information it’s like going to graduate school for self improvement. In fact, I did go to graduate school, for a Master’s degree in counseling, and while I was learning to help others, I continued to learn strategies which I summarize in my website Mental Health Survival Guide.

From all this material, I applied my thinking to aspiring writers who try to get themselves through all those nasty obstacles like, “I don’t have time” or “No one is going to like this” or “I’m not a writer.” I offered workshops to help writers write, and then condensing it all I wrote a book, Four Elements for Writers. So let’s just say I have a few thoughts on this issue.

After all my years of searching, it boils down to the most basic of human equations. If it’s what you want, work for it. Push through as many obstacles as possible. And when you reach obstacles you can’t get through, find help. Look for advice about how to move boulders, go around them, break them down to accessible size, or gain the strength and skill to leap over them.

This simple equation is demonstrated for us over and over in the classic story structure we’ve been hearing since childhood. In stories, someone wants something. They set out to achieve it. It’s a long journey. They encounter obstacles. They find allies. They overcome previous assumptions. They get smacked around. And they keep going. By the end of the story they have gotten around to it. It wasn’t necessarily easy. In fact, in the stories we enjoy most, the obstacles were formidable. But that’s okay. The wounds our heroes receive on this journey are kind of romantic. They often even gain wisdom along the way.

To achieve your goals, apply this story structure to your own life. You want to write. You overcome obstacles. Gather allies. The journey is not necessarily easy, but that’s okay. You have a story to live. Like every other thing you have accomplished in your life, grab a Round Tuit from the pile, or make your own, solve the problems, and write.