One year ago today, I arrived in Italy with my mom and Prose in tow to begin . . . something. I really didn’t know if it would be a new life, a great adventure, or a total fiasco. In many ways, I still don’t.
Symbolically, we left Arkansas on September 19, my grandmother’s birthday. On the surface, my grandmother was a homebody whose greatest pleasure was going for walks in her beloved Ozarks, strolling around her yard and garden, or reading any book within reach. But she also loved to travel, and I am so happy that I was able to take her all over New England, a little of Canada, and even New York City. And it was there that she made a statement that defines my desire to live in Italy.
As we were driving in NYC, the apartments looked pretty old and there was laundry hanging outside the windows (so Italian). Suddenly my grandmother said, “I’d like to move here and live like these people.”
The first flight. My mom lifts her champagne to our new adventure.
Prose worries about her oxygen mask.
My ever-so-literal mother was also in the car, and she said, “Surely not. Why on earth would you say that? Look how dirty it is and crowded and unsafe.”
Now we all knew that my grandmother wouldn’t leave her beloved home in the mountains and her daughters who lived nearby. But she said, “Because I’d like to live a totally different life just to see what it’s like. To figure out how to get by in a whole other world.”
I have thought of that so much because that is exactly what brought me—and keeps me—in Italy. The moments when I feel the cultural difference most acutely (such as when my Italian friends take the 700-year-old skeleton of their holy woman out of the church and parade her through the street) is when I am most enchanted. I’ve always loved jigsaw puzzles, and now I am the odd piece, constantly trying to figure out how to fit myself into the bigger picture of my Tuscan village.
My grandma on one of a lifetime of great hikes in our Ozarks.
People who make a big move are running away or seeking something or probably both. I left the U.S. months after my father’s supposed suicide and my husband’s revelation, after thirty-three years together, that he wanted a divorce. Not to mention the death of my very good dog Traveler.
Certainly my feelings have evolved in the last year. When we came, I brought four suitcases in total for myself, my mom, and Prose (who is a very material girl). One of those suitcases was full of research for the novel I’m writing and hard copies of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s books, including Moving On. Besides clothes and other usual paraphernalia, I brought a huge beloved back pillow, in case I got sick and had to write in bed. I brought some kitchen stuff that I couldn’t bear to leave, favorite knives and a few gadgets. But it was all practical. I brought nothing sentimental except Traveler’s ashes. I wanted no reminders of the past, no loose ends of pain. I wanted a clean page for my new chapter, my new life, the new me.
When I returned to Arkansas six months later for a whirlwind ten days of appointments and tasks, I had a half year under my belt of learning new ways to do things, of figuring out challenges, of thinking about more than how the men I loved betrayed me. Now, coming back to Arkansas was almost like lifting up the bandage very carefully to see how the healing was progressing.
I discovered that I was ready to begin to join the fragmented pieces of myself back together. This time, when I boxed up my complete historical research library to bring to Italy, I allowed myself one box, maximum 70 pounds, for anything I wanted. I put in all Traveler’s little sweaters, hoping Prose could wear them. I put in some mementos of good moments with old friends. I put in pictures of my grandparents and dad. I tore all the written pages out of a lifetime of unfinished journals and brought the pages. I bought a second carry-on and allowed myself that many breakable items. A sculpture from Eureka Springs, more momentos, framed pictures. I unstretched a Jody Stephenson painting and rolled it up in a tube to carry it onto the plane.
I felt as if I were gluing myself back together, forging the new me and the old me into one stronger person.
The second trip. Boxes of books and some memories this time.
Sometimes, I am filled with wonder. Who is this woman who can find her way around foreign cities with no help, who can usually make herself understood in pidgin Italian, who has lost 30 pounds? I don’t know her. Other times, I find I’m still the same insecure, easily embarrassed nerd I always was. The truth is, of course, I am all those things. It just depends on which side of myself I want to turn toward the light.
For years, I abdicated as much responsibility as I could because it was easier. It was easier to let my husband manage the finances or figure out the TV remote. When we traveled, it was easier to let him drive the rental car, read the walking map, convert kilometers to miles. I chose helplessness because it was so easy.
Now, I choose strength. I choose to turn that side of myself to the light. I can convert gallons to liters, euros to dollars, miles to kilometers and know how much it costs to drive a hundred miles. And then, I can drive it. I choose to be the person who can do the thing—whatever it might be—that needs to be done.
What is true for me is, of course, true for us all. If I know anything, I know that I am not special. “You’re so brave,” people say. “You’re so strong.” That is simply not true. I just try not to talk myself out of things because I know that any situation can be faced with this simple procedure: Show up. Take the next step. Solve today’s problem.
Last week. Just another day in the life.
You really don’t have to have it all figured out ahead of time. You can’t anyway. I had no idea how I would feel living in Italy. Maybe I would hate it. How could I know? But I did know this: nothing has to be permanent.
So, here I am, a year in. Who knows where we’ll be in another year. Maybe right here. Maybe not. I’m figuring it out as I go. Aren’t we all? But one thing I know. We all have a strong side. And that should be the one that we turn toward the light.
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
Alison
Last Sunday, I visited Savonarola in Florence. I’m really not a fan of his, but I wanted to think about this whole topic of a change of faith. So I went to visit the plaque that marks the spot where Savonarola was burned by the Florentines on May 23, 1498.
Although I’m keeping this post light, I am, in fact, always moved by those who die for their beliefs, even if I disagree with them. Savonarola is a mystery. Was he a megalomaniac? A tragic figure? Did he die because of his true faith or his lust for power?
It was tough to get a picture of the plaque because thousands of tourists a day tromp over the spot.
Savonarola was a Domenican friar, a persuasive speaker who captured the Florentines’ imagination with his visions and prophecies. The upper class Florentines were living pretty well. Their banking and merchant economy gave a whole lot more of them money to spend on jewelry and art. Not to mention those great Renaissance clothes.
However, there were pesky problems. The recurring plague, unrest within the city, and that annoying Charles VIII of France who had invaded Italy and was threatening Florence. A lot to worry about.
The way to power and riches, my uncle used to say, is to “create a fear and provide the solution.” Savonarola did not have to create the fears—they already existed. But he did have the solution. If the Florentines wanted to stay safe, they needed God’s protection. The way to achieve that was to repent of their lavish lifestyles, their vanities like jewelry and mirrors and art. He began to encourage Florence’s citizens to bring their luxuries to the big public square known as the Piazza della Signoria and to throw them into a fire—a bonfire of the vanities.
This portrait was made the year he died. A dark guy with a dark story.
If they would do this, Savonarola promised, God would forgive the Florentines all their sins and bless the city as never before. Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the center of Christianity, “richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever”. Did anyone mark the irony that he asked them to burn their vanities so they could grow richer? It was the ultimate “Health and Wealth Gospel” combined with a puritanical asceticism.
Savonarola created what we call today a “cult.” His followers were called Piagnoni or “weepers.” (Probably, they were thinking about their lost stuff.) He indoctrinated Florence’s youth and organized boys and young men to patrol the streets to curb immodest dress and behavior. He himself assumed more and more power. A political party comprised of his followers controlled the city.
The purpose of this post is not to make any judgments about any form of religion or faith. (Well, okay, maybe I’m not too convinced by Savonarola.) But the truth is that many, many people have moved away from the doctrines in which they were raised or in which they once strongly believed. This is a powerful thread in many memoirs and an important part of many people’s journeys.
So I’m very happy that one of the speakers at our online Memoir Summit will be Ruth Wariner, author of the book The Sound of Gravel, a memoir about growing up as the thirty-ninth of her father’s forty-two children in a polygamist family in rural Mexico.
Maybe your story is not as dramatic as Ruth’s. But rethinking your faith as you grow up and older is a common thing to do. The Florentines did. They decided they didn’t believe Savonarola. Drunk on his own vision of himself as a great prophet, he began to hint that he could work miracles but never provided any. Plus the pope, who had tried at first to reign in Savonarola, finally excommunicated him and threatened all of Florence if they didn’t stop harboring him. Undoubtedly, this threw a lot of people into a moral dilemma.
Finally, in the great spirit of excess for which this period of time is known, if they weren’t going to burn their vanities, the Florentines decided they’d just burn Savonarola. (I am comforted to know that they hung him first.) Maybe they were annoyed more at themselves for falling for his line and tossing that original Botticelli into the flames. (It’s thought by some scholars that Botticelli, himself a follower of Savonarola’s, burned some of his own paintings.)
Savonarola’s execution in the same piazza where he had held his bonfires of the vanities.
A lot of Savonarola’s story is a cautionary tale about mass hysteria and the way people can get caught up in a crowd mentality and an emotional frenzy. Savonarola was hot at the height of his popularity and hot at the end of it, and there had to have been people who were part of the mob at both times. The thing about dogma is that it relieves you of any personal responsibility. You just do as you’re told.
But within that population, there must also have been some thoughtful people, struggling to find some truth that made sense. And doubtless among those children indoctrinated by Savonarola, there were some who grew up to see the inconsistency in his thinking and his actions, but who still carried that emotional baggage and the need to unpack it.
Ok, this is a little scary.
This is the stuff of memoir. In fact, when I first started the Village Writing School, this was the most popular topic among people coming to our workshops. Whether they were writing straight-up memoir or disguising their feelings in a novel, the evolution of faith in some direction or another, ran through many stories.
Faith is the perfect topic for a memoir because it is both highly personal and of universal concern. A memoir might reflect a faith journey (toward or away from), a crisis of faith, or even a bonfire of the vanities, for there are many ways to renounce our treasures. When you think about your story, what part, if any, does religion play?
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
–Alison
Have you ever thought you’d like to tell your story? As I think about writing a memoir about the past year and the crazy change of course I took after the most ridiculous divorce in history, I find I have a lot of doubts. Do any of these feel familiar? Have similar doubts held you back?
1. Voice. Voice is everything. That’s why we read memoir because that’s what makes us care about that particular person. I want to be funny. I have tried to face my challenges with the awareness that we are a quirky species and Fortune’s curve balls are often comedies.
However, I’m not that funny. At least, not consistently. I’m only funny about once a month and then sometimes only to myself. I’m only funny when I’m desperate. Come to think of it, that’s most of the time. Maybe I am funny.
2. Deep down, I could still be furious. I could be bitter. I might be a whiner. If I write a memoir, is all that going to bubble up like lava on the Big Island? Am I going to discover that I really don’t like myself? Am I going to see my own flaws as I’ve never seen them before? Is that a good thing?
Know thyself. Do I want to?
3. Am I going to be tempted to justify? Basically, I feel misunderstood. (Don’t we all?) Can I tell my story without the need to explain myself?
4. Will I have to moralize? Draw some kind of conclusion? Find some “message”? That sounds like me, always needing to “teach”. Can I write a book that admits I don’t have a clue about anything? Is that a good idea when readers are reading to find meaning?
5. What if I write this thing to find “meaning” and discover that I can’t see any? What if, honestly, I can’t say everything happened for a reason? Or maybe it did, but the reason was that I made stupid choices.
6. Is this thing going to plunge me into depression and mental illness? Am I going to unpack baggage that is better left locked up in the attic? Will I be opening Pandora’s box?
7. Will I lose one or both of my two friends? When they see who I really am, will they be appalled?
8. Will I sound like a cliché? Woman of a certain age, runs off to Italy after the most ridiculous divorce in history. Tuscany, even. Does the world need yet another story about finding a new life in Tuscany? Isn’t that like asking: does the world need another hairball?
As I plan the Memoir Summit that the Village Writing School is hosting on October 10, I’m looking at popular memoir authors I’d like to interview, and you can bet these questions will be on my mind.
What about you? What’s the biggest challenge you would face if you decided to tell your story?
Do we actually have the courage to
Find our stories . . . and ourselves?
–Alison
Toxic feedback. We have all suffered from it. Everyone has that friend or relative who undercuts you under the guise of “helping” you. I once had a roommate who critiqued my cooking. One day, the pecans in the pancakes were too close together. And sometimes, the food was too . . . warm.
Toxic feedback comes from people who feel that they must say something. Writers’ groups are Petri dishes for toxic feedback.
Toxic feedback withers our souls.
This is a story of toxic feedback and the consequence that spans centuries.
A picture I took this week of the Florence cathedral.
Florence’s cathedral was begun in 1296. Due to delays caused by interruptions like the Black Death, that killed over half Florence’s population, the work stretched on for centuries. By 1418, the cathedral was finished except for the dome.
In what had to be a leap of faith as large as the cathedral, the architect had designed a dome so big, no one knew how to build it. An octagonal dome higher and wider than any that had ever been built, with no external buttresses to keep it from spreading and falling under its own weight.
Because they didn’t want those ugly gothic buttresses sticking out like skeletal ribs. This was the Renaissance.
Not only were buttresses considered ugly and old-fashioned, but Florence’s enemies to the north favored that style.
Finally, a guy named Brunelleschi figured out how to build it, and so it’s world famous as Brunelleschi’s Dome. It was the first octagonal dome in history to be built without a temporary wooden frame (there was not enough timber in Tuscany to build the supports and scaffolding). It is one of the most impressive projects of the Renaissance.
But this story is not about Brunelleschi. It’s about an artist named Baccio D’Agnolo.
Sensitive guy. Too sensitive.
Baccio was commissioned to create a line of decoration just below the roof. He chose white marble to contrast with the red tiles. He created an ornamental design of columns and arches. He worked on it for nine years, and in that time, he completed one of the eight sides.
Then he made his big mistake. He decided he wanted feedback. He halted the work and asked the Florentines what they thought. And Michelangelo said, “It looks like a cage for crickets.”
Baccio was so heartbroken, he abandoned the work and it remains unfinished today.
Here you can clearly see the lovely completed side and the other sadly unfinished sides. A lasting monument to toxic feedback.
Was Michelangelo being a jerk? Or were they friends and he was just teasing? Either way, the result was the same. Millions and millions of people would have seen and appreciated Baccio’s design over the centuries. But he let one man shut him down.
So many writers have told me that they hired an editor who ripped up their manuscript, so they stopped writing. Or that so many rejection letters from agents convinced them that they weren’t any good. Or how a friend, a spouse, a mom made an offhand comment (remember, perhaps Michelangelo was teasing), but the writer was so hurt, he packed up his work and stuck it in the closet.
Speaking of toxic, how about all those people who make themselves feel smart by writing a nasty book review on the internet?
And, most tragically, we give ourselves toxic feedback. I’ve talked to several writers who burned everything they ever wrote in a fit of self-doubt. So:
- Don’t be a source of toxic feedback.
- Don’t seek random validation, as Baccio did. That’s asking for toxic feedback.
- Be very careful what you say to yourself.
- But, get a thicker skin.
Has someone given you toxic feedback that really stung, that you remember until now, that changed your direction?
From now on, whenever anyone gives you toxic feedback on your writing, your drawing, your meal: Remember Baccio.
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
–Alison
There are stories and history all around us. We know this, of course, but do we appreciate the significance of it and what those stories can accomplish? Like little wildflowers, one seems pretty insignificant. But taken together, a whole field of them can modify a landscape.
This is Bruno Signorini. Every afternoon, his daughter pushes Bruno’s wheelchair down the street so he can sit with a group of older people who congregate to visit and watch the tourists.
Bruno in his usual afternoon spot. Like a number of the residents of Certaldo Alto, he lives in the house he was born in. His daughter lives near as does his grandson, my electrician.
Bruno doesn’t talk much. But he has a very expressive face and gentle, big brown eyes. He’s always wearing an immaculate shirt, often in a gingham print, the white checks so bright they glow. If you ask him how he is, he always answers, “Contento.” I am content.
But one day, Bruno began to talk. I’m not sure how it all started, but he was talking to me in Italian. His daughter began to translate. Bruno was telling me about being drafted into the Italian army during WWII, when he was eighteen years old. Two years later, when Italy broke away from the Nazis, Bruno was among the 710,000 Italian military POWs transported as forced labor to Germany. That’s a statistic. An old one at that. It conveys almost nothing to us. Tomorrow, Bruno promised me, he would bring things to show me.
A lot of pictures like this in picture boxes around the world. I think Bruno is the one on the back left with the ink dot on his chest.
I made sure I didn’t miss that appointment. Sure enough, Bruno had a little plastic bag. Out came a metal dog tag on a twine cord. Stalag III A. Here was his identification card issued by the POW camp consisting of a metal-framed picture of him as a young man. Here was an official passport-type document, a swastika on the front, showing to which camp he was assigned, with pages for them to note if they moved him. There were a few pictures from before he was interred, pictures of him with his Italian mates. They could have been young American soldiers but for the uniforms.
Bruno’s dog tag
There were a few letters back and forth between Bruno and his mother. She was allowed to send two packages each year. He thanked her for the food, but reminded her that it had to travel a long way and that many things wouldn’t keep, so she shouldn’t send fruit. But the figs made it, and they were delicious. He asked her to send flour and yellow flour (corn meal) because they were eating nothing but greens.
Bruno’s mother saved his letters as he did hers and now they are united in his plastic bag along with the other articles from a long-gone past. But I think Bruno’s suffering softened him into a kind soul. The look in his eyes now is nothing like the one on the face of the young Italian soldier. Bruno appreciates life and is “contento” to sit in the sun with his friends and be allowed an occasional gelato by his attentive daughter.
Letters to Mom, the I.D. card, and the inside of the identity document.
Stories like Bruno’s are all around us all over the world, and their value cannot be overestimated. Not only do they connect us across continents to those who at one time were considered the “enemy,” but just as importantly, they connect us across generations.
I believe younger generations are starved for living history like Bruno’s. I believe they long for real heroes who embody courage, justice, and that almost-forgotten word, honor. Some of my greatest memories are of sitting with my great-grandmother, who could remember her grandmother, a Civil War widow.
How the Nazis kept up with their vast number of prisoners.
But it’s not just older people who have stories to share. We all do. Even your ten-year-old granddaughter has stories. So many children are never really listened to. What they are saying between the lines is never really heard. It’s the same with all of us. Brandon Stanton, creator of Humans of New York, says that for most people, to have someone wiling to really listen to you for an hour and a half is very rare.
I challenge you to really listen to one other person this week and jot down a story they tell you. With their permission, you can share it in some way. Or maybe it will only be between the two of you. But think about how the tiny threads of that story, like little wildflower roots, reach into your heart. Like Bruno’s letters to his mom about flour. Like his “contento” reply.
Stories lift us, connect us, remind us of our fragile lives, intertwined like a field of wildflowers. Stories remind us that none of us are “ordinary,” that all of us carry a burden, that each of us is unique.
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
–Alison
There are so many reasons. Let’s look at a few.
You’ve overcome a traumatic experience.
You’ve made peace with a difficult relationship. (Mom memoirs are very big.)
You’ve dealt with a health or life-threatening issue.
You’ve had an amazing pet. (Seriously. We love to celebrate our incredible animals.)
You’ve done something exciting, dangerous, exotic in your life.
You’ve rebooted your life and begun again. And maybe again and again.
You’ve overcome addiction.
You’ve had an enlightening spiritual experience.
You’ve traveled or lived in an interesting place.
You’ve taken care of a special child or other relative.
Ok, I’m stopping there because ten is a round number, but there are plenty more.
Now, why should anyone give two cents for your story? Here’s why.
They’ve also had a traumatic experience and are looking for ways to heal.
They also have a difficult relationship.
They also have/have had a health issue—it doesn’t have to be the same one as yours.
People love pets.
We love to read about exciting adventures from our safe recliners.
We dream of beginning again.
A lot of us have an addiction.
A lot of us long for spiritual enlightenment.
A lot of us dream of traveling or living in an interesting place, or we just like to read about them from our recliners.
A lot of us are caregivers.
Those who know me know this is my passion: the power of the individual story—yours, mine. The Village Writing School is build on this foundational tenet: your story matters. We want to help you learn to tell it in the most readable, publishable way.
My own stories are historical novels in which some important theme plays out in the life of a fictional character. I always said that I had no interest in writing a memoir of my own. I don’t want to slog through all that again. Once was enough.
But now I’m changing my mind. Now I AM considering writing a memoir after so many friends suggested I do it.
I remember all the great memoir instructors who have taught for the VWS over the last five years. I always listened carefully so that I could help my students find their arc, their inciting incident, their theme, etc. Now here I am, facing all that for myself, and I feel like a kid on the first day of school. Excited but wary.
I bet I’m not the only one.
Eighty percent of Americans say they have a story to tell, and the majority of those stories are personal stories. Since this newsletter goes primarily to readers and writers, the figure for you all is probably even higher.
We read to experience other lives, and when those other lives have points that intersect with our own lives or dreams, then we are hooked. Find what is important to you that also strikes a universal chord. Then, all you have to do is tell a good story.
But, how do we begin? Well, I’m not supposed to announce this yet, so I’m not. (Hint: it’s in October.) But the Village Writing School is going to help those of us who want to tell our personal stories and don’t know exactly where to start. And that includes me.
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
Alison
P.S. Which items in the first list above would you write about if you were going to write about your life?
