Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir

I don't want to say too much so as to save some questions for the discussion on Wednesday, but this book really challenged me. Even though we are told, from the very beginning, that this book is a metaphor, that we can't take it literally, I found myself believing everything Lauren Slater wrote. I took her experiences for what she said they were, got invested in her illness and her family and her identity. I think in the back of my mind I was trying to remember not to take it all at face value, but I had a hard time. Slater writes in such a lyric, convincing way. Until those moments when she would step out of the narrative and remind me that she might not be telling the truth, I was completely fooled.

Fooled is probably the wrong word, because she wasn't trying to "fool" anyone. But I did start to feel foolish for getting so involved and so invested. About halfway through the book I gave up trying to figure out what was "fact" and what was "fiction" and just got frustrated. What's the point of a memoir that doesn't tell you anything about the author? It's like the picture on the front cover. The woman is exposing herself but not revealing anything--or maybe showing us that there's nothing to reveal.

However, by the end of the book, my opinion had changed. I still wonder about writing a memoir in this way, but I think that this book did tell me a lot about the author, and especially about how she perceives herself. Identity is a slippery thing, and I was interested by her statement right towards the beginning that "what you wish is every bit as real as what you are." (pg. 5) I think it's true--we are made of our wishes and perceptions and masks and desires and experiences. What we wish were true is a very big part of who (or what) we are. And the way we see truth, the way truth is seen by us, is individual and revealing and defining as well.

Meet the family, part 2

My sister Rachel is two and a half years younger than me, and I think that might be the source of all tensions in our relationship. When she was born, as my parents have told me, I wouldn't go see my mom and new sister at the hospital. I was that angry that my mom had had another child that was taking the attention away from me. Maybe if I had been a little younger or a little older, I wouldn't have minded so much. As it was, I was used to being the only child, the star, the center of the whole world. A younger sister meant competition for love and time and attention. And so, I hated her.

That might be too strong of a word. I don't ever remember hating her or resenting her presence in our family, but I can't speak for my almost three-year-old self. My mom says that once she could hear Rachel crying and some kind of thumping sound, and when she went into the bedroom to find out what was going on, she found me rocking the wooden cradle against the wall as hard as I could, "trying to rock the baby." Whether or not I "hated" her and regardless of how long it did or didn't last, I think it's certain that Rachel and I had a rocky (no pun intended) start.

I've sometimes wondered what that must have been like for her. It couldn't have been easy to have me as an older sister. It couldn't have been pleasant to have a sister who was a bossy know-it-all, perpetually two-and-a-half years older and therefore more adept at everything. Constantly making her feel inferior. Taking the attention and talking the loudest. It couldn't have been encouraging to have a sister who was constantly achieving and succeeding, taking charge of games and playtime, asserting her authority. I must have made life a little bit harder for her without really meaning to.

Even once I wanted to be friends and get along with Rachel, the damage had been done. We could play together and make up games and stories peaceably, but it didn't take much for us to disagree and scream and hit, the game ending in tears for at least one of us. I don't get angry easily, especially as I've gotten older, but Rachel is the one person who can push my buttons enough for me to actually yell and need to hit something (I learned to hit my pillow instead of her). In my memory, she was hard to get along with when we were growing up, but now I can't blame her for trying to challenge the authority I assumed I had and trying to get some attention too. I don't think it was all my fault, but I'm sure that to a younger sister, I was simply insufferable.

In trying to put myself into her shoes, I am realizing that it must have been so hard to have an older sister that she probably looked up to not want to spend time with her. That is still the sorest point in our relationship. Try as I might, I know that I don't spend as much time with her as she would like, and I think she resents when I go to parties and movies and dinner with my friends. We are still learning to understand each other and forgive. Why is it the hardest to forgive the people closest to us?

As we got older, we learned to control ourselves and get along, but it was never easy. Our personalities differ in very basic ways. Think Elinor and Marianne from Sense and Sensibility. Elinor is the older, practical, logical, controlled sister; Marianne is the younger, more emotional, dramatic, passionate sister. But in actuality, they also have traits of the other, just as Rachel and I do. I can be wildly emotional and dramatic, and Rachel has a strong logical, organizational side too. The trick is getting us to match up sense with sense and sensibility with sensibility at the same time.

In trying to explain the problems, I am forgetting to include all the good stuff. Rachel and I found common ground in similar interests that we would become obsessed with and share. We went through a Les Miserables phase, Phantom of the Opera, the movie musical Newsies, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Beatles, Josh Groban, The Lord of the Rings. There were many times when one or both of us would be confused or hurting and we turned to each other for comfort and help. In spite of our differences, we were still sisters and we loved each other. I don't think either of us wanted to fight as much as we did. And once I moved out of the house and we had more space, we were able to be better friends, to the point where she was able to come visit me here in Pittsburgh and we both had a wonderful time together.

Rachel is such a beautiful girl, it's a little threatening to me. She has always had a good sense of fashion and style, something that I learned late in my teenage years. She has a way of making a roomful of people laugh that I admire, and a passion for, well, everything that I envy. She is brilliant, currently working on becoming a neurologist. She has one of the most generous and caring hearts I've ever known, always wanting to help others and reach out to those in need. She also has an incredible musical talent that never ceases to amaze me. She succeeds as just about everything she does, and I am so proud of her. I don't know if I tell her that enough.

Sometimes she still rubs me the wrong way, just as I am sure I do the same to her. But we are friends, we are sisters, and I regret all the years we were not.

Tell me everything you know about ice cream.

Ice cream is delicious. Cold, smooth, texture, slip through my teeth and chill the roof of my mouth. Freezing my nose until it hurts. Flavor that slides down my throat and provides a delight that cools and warms and satisfies. Mint and chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, peanut butter, caramel, and chocolate syrup, chocolate sauce, chocolate shell, mixing and swirling and melting and cooling. Ice cream "hits the spot," an undefined place somewhere between my stomach and my heart, warm and savory and homey. Hand to mouth, bowl to spoon to tongue, scoop it up and around and down, and then again. Feel it, taste it, smell the cold radiating from the gooey mess. Carve through the rounded cream, the icy flakes. Find in their crystals solace, comfort, reassurance that it will be okay, that it is okay, that the ice cream will see you through, chill the pain, dull the ache, a cold compress to the wound that life, that friends, that a boy has disappointed you.

My friend Kellianne worked at Coldstone during high school. On afternoons when we knew she would be there, Natalie and I (and sometimes Manda and Shelly) would drive down to the store and get two "Gotta Have It"- sized bowls of Coldstone Creamery Ice Cream. I don't know why Coldstone tastes so good. The texture is creamy and smooth, and the consistency is thicker than regular grocery store ice cream. We always ordered minor variations on the same two kinds of ice cream. The first, Sweet Cream or Irish Cream with a brownie and caramel sauce. If we were feeling extra decadent, we would add chocolate fudge for another $.49. The second was a sorbet, usually Raspberry or Lemon, with real fruit in it, strawberries or raspberries. The lighter fruit balanced out the richness of the brownie/caramel/cream goodness. Kellianne was always happy to see us and we were more than happy to see her, especially because she usually gave us extra toppings "on accident."

I had a roommate named JaNae my freshman year of college who got a job at Coldstone, but she didn't give us extra toppings. That was okay, though. Going to see her was an excellent reason for going frequently. Natalie and I were roommates, and we still got those same two kinds of ice cream. Sometimes we'd try a new flavor of ice cream or a new combination of ice cream and toppings, but most often, we chose our standard favorites. When I broke up with Scott that first semester, I went to see her at Coldstone the next day to get my own "Gotta Have It" bowl. It was a consolation prize, a "I did something hard and now I get to reward myself" bowl of ice cream. I wasn't really wallowing at that point. I got the Raspberry Sorbet with raspberries added in. I ate some of it then, but it wasn't until later that night, after I had gone to a dance and realized that I was alone, realized that I was hurt and sad and angry, that I finished the whole bowl. By myself. I curled up on our ugly student housing couch in my pajamas, bowl in one hand and spoon in the other and cried as I watched Hillary Duff's "A Cinderella Story." It was a pathetic moment, but the ice cream was my only witness. It was there for me, soothing my tears and fears and not judging me.

Tell me about a clock you've looked a lot.

When I was six, my parents gave me an alarm clock for Christmas so I could wake myself up every morning to watch Power Rangers. It was a digital clock that had an alarm that could be set to the radio, a buzzer,or several different "melodies." Every night, I set the alarm for 6:55 am (giving me five minutes to wake up and get to the television) and set it on Melody 1. And every morning, it woke me up by playing a very electronic beeping version of "It's a Small World After All." I can still hear those first few notes, feel the rush of being startled awake, and the intense dislike of that sound. It became very annoying very quickly.

The other melodies were much shorter, thereby giving me less time to get up and turn the alarm off (somehow it was always across the room, never next to my bed), so I never used them. One was "Yankee Doodle" I think, and the other...I can hear it, but I can't think if it's a real song or not.....nope, no title comes to mind. Sometimes I'd accidentally hit the "Melody" button instead of "Snooze" and I'd have to run through all the songs before I could shut it off. The way it worked, the alarm for the next morning would start wherever I had left off on the day before. So if I turned it off in the middle of the song, it would start playing from there the next morning. For whatever strange electrical reason, occasionally the song played really really fast, and on others it played extremely slow. The slow mornings were agonizing, because in my silly almost-OCD way, I had to let the whole song play out so it would start at the beginning the next morning.

That clock lasted me a very long time. In fact, I do believe I took it to college with me, at least for the first year or two. I eventually switched from the melody over to the radio when I was in high school and decided I had was old enough to not wake up to "It's a Small World After All." I remember looking at the bright red numbers as I tried to fall asleep, watching them change when I blinked. I would sometimes play a game and mentally rearrange the individual segments of the numbers into different times. The blurry red glow was always there when I slept, always there when I awoke.

Meet the family, part 1

My brother Ethan just turned 18 last month. He's the only boy in my family, and sometimes he is a mystery to me. I am never completely sure if he's being lazy, efficient, or just smart. He can't seem to do much for himself. He always asks for other people to fix him meals, help him with homework, do his dishes. But the thing is, at least half the time, someone always does. Maybe that is more a reflection of our perception of him as the baby of the family. Regardless, he sometimes seems pretty much helpless, but only because he chooses to be.

Ethan also obsesses about the strangest things. Lately it's been Sea Island Cotton (a step up in price and quality from Egyptian cotton, which was his previous obsession) and Bugatti cars (which are fast and cool, or something). Sometimes it's a comedian, a cause, an extreme sports athlete, a TV show, a spider monkey, or any combination of those things. Whatever it is, I always get to hear all about it.

Ethan is an absolute sweetheart. He hates conflict of almost any kind (lacrosse excepted), and will be the first one in our family to say, "Alright now, let's just get along children." He gives hugs (even though he often will try to crush your ribs to show off his muscles in the process), he lets me know that he misses me, and he takes great pleasure in getting really thoughtful gifts for people. I remember once when he was about 8, I had had some teeth pulled and I was miserably sipping juice on the couch. He came over to the couch and said, very solemnly, "I'm sorry you're sick, I hope you feel better soon" and gave me a hug. I was amazed that an annoying little brother could suddenly be so sweet.

Ethan is also exceptionally cool. He plays lacrosse year round, and he is actually really good. He plays on the defense, so he has a eight-foot lacrosse stick that he skillfully uses to knock other players down. He likes to grow his hair out, and for a while he even had a little Jedi braid behind his right ear. He hair was as blonde as mine is for a long time, but now it's a darker blonde that looks really good with his tan skin. He wants to work as a wildfire firefighter this summer. He also plays the cello, so he's got some culture and class. Granted, he likes to play Apocalyptica as well as Bach, but still.

Amazingly, Ethan is also one of the most mature 18 year olds that I know. He had a girlfriend for about a year, but they decided to just be friends and date other people because they both realized they shouldn't limit themselves and they might not go to the same college and it would be a lot harder to break up later. But--get this--they really are just friends now! I think they probably still like each other, but they are making it work. I don't know of anyone else who has ever made that situation work happily.

Despite all this, Ethan occasionally still mystifies me. A typical phone conversation (and I'm not exaggerating) goes like this:
Me: Hey buddy, how are you?
Ethan: Good.
Me: Good, good. How's school going?
Ethan: It's good.
Me: ...Good. Anything new happening these days?
Ethan: Not really.
Me: ......Okay, well, is Mom there?
And that's about it. Sometimes I really pump him and get a little more info out of him, but he doesn't say much. Unless, of course, it's about a spider monkey.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

I thought I'd get a head start on Persepolis and I found myself so engrossed that I finished the whole book. The story was engaging, and although there is tragedy and sadness, there was also a measure of humor and love and the pure perspective of childhood. I think it's really important to the narrative and the structure of the book as a graphic novel that it is told from a child's perspective. That voice came through clearly and allowed us to watch events unfold with her without too much political commentary. It felt honest, and let us see what it was really like to grow up during that time. I loved her obsession with Michael Jackson and jean jackets and Nike. Her concerns were both simple and complex, but we learned about the war and the history and reasons for it along with the narrator.

That being said, I was still confused about what was going on and who was who. I appreciated the introduction by Satrapi but I still occasionally had to review in my head who the Shah was and whether being a revolutionary was a good thing or not. I'm not sure there would have been any way to avoid that, though, since the conflict and problems were so complex.

The choice to make this a graphic novel instead of a text-only memoir was an interesting one, but I think it was the right choice. The accompanying illustrations gave us a visual representation that softened the horrors of the story but still deepened our understanding of what it all looked like. I especially appreciated the different depictions of the veil the women had to wear. I would have had a very different picture in my mind if I had read it without being able to see it. I have read one other graphic novel and it also dealt with horrific events (MAUS by Art Spiegelman about his Jewish father's experience in Auschwitz during WWII), and to me it feels like the black and white drawings highlight the starkness of the story and both emphasize and undercut the feeling that life is black-and-white, easy to figure out. However, I think that it does leave the story somewhat on the surface. There wasn't a lot of room or opportunity for in depth reflection from the narrator. I don't think this was necessarily a weakness of the book, but I did wish for a deeper understanding of the narrator and her experiences.

I think the real power of this book is that it is the story of just one girl in Iran during the revolution, but her experience reflects the national experience of that time. We get to see the conflict between religion and politics, family strife, inequality of the social classes, the phycial danger of the war, loss of friends and loved ones (for various reasons), and the finality of saying goodbye. It covers a wide range of topics, but they are all worked into this one girl's experience in a way that gives them more meaning. This is reflected in the title, "Persepolis." I realized I had no idea what that was or meant, so I looked it up. It's the name given to the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire, and its ruins are considered some of the wonders of the world. It connects this memoir to both the majesty and final crumbling of the Persian Empire, which is encapsulated in the story.

I am glad there is a second volume, because I felt like this book ends very abruptly. Granted, it is subtitled "The Story of a Childhood" and I think that it's clear the girl has left childhood by the end. But it's good to know that there is more, that this isn't the end of the story.

How to speak "Mormon"

One of the difficulties I keep running into when writing about my religion is the language barrier. Mormons have a unique way of talking about our beliefs, a syntax and diction that would be unfamiliar to just about anyone else. Or else it is familiar but has a slightly different connotation from the way it is usually used. Language is so key to understanding, so central to the way people think and express and explain. It's hard to know how to talk about something when the words come short of communicating what you're trying to say.

For example, as in other religions, we have prophets, apostles, bishops, deacons, teachers, priests, missionaries, saints, churches, temples, and scriptures. But each of these things means something very specific to us, with its own set of associations and implied meanings. For example, a bishop is at the head of each ward, and he's just an ordinary member called to serve as a leader. It's an unpaid position, all on his own time. The bishop doesn't speak or preach in church every Sunday (though he could), but he directs the church meetings and has stewardship over all the members of the ward and looks out for their spiritual and temporal needs.

We also have a lot of phrases that probably just sound weird, though they are all regular English words. Things like new member, recent convert, sustained to a calling, set apart, giving a blessing, paying tithing, and partaking of the sacrament.

In addition to these familiar words, we have a whole set of things that just don't make sense: wards, stakes, Relief Society, Primary, Beehive/Mia Maid/Laurel classes, General Conference, home teaching/visiting teaching, the Book of Mormon. We don't think twice about using any of these terms, because they are so ingrained in the way we talk about our religion.

We love acronyms, too. Some are easily understandable, such as SLC for Salt Lake City or BYU for Brigham Young University. Some even make sense when you know that BoM stands for the Book of Mormon and MTC stands for Missionary Training Center. But the list keeps going: FHE, YSA, BYC, PEC, PPI, YW/YM.

The thing is, we know how bizarre some of this sounds to people unfamiliar with it. And we think it's funny, because we know what it all means, we get the double meanings. One of my favorite jokes to tell other Mormons (though I originally heard it as a true story, but I seriously doubt it's true, so I just tell it as a joke) goes something like this: A psychiatrist moves to Salt Lake and sets up a practice. A woman comes in to see him. She seems very distressed, and he quickly sits her down to talk to her. "What seems to be the problem?" he asks. "I just don't know what to do," the woman says, wringing her hands. "It's the Sunbeams. They just won't stop talking."

That's all I have to say for Mormons to start laughing, or to at least smile in recognition of where thie joke is headed. Sunbeams are what we call the group of kids in the youngest class in Primary, which is like Sunday School for children under the age of twelve. The Sunbeam class takes the kids who are 3 or 4 years old. The joke continues, with the psychiatrist thinking the woman is totally cracked and talking to sunbeams, and the woman trying not to stress about how she's going to get the Sunbeams to stop talking to her. We especially find it funny because if you've ever tried to teach the Sunbeam class, you know how short their attention spans are and how quickly they can drive you crazy. It's a very language/culture specific joke, and a silly example of the kind of translation I don't know how to do.

That's what I feel like sometimes: a translator. I'm trying to take words and concepts that flow so easily in one situation and shape them to make sense in another. But like any translation, so much of the meaning and poetry of the original feels lost to me. Maybe it's just a matter of practicing more, or a matter of just writing anyway and letting you all tell me what isn't translating coherently. I don't know. But I'm going to try.

Three minutes on each of these topics:

1. A lunch you loved

When I was in first grade, I had a red plastic lunchbox that had a picture of Snoopy and his doghouse on the front. It also said "Peanuts," and I didn't know that word but I recognized that there was an "s" on the end, so I told the other kids that it said "Snoopy" backwards. I took it to school everyday with the lunches my mom made for me. A sandwich, maybe some chips or a granola bar. On a really good day there would be some pudding too. Sometimes she put a note in my lunch as well, just a "Have a good day! I love you!" Once she was feeling silly and wrote "Eye love ewe" and drew little pictures of an eye and a sheep. I didn't know what a ewe was, so I had to ask her later. She made my lunches most days for all of elementary school.

2. A memory of a Popsicle

I loved those Popsicles that came in big bags, one with the orange, blue, and purples, the other with red, brown, and yellows. My favorites were the brown because they were root beer flavored. It seemed like we usually got the other bag of Popsicles, though. I remember one summer afternoon, we had all our neighborhood friends over (Tonya and Tony Holman, Leza and Tony Farmer, my sister Rachel, my brother Ethan) and we had to line up to get our Popsicles from my mom. There weren't too many left, so we were worried we wouldn't get the color we wanted. But I chose to go last in line instead of first. I was conscious of this being a noble thing to do, but I did it because I knew it would look that way. I wanted to seem noble and self-sacrificing and be admired for it.

3. A memory of sunscreen

Sunscreen has always been a part of my life. You can't be so blonde and not be extremely susceptible to burning up in the sun. I mostly remember the times when I was dumb and didn't put on sunscreen. Like the day we were at my grandparents' house in Wyoming and after a day in the pool, I was so fried I got heatstroke and spent the next two days sick in bed. Or the time my family was in California when I was 13 and my sister and I thought it would be fun to not put on sunscreen and then fall asleep at the beach. The backs of our legs were a deep, painful, swollen red the next day and for the rest of the trip. And then I did it again, three days later, at a different beach. I didn't mean to that time, but still. It was really dumb.

4. A memory of a doctor's appointment

The last time I went to the doctor was about a year ago and was because I had skipped a period and my schedule was way off and my mom was worried. I had never had a physical before and never been to a gynecologist, so I was trying to be mature but was really quite nervous. I didn't really have a doctor, so I made the appointment with the family practice part of the local hospital. I made sure to schedule with a woman doctor. Surprisingly, I knew the assistant who showed me to the little room and took my information. Her name was Heidi, and she lived in my neighborhood for a little while when I was growing up. She was a couple of years younger than me, but she already had a kid and was getting married in a few months. We chatted about life for a few minutes, then I just asked her flat out to tell me what was going to happen in this appointment. It felt strange to ask someone who was always younger than me for that kind of information. But I was grateful that she laid it all out: stirrups, pap smear, breast exam. It made me feel so much better to know what to expect. And really, I guess it wasn't all that bad.