What We Don’t Consider When We Write About Family
Being a writer comes with a laundry list of anxieties. Rejection. Revision. Submitting.There are so many ways this amazing craft tests our love. Ask us to have faith in ourselves, in our art, even when it seems like no one else does.
There are a number of“author anxieties” as I call them, that I learned to just accept.
Not everyone is going to like my work.
It might take 20 revisions (or more) before a poem knows what it wants to say.
I am exhausted and will continue to be exhausted. Writing before work. After work.
However, there is still anxiety bigger than the rest.
HOW DO I WRITE ABOUT FAMILY WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY?
The day my book was accepted was both gratifying and terrifying. This is a dream come true, I thought. Immediately followed by, Oh shit, what if my family reads it? Boat Burned, my debut collection, was full of poems about my family and the struggles we went through. Nothing bad, just an honest and sometimes rocky emotional landscape, where I tried to understand myself better. I confronted the things we had all lived with but didn’t really talk about. There were poems about divorce, infidelity, eating disorders, bankruptcy, all our experiences that we never talked about, memories that hung like a dark chandelier over our dinner table. We rarely looked up.
As the final edits were made, and the book was on its way to the printer, I was nauseous, already imagining months of the silent treatment, and awkward holidays. My family had always been accepting but I had to ask myself, what if this time was different?
WHAT IF ONCE THEY READ MY BOOK THEY NEVER FORGIVE ME?
Then came the next thought, if you don’t publish these poems you will never forgive yourself. I knew I had to talk to my family about my fears. Especially my mother.
I can still remember the shock of blue sky, and the clang of the rope against the flag pole, as my mother and I walked through the Benicia Marina on a crisp California day. I had told her I needed to talk about something important.
My voice shook, she could tell I was on the verge of tears. She was so proud of me. And even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I couldn’t shake off the guilt.
“Kelly, what is it?” She asked. “What’s wrong?” her face holding the concern only a mother can.
“I know you’re so excited that my book is coming out, and I am too,” I said. She smiled. “But there are poems in there about our family, that I’m scared you’ll take the wrong way. I’m scared that you will think they are saying something bad, when it’s just my way of processing the past.”
RIGHT THEN MY VOICE BROKE, “I’M SCARED IF YOU READ THESE POEMS, YOU WON'T LOVE ME THE SAME WAY.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Whatever has happened to you, you own",” she said. “However you saw it then or see it now. And that’s part of what makes it special, makes it yours. Besides I’m not the same person I was then, not even the same person as I was last week. Neither are you.”
“So you won’t be mad?” I asked. She laughed and shook her head. “I couldn’t be more proud.”
The next thing she asked of me changed my life. My mom and I were driving the following week to meet my sister and father to see Elton John’s farewell tour in Vegas. It was an 8-hour drive.
“On the drive, I would love it if you would read your book out loud to me, poem by poem, and we could talk about each and why you wrote it. Would that be okay?”
I couldn’t think of anything scarier. Trapped in a car with my mom confronting the wounds that we so seldom spoke about. Every hour before the road trip I thought about accidentally forgetting my manuscript, jamming the printer on purpose, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I showed up with the paper still warm and a binder clip holding together everything that felt naked and raw.
As we wove through small towns, and freeway pines, the stanza and memories ran from my lips like water.
WE LAUGHED AT THE THINGS I HAD GOTTEN WRONG, CRIED AT WHAT I GOT RIGHT.
For the first time, I shared with my mom all the ways I couldn’t love myself. The ugly stories I told myself about why my father left. Shared secrets I had kept hidden since high school. My mother and I traded our small shames, fears, but most importantly understanding, love.
ALL MY LIFE I’VE BEEN AFRAID OF THE WAYS WRITING ABOUT MY FAMILY COULD HURT, BUT I NEVER CONSIDERED THE WAYS IT MIGHT HELP.
That 8-hour car ride, looking at my mother's spearmint eyes, truth spread out before us like an open road, I was so grateful for the poetry and how it pushed us to talk about the hard stuff. We arrived in Vegas different people, we knew each other better, not only as mother and daughter, but as women.
Now every time I’m scared to share a poem on Facebook or read it at an event, I think of all the beautiful conversations or car rides it might offer, how poetry gives us so many new ways to be close. I’m not saying everyone’s mom, dad, sister will react like this. But wouldn’t it be great to find out? Writing is a door, step through it and you find a new version of yourself and the people you love.
KELLY GRACE THOMAS is an ocean-obsessed Aires from Jersey. She is a self-taught poet, as well as an editor and educator. Kelly is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, 2018 finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award and multiple pushcart prize nominee. Her first full-length collection, Boat Burned, released with YesYes Books in January 2020. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Best New Poets 2019, Los Angeles Review, Redivider, Nashville Review, Muzzle, DIAGRAM, and more. Kelly is the Director of Education for Get Lit and the co-author of Words Ignite. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband Omid. Wanna work with Kelly? Learn and more about her upcoming workshops and courses.