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Remnants

Gretchen Stahlman

Looking in Another Direction

When I first started working on a book-length memoir about four generations of my family, it worried me when I discovered I could no longer picture my Granny and Grandad—the first generation in my story. Growing up, I had spent two weeks every summer with them in Sparta, a small town in southern Illinois. I could see the breezeway where we read comic books, laying on our bellies on the cool floor like puppies. I remember clearly the tree swing where we grandkids pumped high up to the leaves and tricked each other out of turns. I could smell Granny’s biscuits baking and taste the milk sausage gravy that never seemed to run out.

But I couldn’t picture Granny’s face, although I knew I would recognize her immediately if it were possible to ever see her again. I knew that Grandad’s face was long and angular and I remembered that he was often stern yet occasionally broke out into laughter, but I couldn’t see his face either, not with joy or solemnity, not at all. I looked at photographs, glossy snapshots, and while I understood that these were how the camera captured Granny and Grandad, it wasn’t how I saw them or how I remembered them best. I anguished to think that the faces of those who figured so prominently in my life, and in my writing, had vanished so easily.

Despite my impaired vision, I began to write the story of our lives. I thought if I could write about our circumstances, the places we’ve lived, our work, the extraordinary ordinariness of our quiet lives, I could disguise the fact I couldn’t see my grandparents’ faces. I listened to the stories my father and uncle told me about their lives and those of Granny and Grandad, events that occurred in the half century before my life began. I turned these stories into my own, using my words and perspective to detail and color them. I commingled stories of the fourth generation—my two sons, finding the similarities and differences. And I used stories from my own life as a bridge between the first and fourth generations who never met.

As I worked through this process, an amazing thing happened. I was writing about early morning, sitting bleary-eyed at the kitchen table in Sparta, about a basket of warm, tanned biscuits in front of me, and about splitting a biscuit onto my plate. From the stove where the milk sausage gravy bubbled endlessly, Granny appeared to ladle gravy onto my open biscuit. She was wearing her floured apron and her hair was silver with gentle, permanent waves. One hand held my plate and I saw her hands covered in a web of wrinkles, as mine are, and on her finger, her ring that I now wear. She poured the gravy across the biscuit, leaving no crumb uncoated. As she handed the plate back to me, her face came into view—the abundant laugh lines, her quick smile, blue eyes that blazed into crescents as she told me, “You have all you like, sugar.” I could see it all, every detail, a close-up better than any flat photograph. I saw her with the clarity of a young, summer Sparta day.

Sometimes I find that it’s when I look away that I can see the most clearly.

There are times in my writing, whether working on the memoir or on the technical instructions that I write for clients, that I get stuck and can’t see my way forward. I’m a strict taskmaster and so I order myself to Focus! Work harder! Shoulder to the wheel! Nose to the grindstone! But these admonitions are rarely fruitful. What I find most helpful is to do the opposite of what I should. I ignore my orders and write a short story or a scene in a play or a bawdy limerick. I tune out the taskmaster’s accusations that it’s a waste of time, that I’m really just a terrible procrastinator and will never get anything accomplished, and I let myself drift into another place and time and play with the emerging words to create what dares to come forth.

When I return to my work, I feel better, more relaxed, and I often know what to do where I didn’t before. I find I accomplish more by looking in another direction, by not facing the task head-on. Not procrastination but diversion can be the most productive way.

Besides, sometimes when you take time out for biscuits and gravy, you’re served what you’re truly hungry for.

About the Author
Gretchen Stahlman is the owner of The Write Angle, purveyors of fine technical prose since 1987. Visit her Web site at www.WriteAngleOnline.com or e-mail her at Gretchen@WriteAngleOnline.com.

© 2004 Gretchen Stahlman
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