What is your story?
We all have a story to tell. Many of us are in a complex range of either thinking very highly of ourselves, or feeling like we should tell our story truly don't know how, or that we have no voice worth hearing. Or having a unique combination of all those and more.
I'm reading a book by Nuala O'Faolain, and I'm on page 37 and still not sure if I would recommend the book. But it's called "Are You Somebody?", and I was drawn in by the introduction. It was a book sitting in a stack of books that guests have left here, and I just randomly picked it up yesterday.
Everyone's story starts like her introduction that says "I was born in a Dublin that was...." I guess it helps, because she went on to explain the way things worked for women in general, and her part of the world in general. How do you describe yourself, without touching on how your parents were? I mean, who would I be without the specific influence (or lack of influence) of my parents? I would most certainly be someone different. The only religion taught to me was the religion of being a decent human being. You don't lie, cheat, steal, cuss, you treat people right. You treat critters and items with respect. I knew I was someone special, I knew I was loved, and I knew I should treat other people the same way. Thanks to my mother Angel. My Dad's influence? Well, that's not as straightforward. Basically Knud showed me that he didn't really care. Such is life. I'm sure he had his reasons. I spent my life telling myself that he cared much more deeply than he could show. It's worked for me so far. But that's not my point.
Where does YOUR story start? I love hearing how people's stories started. This book doesn't say what year Nuala was born, not in the intro, which counts, the year as much as the place. It sounds like maybe the 1940's. My book is this blog. I should have started it out by saying I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in the summer of 1970. In the same hospital by the ocean that my mother was born in. Nuala's intro is worth repeating: "I was born in a Dublin that was much more like something from an earlier centure than like the present day. I was one of nine children, when nine was not even thought of as a big family, among the teeming, penniless, anonymous Irish of the day. I was typical: a nobody, who came of an unrecorded line of nobodies. It was a conservative Catholic country, and I could expect difficulty in getting through my life as a girl and woman. But at least - it would have been assumed - I wouldn't have the burden of having to earn a good wage. Eventually some man would marry me and keep me.
But there are no typical people. And places don't stay the same. The world changed around Ireland, and in it. I was enclosed within the experience of my own life. Most of the time I just went blindly from day to day, and felt like I was barely hanging on. I never stood back and looked at myself and what I was doing. I didn't value myself enough, take myself seriously enough - to reflect even privately on whether my existence had any pattern, any meaning. I took it for granted that like most of the billions of people who are born and die on this planet I was just an accident. There was no reason for me.
Yet my life burned inside me. Even such as it was, it was the only record of me, and it was my only creation, and something in me would not accept that it was insignificant. Something in me must have been waiting to stand up and demand to be counted. Because eventually, when I was presented with and opportunity to talk about myself, I grasped at it. I'm on my own anyway, I thought. What have I to lose? But I needed to speak, too. I needed to howl.
Eventually I became an opinion columnist. My readers probably thought I was as confident as all that the time, but I knew the truth. My private life was solitary. My private voice was apologetic. I possessed nothing of what has traditionally mattered to women and what had mattered to me most of my life. I had no love, no child. It seemed to me that I had nothing to look back on by failure.
Then I had the chance to have my story written. How would I introduce myself? I was a form of famous, I had done some TV show appearances and had my picture with my column for 10 years. Sometimes a person will turn back and come right up to me and scrutinize my face. "Are you somebody?" they ask.. Well - am I somebody? I'm not anybody in terms of the world, but then, who decides what a somebody is? How is a somebody made? I've never done anything remarkable; neither have most people. Yet most people, like me, feel remarkable. That self-importance welled up inside of me. I had the desire to give an account of my life. I was finished with furtiveness. I sat down to write the introduction, and I summoned my pride. I turned it into a memoir.
I imagined the hostile response I'd get in my little Irish world. "Who does she think she is?" I could hear the reviewers saying. The world my story went out to turned out to be much, much bigger than I'd ever thought. And it turned out to be full of people who knew me, who I had never met, who were there to welcome me out of the shadows, and who wanted to throw off the shadows that obscured their own lives, too. My small voice was answered by a rich chorus of voices: my voice, which had once been mute!"
If you have read this far, I invite you to think about, talk about, and maybe even write about your story. I have 2 friends who wrote books about their lives, and I treasure them deeply. Hannah and her daughter Ella showed me the way. I'm grateful to them. I wish I had more than a few pieces of information about my grandparents and great-grandparents. I only really knew and loved Grandma Szpradowski. I sort of knew Grandpa Szpradowski, but he didn't talk about his past or family at all. My Dad's parents didn't even speak English. If the internet is still around, maybe my great grandchildren will have a glimpse of who I am. I was not prepared. Growing up, I absolutely had no idea that I would have 4 children. American children, even. So who knows what the future holds?? Now I claim 9 children, and 11 grandchildren. Will my voice be heard? Because if they know anything about me at all, I want it to be that I love them as much as I can in any way that I can. I'm beyond thankful for them, and how they enrich my life. And when they are asked: Are you somebody? They can say, Yes! I'm somebody who is loved and valued by Suzette/Mom/Grandma.
I'm reading a book by Nuala O'Faolain, and I'm on page 37 and still not sure if I would recommend the book. But it's called "Are You Somebody?", and I was drawn in by the introduction. It was a book sitting in a stack of books that guests have left here, and I just randomly picked it up yesterday.
Everyone's story starts like her introduction that says "I was born in a Dublin that was...." I guess it helps, because she went on to explain the way things worked for women in general, and her part of the world in general. How do you describe yourself, without touching on how your parents were? I mean, who would I be without the specific influence (or lack of influence) of my parents? I would most certainly be someone different. The only religion taught to me was the religion of being a decent human being. You don't lie, cheat, steal, cuss, you treat people right. You treat critters and items with respect. I knew I was someone special, I knew I was loved, and I knew I should treat other people the same way. Thanks to my mother Angel. My Dad's influence? Well, that's not as straightforward. Basically Knud showed me that he didn't really care. Such is life. I'm sure he had his reasons. I spent my life telling myself that he cared much more deeply than he could show. It's worked for me so far. But that's not my point.
Where does YOUR story start? I love hearing how people's stories started. This book doesn't say what year Nuala was born, not in the intro, which counts, the year as much as the place. It sounds like maybe the 1940's. My book is this blog. I should have started it out by saying I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in the summer of 1970. In the same hospital by the ocean that my mother was born in. Nuala's intro is worth repeating: "I was born in a Dublin that was much more like something from an earlier centure than like the present day. I was one of nine children, when nine was not even thought of as a big family, among the teeming, penniless, anonymous Irish of the day. I was typical: a nobody, who came of an unrecorded line of nobodies. It was a conservative Catholic country, and I could expect difficulty in getting through my life as a girl and woman. But at least - it would have been assumed - I wouldn't have the burden of having to earn a good wage. Eventually some man would marry me and keep me.
But there are no typical people. And places don't stay the same. The world changed around Ireland, and in it. I was enclosed within the experience of my own life. Most of the time I just went blindly from day to day, and felt like I was barely hanging on. I never stood back and looked at myself and what I was doing. I didn't value myself enough, take myself seriously enough - to reflect even privately on whether my existence had any pattern, any meaning. I took it for granted that like most of the billions of people who are born and die on this planet I was just an accident. There was no reason for me.
Yet my life burned inside me. Even such as it was, it was the only record of me, and it was my only creation, and something in me would not accept that it was insignificant. Something in me must have been waiting to stand up and demand to be counted. Because eventually, when I was presented with and opportunity to talk about myself, I grasped at it. I'm on my own anyway, I thought. What have I to lose? But I needed to speak, too. I needed to howl.
Eventually I became an opinion columnist. My readers probably thought I was as confident as all that the time, but I knew the truth. My private life was solitary. My private voice was apologetic. I possessed nothing of what has traditionally mattered to women and what had mattered to me most of my life. I had no love, no child. It seemed to me that I had nothing to look back on by failure.
Then I had the chance to have my story written. How would I introduce myself? I was a form of famous, I had done some TV show appearances and had my picture with my column for 10 years. Sometimes a person will turn back and come right up to me and scrutinize my face. "Are you somebody?" they ask.. Well - am I somebody? I'm not anybody in terms of the world, but then, who decides what a somebody is? How is a somebody made? I've never done anything remarkable; neither have most people. Yet most people, like me, feel remarkable. That self-importance welled up inside of me. I had the desire to give an account of my life. I was finished with furtiveness. I sat down to write the introduction, and I summoned my pride. I turned it into a memoir.
I imagined the hostile response I'd get in my little Irish world. "Who does she think she is?" I could hear the reviewers saying. The world my story went out to turned out to be much, much bigger than I'd ever thought. And it turned out to be full of people who knew me, who I had never met, who were there to welcome me out of the shadows, and who wanted to throw off the shadows that obscured their own lives, too. My small voice was answered by a rich chorus of voices: my voice, which had once been mute!"
If you have read this far, I invite you to think about, talk about, and maybe even write about your story. I have 2 friends who wrote books about their lives, and I treasure them deeply. Hannah and her daughter Ella showed me the way. I'm grateful to them. I wish I had more than a few pieces of information about my grandparents and great-grandparents. I only really knew and loved Grandma Szpradowski. I sort of knew Grandpa Szpradowski, but he didn't talk about his past or family at all. My Dad's parents didn't even speak English. If the internet is still around, maybe my great grandchildren will have a glimpse of who I am. I was not prepared. Growing up, I absolutely had no idea that I would have 4 children. American children, even. So who knows what the future holds?? Now I claim 9 children, and 11 grandchildren. Will my voice be heard? Because if they know anything about me at all, I want it to be that I love them as much as I can in any way that I can. I'm beyond thankful for them, and how they enrich my life. And when they are asked: Are you somebody? They can say, Yes! I'm somebody who is loved and valued by Suzette/Mom/Grandma.
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