6-12-25

Here are the 6, 12 and 25 word memoirs for the semester!

I was small. In a way, I feel like I still am.
After all is said and done, I wonder if I am too.
Have I gotten closure? I would say things are still pretty open-ended.
No, we aren't really a serious couple. We joke all the time.
I was once called a "beautiful young woman" by an LDS apostle.
If words are legs I'm centipede.

I lie a lot, but it's done in love. It's been a long road back, but I think I know who I am now.
I'm loyal to a fault and I like to think that's good.
Must be some kind of way out of here said the joker.
All the world is a stage, and I am Mercutio no more.
I'm defined between Saturday and Sunday.
Everything will be better by morning.
Marbles, lizards, star wars and migraines.
And tomorrow will be even stronger.
Perspective, serendipity, discipline and...it's whatever.
Victory wears a lonely red scarf.
And yet I'm still here, right where the rubber meets the road.
Between the philosophical quandaries on man's perplexities and his existence and purpose of self, I am left with only one serious question: "What's for dinner?"
Head hurts, heart full, still going
I sing for my team and dance for my girl. That's it.
Ever see “that guy?” That's me.
My dad used to say “Sam, don't do drugs. But if you are going to do drugs, don't do meth.” I've lived by that advice.
I have no problem with lying. It's the consequences that get me.
I should probably just shut up
I was once told I look like Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator. Sucks.
I don't know what I'm feeling

"Infidel" Response

For my second memoir, I read Infidel, Ayaan Hirshi Ali's condemnation of faith and lifestyle.

Most memoirs gain their strength through their colorful descriptions of commonalities and common interests with the audience. They create such a strong rapport with their audience that everything becomes acceptable and believable.

What struck me most about Hirshi Ali's work was not her color, nor her rapport. Instead, she captivated me with her unerring, unswerving honesty. This work didn't exist to give color or flair, it wasn't an act of art or artistic license. Instead, this was a confession, a witness' testimony. It was descriptive, it was insightful, and it was honest, but more than anything else, it exists to condemn Islam.

In other works I've seen, an author will be somewhat forgiving of his/her background, will look kindly upon some aspect of it. In Infidel, Hirshi Ali has no such affection:

"Religion gave me a sense of peace only from its assurance of a life after death. It was fairly easy to follow most of the rules: good behavior, politeness, avoiding gossip and pork and usury and alcohol. But I had found that I couldn't follow the deeper rules of Islam that control sexuality and the mind. I didn't want to follow them. I wanted to be someone, to stand on my own.

Islam is submission. You submit on earth in order to earn your place in Heaven (132)."

Ultimately, the primary emotion I felt at Infidel's conclusion was curiosity. I couldn't (and still can't) quite put my finger on exactly why the book was written in the first place. At some points, it seems a rallying point for other ex-Muslims. At others, it seems to be polarizing non-Muslims against the faith. And at still others, it seems to exist to give form to her long-formulating anger. I suppose I understand (on some level) the emotions she's feeling, but I can't quite figure out why she is sharing those emotions so publicly.

This, to me, raises fascinating questions about the overall purpose of memoir. It is difficult to paint memoirists with a broad brush, assuming that they fall into categories of why they wrote, but there must be some common threads between them. Joan Didion wanted to embody her grief, Barack Obama wanted to trace and identify the ghost of his father's heritage, and Hirshi Ali's purpose was...what? To recant her earlier life? To express regret at the state of Islam? To rage against her spiritual, societal and physical captors? The title itself, Infidel, suggests that she is abundantly aware of her own pariah status. But this seems more a badge of pride than a mark of shame.

I don't know the emotion Hirshi Ali would want to convey. I don't know what category such spiritual abandonment falls under. What I do know is that the main emotion I took away from Infidel was a sense of proud infidelity to ones former beliefs. And I suppose, in the long and the short of it, that could have been the point all along.

Love

"I think I'm in love with you."

I blinked.

Love? A few double dates, a basketball game, a box of Goldfish crackers, those were all well and good. But love? I wasn't sure.

We'd held hands, snuggled like so many good Mormons girls want to. We'd even kissed. Not the reckless, feckless high school kisses, but timid, polite kisses. The kinds of kisses that belied uncomfortable romantic history.

But I knew hers and she knew mine. She'd been dating feverishly since she'd been back from her mission, and I'd merely been testing the water since mine.

A week ago, she told me she wanted to "take things slow." But tonight she loved me?

I don't swear. But gosh I really wanted to.

I knew that there was a window in which I needed to respond. Too long in silence and that would be my answer. I wish there had been some kind of violent distraction, but it was just the two of us sitting in my car, quietly idling in her apartment parking lot.

It was cruel, it was cold, but I didn't want our casual relationship to be over. I was having fun. Not love, per se, but I felt like we were in a good place. We laughed a lot, went out to our favorite ice cream parlor, played frisbee with mutual friends, talked about a couples road trip with some old mission companions.

My window had shut. She was looking at me with a slightly concerned affection.

I opened my mouth, still unsure as to what I was going to say. I took her hand. I was trying to buy myself more seconds with body language cues.

"I...think I love you too."

Damn.

"Dreams From My Father" Response

This was a complicated read.

I come from a Democrat family, a house full of liberals. My brother campaigned in Colorado for Obama before the 2012 election. Even my sweet, conservative-ish mother voted for Obama. I'm extremely aware of his speeches, his policies, his campaigning, his staff, the whole business.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't quite separate the voice of the child dealing with racism, acceptance, broken homes, poverty, loneliness and growing up from that voice that speaks about the NSA, foreign policy, and delivers the State of the Union address.

At least at first.

One thing I will say about Dreams From My Father is that it seems consistent. As I read at the beginning, it was a baffling discrepancy to hear that this man, who has become so vocal and defined on so many issues, was so confused by the world growing up. Dreams is certainly a memoir I have a close proximity to, and at first, it really affected my perception of the work. How can a man in charge of United States foreign policy morbidly ask a veteran if killing someone was bloody? How can the first African-American president not understand why black TV characters were never main characters?

As things evolve, however, a better picture of this man starts to appear. As an author, Mr. Obama is guilty of asking outright questions, of none-too-subtly exposing themes and topics. Yet in light of his future and eventual career, it seems almost excusable to spend so much time pondering about whether or not his classroom would accept his Kenyan father.

It almost seems too simplistic, for this "Barry Obama" to wonder and ponder about racism and politics and seizing the day. I was skeptical, too, of the fact that despite the people around him talking like teenagers, but Barry himself remaining somewhat aloof. Maybe he was just that good of a guy, but I feel as though the concessions he does make (such as his descriptions of drugs and alcohol) are calculated to humanize just enough.

That, then, would be my last complaint--that this is a limited-truth memoir. It isn't embarrassing; or if it is, it's just embarrassing enough to be believable. Barry (eventually Barack) is the appropriately fallible youth-turned-adolescent-turned-young man-turned-adult who eventually comes (more or less) to terms with his upbringing. It's not that he disregards his foibles, but instead he downplays them to the point of acceptable growing pains.

His writing style is strong, his memories specific, the characters authentic, and his own observations quiet at first, until culminating into a narrative that reflects his vision of the world and himself. This is not unusual for memoir, but in light of who Barry, then Obamba, then Barack, then Mr. Obama, then Irishman O'Bama, then Professor Obama will become, it seems to have a certain sheen.

It's believable. It's understandable. It's even acceptable. Perhaps my favorite structural device of  Dreams was the way that at the climax of the work, in the final quarter, when Mr. Obama could be at his political preachy best, is where the unpolitical themes of the work come home to roost. As he returns to Kenya, the book is ultimately redeemed as Hawaiian schools and Chicagoan political activism are replaced with African dust and long-lost family members.

To conclude, then, Dreams was imperfect, unrealistically idealistic, with several key details left out, yet charismatic, winning and (as I saw it) inspirational. Exactly as I see its author.

Indiana

Textures.

Salt and warmth of homemade play-dough. Don't eat it, don't eat it. Heavy green mugs. The cold basement floor, the scuffed, damaged plastic on a tricycle wheel.

The narrow wooden stairs. The giant spinning chair. The way everything creaked.

New brother. Me. Sister's Oscar the Grouch piggie bank.

The good.

The collie. Cherry 7up. Easter eggs. Fireflies. Catch them, find them. Fruit Loops for the first time. Mom waits for spring tulips. Pine needles on the Christmas floor. Train sounds. VCR tapes. The zoo. New shoes, Velcro straps.

And the bad.

The plate on my foot, the bee in my ear. Crying, crying. Those wooden figurines on my father's office shelf. Forbidden, forbidden.

Cherry 7up again. The snake. New shoes, soiled. The narrow stairs. Falling, falling. Peter and the Wolf. Tornado sirens. Run and hide, run and hide.

Opa died. Back in a week, Dad said. Back in a week.

The decisions.

Tear the pages of every book. Kiss your brother, show you care. Jump on mom's bed, blow out brother's candles. Shout in the basement, know you're real.

Such joy to decide, to say and to see. The novelty of sensation, the power to do. I didn't know why or how, but I knew I had to because I could.

The words, the finding. Desperate to know, desperate to understand. Spelling out words in church. Whisper, whisper.

Connections. Pass the library to get to sister's school. Shampoo bottle looks like a baby. Chocolate grahams fit in the VCR player.

And me. Always wants, never needs.

Everything was.

But there was so much wrong. Josh was too big. No more brothers and sisters. Mom was sad, but didn't say so. Dad was gone a lot.

I should have seen it. Or maybe I did, but didn't know what to do about it.

In any case, nothing changed. Nothing, nothing.

Normal

I've always flirted between thinking that I was uncommonly special or especially common. 

I'm probably one of them. I don't know what else I could be.

There was a time when I thought I may have been some kind of superhero, beginning to discover that I had mutant powers. Nope. Puberty.

I also assumed that everyone was in constant pain. But then I learned that chronic migraines aren't the norm either. 

My parents helped with the mixed signals. I was told I was great and smart, but only after I had a day in which I felt completely normal, if not substandard.

Some people have insecurities and some people have superiority complexes. I suppose my problem is that I'm insecure about whether I should have a superiority complex.

There always felt like there might be some safety in being normal. I used to pray that God would let me be dumb like other kids. I asked my parents if I could watch more TV so I could be like the other kids.

But along with wanting to be like them, I also hated them for what they were because they didn't have my interests. They didn't seem to have interests at all.

I grew out of it, grew out of worrying whether I was something or not. My childhood was something of a dud, spent watching National Geographic Explorer instead of cartoons, too polite to burp the ABCs.

Today, I try not to care. Because if I care too much, I wonder whether it's normal or extraordinary to spend so much time worrying about it. And around I go again.

Waiting for Snow in Havana

For my first memoir, I read Carlos Eire's excellent Waiting for Snow in Havana. Were I to rename the memoir, I would call it Carlos' Gods. The overall, commanding theme of the book seems to be identifying the "gods" of Eire's Cuban upbringing.

It's a good theme, but it could easily feel like something of a cop-out: to explore one's primary influences is hardly a new or bold concept. Where Eire succeeds, however, is developing and enunciating the love-hate (but primarily hate) relationship with his "gods.". 

First and most obvious is the constant refrain and exploration of young Carlos' present-tense connection to God. He dwells seriously on sin and repentance, but generally in the context of his childhood fears and schooling. Whether it is his experience getting his head stuck in a pew during mass (94-97) or his reflections on hell and repentance (172), this is a vulnerable Carlos, one who is unsure of the god he is asked to worship. It's also a god subject to the changes and whims of his adolescence: his suggestion that Jesus should have X-Ray vision to see through women's clothes (170) is different from the man who finds his seventh proof of god (358). He curses this god and calls on god and thinks about god and ponders god. For all his ponderings and searches for proofs, he still, near the book's conclusion, doubts whether the events towards the end of his time in Cuba were orchestrated by god. For all his insistence of faith, we are left to wonder whether his belief and faith are more than his attempts to cling to his Cuban upbringing. 

Interestingly, this god seems more similar to what I would call Carlos' second god: pop culture. Whether it's his buying American trading cards or watching Batman, James Bond and Marilyn Monroe films and TV shows, pop culture becomes a central aspect of Eire's life. Instead of thinking, "What would Jesus do," Eire finds himself considering what James T. Kirk would do in situations. Yet this kind of American envy has its problems and shortcomings. It clashes with his upbringing and eventually is renounced by his wife. 

Yet unsurprisingly, the most important and everpresent of Carlos' gods is Cuba. Whether it is the poignant depiction of Castro's rise to fame or his memories of childhood on Havana streets, Cuba is as memorable, ingrained, wanted and unwanted as god himself to Carlos. The rationale and explanation of Fidel is as real in Eire's eyes as his quest to understand hell and repentance.

This was an impassioned eulogy of a Cuba lost, of a childhood spent in regret and confusion, and an explanation of who he is now. I felt as though it was an honest, unashamed portrayal of childhood and Cuba, but beyond that, I enjoyed that it was also payed due homage to the gods that created him and made him who he is today.