Friendship: It’s Written in the Code

HOW TO CHOOSE a memoir topic? It’s one of the toughest aspects of writing memoir. What to write about? Where to get memoir ideas? As a memoir each and writing teacher, I have lots of examples in how to do this and share them with my students. One of my favorites is telling the tale of how I communicate with my friends. 

“I need stamps.” It’s the code my oldest friend and I have between us. Received on email, read in a text message, or heard in a teary voicemail, it means, “I’m in real trouble and I need you now.” It also make a good place from which to discuss how to choose a memoir topic.

I don’t know how many times we’ve used that phase about stamps, but I do know it was learned the hard way, borne out of my adulthood understanding that when a sister is in trouble, the last thing she needs is for me to call and say, “Let me know what I can do.”

I now say, “Here’s my schedule. I go to the supermarket on Thursdays, the post office on Fridays, the health food store on Saturdays. I can add your list to mine, pick up your kids these days and drive them on these.” Unless it’s Priscilla, who, being the efficient ER nurse she is, years ago reduced this to, “I need stamps.”

Friends for 50 years, we acquired our worst bad habits together, taught each other the lyrics to The Addams Family sitcom, danced on the adjoining seats at Sly and the Family Stone when they played Madison Square Garden, shared the same first major boyfriend (what a lucky, lucky boy he was), buried our fathers, and stood up as each other’s bridesmaids, all of which contributed to the lexicology that is this private language for two.  So when the phone message was left recently that said, merely, “Call me,” I knew three things: No one was dead; I could wait until Saturday to return the call; no stamps were needed.

What’s your code?  What do you say to a friend to send up a flare? Think like this when struggling with how to choose a memoir topic and your writing life will improve.