How To Write About Loved Ones? Think Inheritance
Marion and Margaret
GET A LOT OF questions about how to write about loved ones, and almost always my answer includes something about inheritances, the weirder the better. Let me give you an example.
My weird garden is not my fault (blame my sister, Margaret, seen above with a gift to me from her garden). In fact, I had no idea it was weird. And then I got a call.
“These hideous plants by the back door. They are taking over my house. Please come over, dig them up, and take them away.”
This was not a kind request. This was a demand from a guy to whom I had just sold the very house in which my husband had carried me over the threshold, the house of my early married years. A depressed hovel when we bought it, we had ripped out ceilings, exposing hundred-year-old beams; restored a 45 x 11 chicken coop, transforming it into an office/library/music room; painted, wallpapered; and outfitted the single (sigh) bathroom with a funny/fabulous claw-footed tub.
A fancy hovel when we left it, its true beauty is its gardens. I had planted thousands of bulbs; rose bushes had become a hedge; we dug three perennial beds; a huge fenced vegetable garden was placed in back; English cottage-style beds of herbs and flowers soon ringed each of the property’s four buildings.
The problem was that none of the plants were “normal,” as the man who bought my house liked to tell me during his four ever-skeptical, pre-purchase visits. The gardens really bothered him. The herbs were choices like hyssop and horehound; witches broom was a great favorite, as were the native skunk cabbage I left and accented with Crown Imperial Frittilaria (also skunky-smelling), amusing, apparently, only myself. The list goes on, but the worst offender, as far as the new owner was concerned, were these 4-foot wide, green monster-leaves whose roots spread like butter in a skillet and which Margaret had once referred to as “aggressive.”
Petasites japonicus, native to Korea, China and Japan, is not for the feint of heart. It is not to be messed with. And I love it for that (though I would not share it and know to keep it in bounds, responsibly, with regular reining in with a sharp shovel, tossing the dug-up bits in the trash, not the compost). I had taken home my original hunk from Margaret’s garden, and to say it is “aggressive” is to say that, in some lights, I might have red hair. “Invasive,” is a little better; “marauding” might be best, as evidenced by how it dug into the 150-year-old foundation of the house, forcing its knobby way between the old foundation stones, as well as upending the ancient kitchen pathway flagstones. It is not something I would share, knowing all this. But to me the plant appeared as something fairies might be found sitting on, each leaf so broad, and each supporting stalk so brazenly sturdy that I simply couldn’t get enough of it.
The petasites is not the only example of non-traditional plants. My current weird garden also includes white ‘Next Egg’ gourds and small, moon-colored pumpkins that jump the garden fence and invariably end up hanging from the limbs of the sour cherry tree next to the garden. The seeds of both the gourds and the pumpkins were given to me by Margaret. And when the ‘Nest Egg’ gourds are harvested, they come inside to dry, and stay for years, providing moveable décor that tend to nest in candelabra and on windowsills, both in her home and in mine.
Which reminds me that my weird garden is not relegated to the outdoors. My houseplants seem to either make people look deeply into them and kind of smile or simply back away. I offer only a photo of bowiea, since I have a tacit policy of not photographing my children. You either love bowiea or you don’t. And guess who has a tremendo-gigundo version of this baby in her kitchen window?
Right.
My husband once qualified all this, saying that Roach girl indoor gardens are a “cross between the Adams family and a Thurber cartoon.” I like it.
So, I offer up this provocation for learning how to write about loved ones. Consider the inheritance of eccentricity. This is one of those issues that population geneticists and social scientists shy away from, needing to go sharpen their pencils and sanitize their pocket protectors when this query is posed. So let’s take it on here, shall we?
It has to do with taste, I guess, another of those slippery discussions, but uber-important, since it is how we decide what to surround ourselves with, about our very habitats and decoration, about how we express ourselves. In the case of the Roach sisters, it seems that some of these preferences travel sideways, sister-to-sister. (Or would that be downward, older sister to younger?)
When learning how to write about loved ones, ask yourself if there is something that your sibling does that while decidedly oddball, you do, too. For us, it’s gardening in the Roach-girl way. And when I write about us, I think about these inheritances as the place to go to get the goods.
How to write about loved ones? What did you inherit? Yes: Silver and crystal, baseball cards, your nose, as well as your nice knees are all good, but what about the other stuff?
Write about that.
Love this. Your words always ring so true to me. Thank you for that.
You are most welcome, Maddie.
How kind.
Excellent and well-timed article, Marion! When I sit down to write about my family I think about it for a while and then move on to something easier. Your words help to remind us of the wealth of literary fodder lying within our familial DNA. By the way, I Love your garden description and appreciate the hours of love that go into such a creation. It must be a true work of art. It’s sad that the new homeowner doesn’t see the beauty in its wildness. Have a lovely Thanksgiving and thank you for sharing your insights with us.
Thank you.
I love my crazy garden.
My sister’s garden, well, it’s simply spectacular. But it is not mine.
And on we go, each with our own versions, yes?
HA! Hilarious. Thurber and Addams. Frighteningly good — like families. XO
Yes.
Exactly right.
HA!
HOW TO WRITE ABOUT FAMILY
I am somewhat conflicted by the fact that the most significant event of my life occurred on Friday the 13th of June, 1947, when our father arrived unannounced at our private school in Waterford, Ireland to take my brother John and myself ‘out to tea’, which actually was a case of familial kidnapping when instead he took us without our mother’s consent or knowledge off on an Ian Flemingesque /James Bond/Interpol adventure on a 10 day journey to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
This extraordinary event will be the center focus of my memoir. To this day, some many decades later, the Burrows family has held two distinct versions of this event – my mother’s family one and my father’s family one. As I am now the only survivor of this traumatic journey and the 12 years that followed in Africa, and also because I am now the Burrows family patriarch, it will indeed be a challenge to memorialize this tale in such a way that both sides agree with my recollection of events! However that being said, in a WTF moment, I will do my utmost to keep both sides of this saga both informed and pleased with the result. There is of course much more to the story, but if I told you all of that here, you would not have to buy my book which will be entitled “Burrowings, the Eclectic Story of Paul”.
PS: Burrowings was the masthead title of my op-ed column which I wrote weekly for over 20 years in the Whistler Question newspaper, of which I was the owner/publisher. In my dotage, I am now 82, and feel compelled to ‘write it before I lose it’.
Dear Paul,
What a tale. Tell it. Write your version. Trying to make everyone happy will distract you and sap your energy.
I’m here, an eager reader, waiting for it.
Best,
Marion
Dear Marion,
A salutary and unexpected effect of following (and saving) your memoir-writing articles is that a flood of positive memories have elbowed their way into my mind, largely crowding out the negative memories that I’m used to cringing about, accepting, and quickly moving on.
One might imagine that the one trait I share with my brother is narcissism, and I could claim that we inherited it from my father, but I imagine that the trait is so widespread in the world’s population that narcissism is too wrapped in myriad cultural norms to attribute it to just my family’s norms. Anyway, no one in my immediate family shared my best trait,–a love of gardening, and the green thumb that has come with that love. A love of working with the soil. A love of how a plant can grow from a seed, such as the corn plant I grew at age four just by planting a kernel of corn at our backyard water faucet. I was hooked.
I can anticipate your response to my words–“Write that.”
Well, yes, you should write that.
But first, consider the topic you raise in the opener of your comments.
Why do we prefer to string together the cringe-worthy before the effervescent?
Also a good topic.
So write both.
And write well.
Best,
Marion