My Substack
If you haven’t noticed, I’m running away from my old Substack This Naked Mama is Self-Editing and transforming it into Running Away from My Problems. There’s nothing like a bit of escapism, right? Sign me up forever! And maybe you’ll sign up to join me on the journey.
Summer
Shouldn’t we be beyond the dog days of summer by now? I’m starting to have Twilight Zone flashbacks of inching closer to the sun. Those of us in Georgia only have a week or two left, but gawwwwwd am I sticky! How about you? Are your thighs still stuck to your car seat? Tell me in the comments.
Mom Friends
When you have a theatrical passion it means you’ll probably make no money and you’ll spend most of your working life running down side hustles after hours. You forget how to interact with 9-to-5 people who aren’t spending their spare time hunting down a blonde wig for some show or negotiating how to wedge a stripper pole into a bar without destroying historic hotel property. I am now learning how to be a mom without all these extras. And I don’t exactly fit in…
20 years ago, I got the hell out of the South with my theatre degree. I went out West where I became a teacher and then a performer and spent all my time surrounded by various artists. But here I am back in the South. I’ve returned, and I’m watching other homeschool moms who never left try on my actual careers—writing, theatre, and design—like they’re throwaway hobbies.
And I’m a little sour about it.
Homeschool Mom: Do you want to join us for a painting party?
Me: What’s “a painting party?” You mean there’ll be other people in the room while you’re working on your art?
Homeschool Mom: We just get together for a girls' night, and I’ll lead you through the fun of painting. I’ll have all the supplies.
Me: So, I’m supposed to just show up and not even know what medium I’m working in? Like will we be painting an oil landscape or are we decorating Christmas ornaments with our kids' dried-up acrylics? I really need to know—this is giving me anxiety.
Homeschool Mom: It’s just for fun and no stress. I’ll have plenty of snacks.
Me: SNACKS?! You expect me to eat while I’m creating? Is this like a new version of sand painting? I spent years surviving on egg tempura, poetry, cigarettes, and vodka. There was no money for food. Will there at least be wine? Maybe I could show up to outpaint all you women if I get a little tipsy. You’ll have wine, right?
Homeschool Mom: No, sorry, we keep it alcohol-free.
Me: Wait, so you want me to show up and “do art for fun,” while I scatter my cracker crumbs into some unknown paint trough like I’m sprinkling the ashes of my dead lover into the sea? And you want me to do it sober?
Sorry, but my Velvet Elvis says no thank you, ladies.
Elvis, why don’t I have any mom friends?
Okay, so that convo never happened. The event was posted in some mom group and I never signed up for it.
I’ve felt so isolated attending mom events, I just stopped going. It’s like I’m a mom leper. What do you talk about to a group of religious homeschool moms when you’re the only one who performed burlesque and they can’t stop screaming Go Dawgs?
Is it even important to make mom friends at all?
Truthfully, I love all moms, but I’m struggling to find my place in the Deep South again. I know research shows friendship has a dramatic effect on the health of both your body and brain. But… “I’m a loner, Dottie, a rebel”—RIP, Peewee. I may never have had the social skills of my extrovert daughter who makes friends everywhere she goes, but it’s only recently I’ve outwardly rejected the idea of attending mom outings.
When did we start giving friendship all these qualifiers?
Maybe rallying against mom friends here in the South is really more about rebelling against the status quo. I didn’t fit in here as a teenager and I don’t fit in now, either. I was never longing to spend my Spring Break in Panama City Beach at some Jimmy Buffet concert (RIP to you, too, and no disrespect!) like some of my high school colleagues. There sure are a lot of dead people showing up in this post. And I certainly wasn’t itching to get married right out of school to start pumping out offspring.
But returning to the South has thrown me right back into the world of ice cream sociopaths. My rejection of slapping some veneer on my face and playing pretend— yeah, I can’t get the hang of that.
I believe in real connection. I can’t make small talk. I need to get to know who people truly are.
So, I’m shifting my focus.
I raise a glass not to making more mom friends, but to making conscious connections with all kinds of people.
Where are my artsy friends? Where are my single, child-free friends?
My daughter and I are reading a book series called Secret Spy Society that includes real accounts of the women ensconced in espionage—one spy has a wooden leg where she hides secret messages and I feel like I’ve missed my calling.
Maybe it does take a village, but can’t my village consist of wacky artists and secret lady spies?
I’m sure you’ve heard the memoir writing guidance—focus on your own story.
It’s good advice, but what about those occasions when your story bleeds into someone else’s narrative?
This just happened to me when I was penning letters to relatives. I needed to relay a personal account but in order to do that I had to spill details from a story my mother-in-law shared with me. In fact, it was almost impossible to relay my experience without describing hers.
Here’s how I handled that writing dichotomy:
I got permission
I let my mother-in-law know how important it was to relay both our stories to the reader and asked her if it would be okay to share her story specifically.
I conveyed to the reader I was relaying a story that was told to me.
Because I wasn’t writing a story-in-a-story that you so often see in fiction, I let the reader know that the information was shared with me. This meant I continued the entire letter from my perspective.
I made mistakes
I let my mother-in-law read my entire letter to the reader. Looking back I think this might have put undue pressure on her. She spent a lot of time trying to contribute to my entire letter. What I should have done instead was snip out what I wrote about her story only which would’ve allowed her to weigh in specially on that section.
I stuck to my perspective
It was imperative that I spoke in my own voice. For instance, my mother-in-law described details about her life as a military wife. I changed her language to sound more in line with how I would’ve recalled a story that was told to me keeping the language, tone, and point of view all my own.
I know sorting out your stories from another’s can be confusing when writing, but the best rule of thumb is to find a way to tell your story even if you find yourself in someone else’s story.
Kimberly Warner’s Substack Unfixed is really nailing this kind of storytelling.
If you’re considering serializing a memoir or just writing one, you should check out her work. And be sure to read her first and second chapters to see how her main character (she’s a memoirist so that character is herself) makes a grand introduction in the middle of other peoples’ stories.
Kimberly makes it clear that no matter whose stories get entangled in hers, this narrative is all her own.
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