Hello—it’s been a minute, I know! I’ve been head down, trying to finish the proposal and pitch for my memoir. It’s a different kind of writing than the Substack essays—it’s quite difficult, if I’m honest. So I am trying something new to stay connected to you: video stories. I’m thinking it will be a “limited series” of chatty stories from the book. You can let me know in the comments if you think it’s a good idea.
I’ve told the stories from my 90s era so many, many, times over the last three and a half decades, and the duality of way back then/still here now always feels fantastical to me. Time doesn’t stay where it’s supposed to. In some ways I feel exactly the same as I did back then. In other ways, I cannot even recognize that young woman or her situation.
The echoes are real: thirty-five years ago this past February, my son was born at Ireland Army Hospital in Fort Knox because his father was on active duty, waiting to be deployed to the first Gulf War. This March, my now grown-up son just deployed to the third one.
It reminds me of the narrator of Jeannette Winterson’s novel “The Passion:” Trust me, I’m telling you stories, they say, as they unfold the hyperbolic tale of Henri, a soldier in Napoleon’s army, and Villanelle, an artist from Venice. Trust is doing a lot of work in that sentence because the bits that are true are sometimes stranger than the magical realism.
There aren’t a lot of photos from my pre-digital college era, but I found this one from Fall term, 1990. That’s me in the back of the canoe, 19 years old, five months pregnant, and paddling on the Connecticut with my friend Barb Lucas and our floor mates during one of the last halcyon afternoons of a New England autumn. This day, like just about every day during this time, was a mini adventure. We set out for a relaxing overnight camping trip, only to find the campsite that we reserved was usurped by other Dartmouth students. (So rude!) There was nothing to do but turn around and paddle back to campus, against the current.
Back in the dorm, we built a fire in the fireplace in Barb’s dorm room, determined to roast our hotdogs and marshmallows for s’mores one way or another. It worked out great! Until the dorm fire alarms went off.
Trust me, I'm telling you stories.
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