Memory, Betrayal, and Freedom
By Pilar Dougall
I
chose this first week of blogging based on the title of this reading, Return to Sender. I knew that I would
have a heavier load later in the semester and when I saw the title I thought
“piece of cake.” This story must be about “snail” mail, that’s in the past; I
like history so this should be a good read. I knew nothing of Mark Doty.
This piece begins with a tale of a trip to
Memphis and then took an unexpected detour. For the first three pages I thought
the writer had gotten lost. Doty mentioned memory and feelings, a therapist and
lighthouses, his early poetry and circuses. Then, quite suddenly, we are in
Memphis and just as quickly, the Memphis story is over. Yet, Doty is not finished. He brilliantly goes
on to explain how he wanted to use memory and not history to tell his story,
especially how it relates to his version of the individuals in his memoir; his
mother, sister, and most of all his father.
I was feeling a bit let down as I
started this reading, but as I read on I understood that this piece was not
about Doty’s personal story about a trip to Memphis as much as it was about the
process and potential outcome of developing “characters” in a memoir. He
explains that “The lives of other people are unknowable.” The writer of a
memoir must be able to give life to those included in his/her personal story,
“to make them known.” Yet, in doing so the writer must decide which version of other
individuals he/she wants to share; the version known only to the writer or a
“historical” version, a less intimate version with a focus on facts supported
by research and interviews. Doty describes his struggle with writing his
version, from the memories of a young boy, about his own family knowing that
his sister and father would eventually read what he had written. In addition to
wondering how they would react to spilling out the family history in the
written word, he questions himself about his feelings of betraying the “known”
version of each person.
As I read through this piece I began
to understand why I have never been able to keep a personal journal. I
especially came to this realization when I read his explanation of a
“memoirist’s nightmare: that we will lose people in our lives by writing about
them.” I have felt this. Each time I
started a journal, I wondered what would happen to it once I was no longer
around or incapacitated in some way; who would find it, who would read it, and
what will they think? I quickly pulled out the pages, tore them up, and threw
them away. Perhaps this is why I lean more on the side of fiction writing.
Yet,
on the last page, Doty further explains that freedom can be found in the form
of betrayal and the freedom that he experienced in telling his version of the
truth. Without this he asks, what else is there? His answer, “The alternative
is silence, a frozen politeness, a fake life.” At this, I came to another
realization. Everyone has a story to tell and I have my own. I can and I shall
write it. Will I care what others think? Maybe, I will. No, I won’t. Yes.
