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1. I treated myself to an hour of Molly Field reading today to fill up my soul. I read your piece on Peevish Penman, which made me cry. My parents were not alcoholics. My dad had a huge heart and a horrible temper, and my childhood memories are mostly of sitting on his lap or crawling around the dining room table in an attempt to make it to my room and avoid another beating. I am the youngest of 7 children. One of my brother’s od’d and one committed suicide. The five of us left have weird relationships. Sometimes, I think the collective pain is too much. Anyway, my family of origin is a mess.

   Reading: “What do you mean you hid under your bed for hours listening for your angry parent to close their door for the night?” or “What do you mean you cooked your own food when you were five? Who does that?” Ahhh yes…I get that, and I understand the need to write and write and write and feel relevant. I can’t adequately explain how much your words touched me, but I felt as if reading your words was like seeing some of the crap in my mind and my soul transformed into an amazing work of art. Your writing is achingly beautiful, and I’m better because you shared it. Thank you.

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   • Humbled, I am.

     I know those days but I try not to use them for gain. However, there are times I can’t avoid taking about them. Sometimes they just keep at me, clawing until I let them out. I think that’s what writing is for many of us; the willingness to release the heartache and the feelings of fear, even comically, because a release is a release and the pressure is lessened each time.

     That you identify with my writing as a quest for “relevance” is a tremendous gift you give to me.

     Your Fam of Origin sounds like mine, but we are only three. We gather, but it’s stunted; often fueled by our mostly unspoken yet head-shaking animus or bewilderment at being the cogent and at-times struggling offspring of these strange people. When I don’t think of my parents or FoO, is when I am most free, ironically, most myself. It’s when I consider my parents most of all and the squandered greatness we could have been, that I feel doom and woe. To forget it all is impossible; so I honor the memories or thoughts and send them on their way. Like ghosts… They seek a place to land, settle. They will have to live on paper for me. Anywhere else is not available.

     Thank you for your kindnesses. It’s people like you, who equally share your souls and heart with me, that inspire me to keep at it and write publicly. Life is for living. I was able to transform my own dining room table into a fort for my sons. It’s no longer a shelter from fear, but a place of mirth.

     Xo.

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