Comment

Hey Ellen,

I really like the blog! It’s nice to hear you speak so openly. I didn't understand your project before but I think I do now. I was thinking about the stories of life that you speak of. Joe may be right that the 'lost stories' is a US phenomenon because of how we live--apart and obsessed with satisfying the self, material aggrandizement etc. And by extension, I wonder if this reluctance to one's pain with others is also a cultural thing that keeps people cut off from sharing and learning.

It always struck me odd that under certain circumstances, people who endure hardship reflect uponit with almost a fondness when they had others to experience it with (i.e. growing up in poverty or being in a horrible accident.) It is a strange gift. For me the interesting question is what do you do when it doesn’t work out and there is no rainbow. (Ha this is probably why I am a lawyer!) Put differently, why does it work out sometimes and not other? This phenomenon has plagued my aunt's family. She was slated to become the family matriarch and married a man who came into the family. But things didn't work out and as I understand it there was betrayal and the usual drama- rama of a failed marriage. But her children as far as I can tell did not bond and did not grow into strong people with robust souls.

One of my cousins seems still frozen, angry at his mother or just in general and still in many ways is a child despite having two kids of his own.There has always been the silent accusation within the family that had my aunt held down the fort, her kids would have been fine. But something makes me feel this in it of itself would not have been the magic bullet. I know some people strongly would disagree with me, including my mom and insist on the virtue of sticking it out, despite its costs, trumps all.

In Toni Morrison's book Jazz (I think) there is a character Pilate who is weird, really weird but she stays. That to me is her main characteristic. She is one of the few that do--everyone else seems to leave to escape, to grow or leave for the sake of leaving but Pilate stays. And what is so extraordinary is that she seems to be able to stay true to herself--perhapsby leading a very unconventional life.

As to your other point, whether I am plagued or not by doubts in my own abilities to endure is something else. I feel on one hand having watched my mom struggle through isolation and adapting to a new life here, I do feel that a part of that strength or skill set has been passed on to me. Yet when I abstractly think about hardship, I feel a doubt that Iwould not be able endure with the same smile and laugh.

Ellen’s Response:

Dear Eri,

Thank you for telling me these stories. Like you I don't believe in magic bullets, and sometimes those of us looking in on someone else's story see things that they have missed. My sense is that you may see more in your aunt's family than others see.

I also think that family stories often get stuck in how they are told. We tend to see the same parts of our family members that we've always seen and even when they change we can miss the change. I wonder if there are things in your cousins' lives that they haven't shared with you and although they may be stuck in their family-of-origin story which you sense when you are with them that in other settings they have gone on and made new life stories for themselves.

I know for myself that I both hold to my family stories as I know them and realize that my sister who was there at the same time tells her stories very differently. Perhaps many life stories co-exist side-by-side. I agree with you that in any case speaking of our hardships, seems to make life more livable.