Gaslighting our Memories

The other day, while dog walking I listened to The Eurasian Knot, a podcast discussing Soviet history,  The affable hosts were interviewing Tyler Kirk, an American scholar based in Alaska, about his 2023 release, After the Gulag, A History of Memory in Russia’s Far North. While his book focuses on the Komi region and my relatives were closer to Novasibirsk, nonetheless, I found the discussion fascinating because it made me reflect on the differences between history and memory.

AI quickly sums up the differences as follows: History is an interpretation of facts and depends on multiple points of view. Memory is limited to one point of view and not necessarily accurate. 

Memorial, the international human rights organization dedicated to collecting memories of those repressed under the Stalin regime, is banned in modern Russia. History is being re-written by Putin.  Political gaslighting thrives, making it more important than ever to focus on memories. 

Family get-togethers over the holidays are a great way to hear stories, share memories and to not let them get buried by time and political agendas. Our memories deserve to be the building blocks of our histories— not the other way around.  Happy Holidays. 

Circled area shows where my
grandmother died in transit camp in 1931

Happy Holidays to my Amazing Writing Group

Looking forward to a lively, in-person, holiday celebration with my writers’ group next week. We’ve been meeting mostly online since the pandemic and I know we’re all craving an in-person event. We’re going to eat, drink and be merry … together.

by Marianne Gopalkrishna

Only other writers can empathize with the ups and downs of this arduous profession. We get to hear each other's stories when they're just ideas twinkling from a distance ... not sure of whether they'll turn into a real published story. 

Thanks to each of them for sharing with me this long-distance marathon of words. So proud to consider these creative, determined and talented group of writers my friends. Goodwill wishes to

  Jodi Carmichael, as unique and lively as the protagonist of her most recent middle grade novel, The Unique Lou Fox. She's always got more award-winning stories under construction.

MaryLou Driedger, teacher, traveller, blogger, best-selling author of Lost of the Prairie, and the most energetic person I know. Her most recent middle grade novel Sixties Girl is a multi-generational experience. 

Deb Froese, writer, teacher, and amazing editor. Her editing skills are like those of an empathetic surgeon ... precise and gentle. Author of the young adult novel Out of the Fire, also available in German, along with a more recent picture book. 

Interlake Magic by Christina Janz

Christina Janz, writer, and multi-talented artist. She can refinish furniture into pieces of art.  It's just a matter of time before her adventures of two crazy old women bumbling about rural England find a home. 

Mel Matheson, artist, book designer, author and soon an MFA graduate.  Her picture book, Hokey Dowa Gerda and the Snowflake Girl, received Manitoba's best picture book award back in 2015.

Pat Trottier, teacher, writer and advocate for epilepsy support. Pat's tenacity shines in her non-fiction support book for new teachers, Relationships Make the Difference.

Larry Verstraete, teacher, non-fiction author and middle grade novelist. He's also a dog-lover as his two most recent novels featuring a dachshund named, Coop.

 Coop for Keeps came out in this past spring.  Coop's first adventure story, Coop the Great, got picked up by Germany's Little Tiger Verlag. 

Write on!

Ambivalence

Christmas seems mostly about nostalgia and it’s the traditions that help keep the magic going.  I admit that my Christmas flame is flickering on low this year. Family illnesses and other struggles have kept spirits down. But we have snow, we have darkness and we have cold. All necessary ingredients to let Christmas lights shine. 

I visited a Christkindlmarkt here in Winnipeg last weekend. Our local market is nothing like the European open-air events. It’s simply too cold for outdoor kiosks. This indoor market is basically a craft fair dressed up in Christmas colours. I went to get some holiday necessities … spices to make Glühwein and candles for my Advent centre piece.

I’m sure I’ll perk up as the season progresses. After all, the joy and gratitude that my immigrant friends exude might be contagious. An Iraqi family (Christian Kurds) I hope to share time with spent four years in a Turkish refugee camp. Their young children remind me of how wonderful it is to be in Canada … while my Ukrainian friends show me that home and family, electricity and water, peace not war, must never be assumed. Life itself is a reason to celebrate. 

Here I am, ambivalent about Christmas and yet it is the season of peace and goodwill. How dare I take it for granted?  Perhaps the scent of the Christmas tree will revive me.  Time to go tree-hunting! 

Just jotting down these thoughts has put some of Dickens’ Tiny Tim attitude into my season. “God bless Us, Every One!”

Fact or Fiction?

A friend and I talked about what we were reading the other day. She said she had no time for fiction. “None of it’s true, it’s a waste of time.”

Considering we’d both majored in literature back in university, I was rather stunned with her summation. “But fiction is a form of art.”  

        "Who has time for art in today’s world?”

I do, I thought to myself. I need art now more than ever. “Don’t you think art is a way to make sense of today’s world?” I asked. 

“I have no patience for art,” she replied. “It’s been replaced by technology. Why look at a painting when you can see a photograph?” 

I shot back, “But art isn’t there to mimic reality, it’s used to interpret reality. It’s not enough to have just the facts.”

She frowned. “It’s not? Tell me why.” 

“We need to know whose truth we’re reading. Who took the photo? Who researched the story? Facts might seem honest, but like numbers, they can be manipulated.” 

She raised her eyebrows at that jab. “Are you saying everything is fiction?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know … but I know that everything has more than one angle to it, more than one perspective.”  

“Of course,” she scoffed. “We need to trust our sources. You can’t believe everything you read.”

“In fiction, when you enter other people’s heads,” I offer, "you know that's what you're doing."

“Right,” said my friend. “I’d rather focus on figuring out my own brain.”

“Fiction can help with that,” I suggest.

“So can facts.”

Our talk ends as we agree to disagree. I’ll continue reading and writing fiction because I know that I’m not able to tell the truth … I can only interpret what I experience … and compare it to other’s perspectives.

Of course, I read non-fiction. I love it … especially memoirs with their limited, but authentic point of view. They become an important part of my research. Historical fiction weaves fact and fiction together. Those two strands grow into a braid of three perspectives … the facts, the story, and the reader. 

I’ve always considered truth to be a showing, not a telling, revealed between the cracks of a storyline.  How did Leonard Cohen put it? “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” 

For other thoughts on this fact vs. fiction topic:

https://annejanzer.com/stories-fiction-facts-truth/

https://stephaniestorey.com/blog/historical-fiction-history-or-fiction

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/aug/06/lying-historical-fiction

https://jennybhattwriter.com/hfcn-04-reading-historical-fiction/

https://www.cbc.ca/books/cheryl-parisien-wrote-her-historical-fiction-book-the-unweaving-as-a-way-to-embrace-her-m%C3%A9tis-heritage-1.7383541

 “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”    E.L. Doctorow

And isn't connection what we crave as humans … to understand and, in turn, to be understood?  

Hello

Every day is a special day for somebody or something.  Did you know that today is World Hello Day?  New to me but I like the concept. Supposedly it’s to highlight peace through conversation rather than through violence. Rather relevant to our current turbulent times. 

Hiking in the Bavarian mountains with
a Grüß Gott echoing in my ears

How to celebrate? It’s suggested we say hello to at least ten people today. Sounds simple enough. Through the course of a day, I often have a string of errands to run and a variety of people with whom to interact. Usually saying hello seems natural but there are times it feels forced … especially if it’s not intended as a preamble to further interaction. Strangers on our Manitoba streets aren’t prepared for random ‘hellos.’

I got used to strange hellos when I worked in Europe a long time ago. Walking about in between shifts as a serving person in a Bavarian mountain town, I’d be greeted with a ‘grüß Gott’.  It literally means ‘greet God’ and its intended to say, ‘if you happen to see God before I do, then say hello for me, ie. put a good word in for me.’ 

So hello, bonjour, Guten Tag, hola, ciao, waciye, and Grüß Gott.  Maybe world peace needs us all just to say hello to each other. To not be invisible to each other, but to see each other as fellow travellers and then keep going along our merry way.  Wouldn't we all feel a little better with a cheery hello directed at us? Have a nice day! 

Finding Sonder in Historical Saskatchewan

Closer to Far Away, Kristin Butcher’s newest middle grade novel (she’s published dozens) is set a hundred years ago in small town Saskatchewan. Lucy, the 13-year-old protagonist, struggles to accept the sudden death of her mother and copes by trying to be a replacement mother to her 5-year-old brother, a housemaid for her workaholic banker-father, and a busy-body nosing about her older brother’s unsavory new connections. 

It’s a stiff-upper-lip family and everyone seems isolated in their pain.  The death of the mother is the elephant in the room that they carefully side-step in different ways. Lucy resents any help from either the hired maid, Mrs. Jenkins, or her Aunt Faye. I couldn’t help but think of the Sound of Music where the orphaned children react with hostility towards the young novice nun, Maria, sent from the convent. In a poignant scene Aunt Faye says, “Life is all about change, Lucy.” (p.215) and I found myself shedding a few tears along with Lucy who finally releases the grief inside her. 

Kristin Butcher is a master storyteller with a warm and engaging style.  Like with her previous novels, most recently The Seer Trilogy, I sink into her fictional worlds knowing that I can trust the author to offer up both a page-turning plot and realistic characters. 

In Closer to Far Away, immersed in early 20th century life in rural Saskatchewan, during the alcohol-prohibition era, I witnessed a family’s grieving process. A truly sonder experience. What is sonder? It’s when you can feel empathy, compassion and self-realization all at the same time. And that’s what good fiction is all about. 

Owning our Stories

Brené Brown
from Wikipedia 

"True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are."

I came across this insight from Brené Brown and it resonated with me and the themes of my recent novel, Waltraut.                 

Waltraut sees herself as a victim … of bullying in school due to prejudice against immigrants, at church because of her ‘outsider’ father, and within her own family because of parental expectations. 

Her solution is to escape into books and her heroine becomes Nancy Drew. But Nancy Drew can’t solve Waltraut’s problems. It’s not until, as Brown says, she ‘owns’ her stories and accepts herself, that she moves forward. 

I hope Waltraut's story will help vulnerable young readers ‘own’ their stories so that they too can determine the direction of their lives. Our lives are story. Maybe we can’t choose the inciting incident or the page-turning plot points, but as imperfect first-person narrators, we get to choose the ending. Waltraut did. 

  “Owning our story and loving ourselves throughout that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” Brené Brown.

Nancy Drew modelled courage so maybe she really did help Waltraut find herself.

― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. The link leads to a YouTube conversation about the book.