On remembering

This is a story about what's been true for me. Maybe it's not the same for everyone, but here's what I've found, really, in just the last couple of years.

Unaddressed hurt covers your eyes with big, cold hands. 

But when you address it? When you name it? When you have the courage to pull the hands away and see what they're made of? They lose their strength. 

Your life, your self, appear with so much more color. And the most magical part, for me, is the way the beautiful things, so long out of sight, come creeping back.

Indulge me in a flight of poetic illustration:

In sleep, I looked back and saw a mist.

A flash of memory here and there, but little clarity. Flares of harmful words, and sparks of sweetness.

In awakening, I looked back and saw darkness — and myself inside it.

A sister too much a mother.

A daughter looking for nurture and connection, receiving criticism and distance. 

A girl looking for safety and understanding, receiving fear and abandonment.

A child navigating hurt, loneliness, threat, and injustice in a world with no place for sadness, fear, anger.

"But it wasn't all bad," was my mantra. I felt something like shame, putting a name to the hurt I spent years ignoring. No, it wasn't all bad. But it was all stained with the darkness I finally named.

And I'm still working on healing the wounds left from that hurt. But now I'm self-aware, self-actualizing, self-integrating, self-confident.

In awareness, I look back with clarity.

In clarity, I see both and. I see a fuller truth.

I see a man choking down his own demons for years, fighting to give his kids a better life than he had.

I see a woman contending with her own mental health, committing to raising kids in intellectual independence.

I remember more. 

Now that I've named the suffering, the sweet comes back. More specifically:

I see my dad, strong, sweating, clearing out what seems like miles of go-kart track with a machete. I hear the rumbling motor, smell the exhaust, and I'm back in the woods, pealing around a curve, hitting a root, throwing up a cloud of red dust I can still taste.

I see my mom gently stirring a pot of chicken and dumplings while I stand on a stepstool, glasses fogging, softly dropping in one dumpling at time. Mama open up a space for me in between the floating drops of dough, and the hot steam dampens my hands and I'm warm with the deep satisfaction of wordless teamwork.

Now that I've given a voice to the pain, cried over it, sat with it for a while, treated it with respect, I can look back and see an astounding mix of bitter and sweet. Neither negates the other. I don't know how it works, but honoring my pain and healing the wounds has freed my brain to find the forgotten good.

Mama stirring food coloring into salty homemade play-dough on the stove.

Daddy bringing home plums in his little Coleman cooler in the summer.

Mama sitting in the rocker, reading aloud from Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

Daddy reading aloud from the Bible, too early in the morning. At bedtime. On Christmas.

The family crowding around the computer to see what's next in the Netflix DVD queue. 

Us crowding around the piano to sing an old hymn like Southern Von Trapps.

Mama making the babies laugh with "ONE BIG EYEBALL."

That last one came to me just now! I don't think I've ever, since the last time it happened to a sibling, given a single thought to the way my mom would bring the baby to her face, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, eye to eye, and say ONE. BIG. EYEBALL! prompting that infant belly laugh that brings you both to tears.

And that's what I'm talking about. I have a regular old bad memory, but for so long, I seemed to have nothing. And then a lot of ugly. 

But now, every so often, a fresh, soft, warm and sweet memory uncovers itself, and I am so grateful.

Who I am now...

I began this blog in 2007, cross-posting with my Xanga account. (Remember Xanga? It died in 2013. Which is roughly the last time I blogged here with any consistency.)

Mostly hosting the minutia of my daily life and angsty, philosophical ramblings from my late teens and early twenties, this blog has been home to amusing little personal tales, promotions and giveaways for my long-defunct Etsy shop, favorite recipes, and scores of selfies and other photos.

Now, I'm not sure what it will be. I'm not even sure it should still exist, but I'm loathe to let it go after all these years! I'm sure I should be cultivating a "professional" online presence (and thusly disappearing my online past) if I want to be A Serious Writer, but hey. I am still me, after all.

Now, in 2023, ten years from my last public ponderings, I am thirty-three. I am a professional marketing copywriter and strategist with a degree in English. I know some stuff about SEO, B2B marketing, content marketing strategies, and #agencylife.

I am married with no pets, no children. I moved to Colorado from the South in 2020. I have a children's book in processes, and I try to keep the creative juices flowing with other minor creative endeavors. 

I hike, run, read, climb, write, and drink craft beer — all as an enthusiastic novice. 

And, perhaps most notably, I no longer decry decaf coffee. Anxiety has made a convert of me.

For now, I intend to keep the blog alive with an infusion of  Goodreads book reviews. My Goodreads use is maybe the only part of my online presence that has stayed consistent since 2007! I tried Litsy, but I kind of hated it.

So. Until I figure out what's next, here's this! 

-Caitlin

Review: Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ach! So annoyed! I read this in 2021, but when I went to update for this year's read-through, my review and dates from 2021 disappeared.

I think in 2021, I had written something to the effect of "enchanting, devastating, beautiful." Probably a few more words than that. I remember really loving it and being impressed and rating it 4 stars.

I feel like I have a LOT more questions this time around, especially after reading other people's reviews - and I'm bumping down to 3 stars.
1. Why are Rochester's sections LESS coherent than Antoinette's, if she's the one suffering from "madness?" I get that there's a point to be made about both people being flawed/unreliable narrators, but from a logical standpoint, the way this was executed just doesn't work for me. Rochester talks like he's in a fever dream, even after he's supposedly recovered from "the fever." I also just don't know that, for a story that's supposed to be liberating "the woman in the attic," it was fair to give Rochester such a significant first-person portion of the book.

2. Why do so many other readers seem to come away with the opinion that her "madness" was caused by "not being loved well enough by rochester" - She clearly had a tumultuous (dare I say it: traumatic) upbringing, and in the present day, we have enough scientific evidence to show that behaviors and states of mind classified as "insanity" are often linked to past trauma - she's a clear case of dissociation.

3. Some come away from reading this questioning whether Antionette was "mad" at all - rather, perhaps it was her freedom of self expression and her non-Englishness that made her *seem* mad to Rochester, et al (A case of The Yellow Wallpaper, if you will). But come on, guys. There's evidence in the stories of her extended family - are we really supposed to believe literally *everyone else* in the book made up and perpetuated a false family history?

There are other questions, but I can't articulate them right now. Her braid being cut off because she was sick? That feels symbolic. But also why would that need to be done? Her relationship with Sandi? Could we not have explored that a little more? Rochester's F-ed up decision to sleep with Amelie?! What was that. "He's not a bad man." Or is he? Other symbolisms I'd like to explore: The frangipane/its overpowering sweetness/how it was crushed; the parrot on fire (I mean, obvious, but still); IDK if the constant rum-drinking counts as symbolism, or just setting...; the general state of Coulibri (decay, rejuvenation, total destruction); her relationship with Tia (like looking in a mirror)... etc.

The writing was poetic, yes. The intent to give Antoinette her own story, brilliant. (But also: Why did Rochester land on Bertha for a substitute name? Like, I get the idea of "renaming" her, but BERTHA? really?) IDK. On my first read, I thought this was brilliant. On my second read, I still appreciate the concept, and the atmosphere, and the creative execution that mirrors the state of mind of both central figures, but I do think it could have been executed in a stronger way. I'm no expert, though. I'm just a girl, standing in a front of a book, asking it to make a little more sense.

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