On Autobiographies

I’ve been an avid reader most of my life. When I was younger, if the weather was nice, my mother used to have to force me to put down whatever book I was reading and make me play outside. Some of my favorites as a child were the Curious George series, the Bobbsey Twins series, and many of Judy Bloom’s young adult books. Even before I could read, I loved books. I still remember hearing on a regular basis The Poky Little Puppy, The Teeny Tiny Woman, and A.A. Milne poems. 

Cover of The Poky Little Puppy. (Flickr/National Museum of American History)

Most recently, I’ve become interested in autobiographies. I’ve read quite a few over the years, more than I can list here. They’ve ranged from political figures (George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Reagan, Malala Yousafzai), to musicians (Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Tina Turner), to sports figures (Andre Agassi, Dorothy Hamill, Phil Jackson, Nancy Kerrigan, Al Michaels, Jerry Remy), to actors (Drew Barrymore, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Michael J. Fox, Valerie Harper, Florence Henderson, Shirley Jones, Diane Keaton, Steve Martin, Dick Van Dyke), and more.

What strikes me about all these autobiographies of famous people is how much in common they have, no matter the career path they’ve followed. They’ve faced mental health challenges, like the anxieties, isolation, and stress Scott Kelly describes in his autobiography Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery. They’ve dealt with traumatic experiences, such as the gang rape Cyndi Lauper describes going through in her self-titled memoir. And they’ve had plenty of joys as well, including the love for her husband Julia Child describes in My Life in France.

My high school AP English teacher, Mr. Andrew, would tell me that this is a trite observation, that the commonalities that occur across diverse human experience is old news. So be it. Can I help it if sometimes the tried really does turn out to be the true?

Here’s a case in point. The other day I finished reading John Kerry’s autobiography Every Day is Extra. He explains that the title comes from his experiences serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, when he witnessed the early deaths of friends and came away feeling gratefully lucky to still be alive. He describes striving to live a life of purpose after this experience, trying to put to good use the extra days he’s been given.

Kerry also shares some words of wisdom gained during his many years of service in government. He notes the tendency to bemoan the difficulties of the present time, as if everything in the past was wonderful. He writes, “It’s easy to put on rose-tinted glasses, look back at earlier days and say ‘those were better times’ or easier times, when the truth is, they weren’t” (581). He’s talking about American society in general here. He’s reminding us of our tendency to romanticize, for example, the post-WWII era, with its economic boom in the US and its nation building internationally, at the expense of remembering the legalized racism and Cold War fears that also existed then.

I think many of us could apply his words to our personal lives. It’s easy to become nostalgic as adults for what seem like the simpler days of childhood, but if we look at those childhood days with a critical eye, we can probably see that they weren’t so simple after all. Maybe our parents struggled with money, or maybe we had to deal with a teacher who didn’t seem to like us, or maybe our classmates didn’t want to play our favorite games at recess. Whatever the particulars, Kerry’s observation about our tendency to romanticize the past resonated with me.

It seems to me that if we can keep a more realistic perspective about the past, we can be more likely to face current challenges more effectively, for we’ll feel better equipped to draw on strategies and techniques we used in the past to deal with whatever issues we face now or will face in the future. To draw on the trite or cliché again, the old saying “whoever does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it” seems to apply. (Sorry Mr. Andrew.)

I also appreciated Kerry sharing with the reader some insights into why he wrote his autobiography. He explains, “…I wrote this book…to share with you…the abiding truth I’ve learned in my journey….You may fail at first, but you can’t give in. You have to get up and fight the fight again, but you can get there. The big steps and the small steps all add up. History is cumulative” (583). Kerry is speaking here about public diplomacy and government. However, again his message seems to apply to everyday life as well.

I have the impression that too often we think life should be smooth sailing. We think that to be successful, we should never face setbacks. Many say this impression is even more heightened in these days of social media, when people see on a daily basis posts from friends featuring happy photos of wonderful vacations in beautiful places, news of awards won, and reports of uplifting milestones like births, graduations, and weddings.

Kerry reminds us that life is not all about the good times. It’s about bad times, too. He encourages us not to give in to the bad times but rather to keep trying. What matters is our overall effort at the end. Some might say that’s easy for Kerry to say, considering his privileged background that perhaps gave him a head start in the competitive game of life. When he fell down, they might ask, how far did he really fall in comparison to other people? While I acknowledge this point of view, it’s not my own.

Sure, Kerry describes attending prestigious prep schools as a boy, but he also lived away from his family as a boarding student from a young age, suffering from homesickness and emotional distance. Along with the good comes the bad, I think. So although his background might be different than mine, and some would say more privileged, I don’t think that means his observations about striving to get up again after falling, or just trying to put one foot in front of the other no matter how small the steps, are irrelevant. In fact, I try to live them every day. I appreciated the reminder from Kerry about this life philosophy.

Digging Deep

Not long ago, I went to a talk about Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who is perhaps best known for receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. The talk was given by Dr. Rand Brandes, Heaney’s longtime bibliographer and archivist. 

Most of the talk focused on the work Brandes has done to document Heaney’s publication history. According to Brandes, Heaney did not find instant widespread fame; his earliest poems, written when he was a college student in the 1950s, were published in school journals and local newspapers. As Brandes explained, it was only over time that Heaney’s poetry began to be accepted by publications with wider readerships, eventually leading him to become known as one of the most influential poets of all time. Heaney was still writing poetry until his death in 2013, which Brandes described as untimely due to a short illness.

My favorite parts of the talk were when Brandes focused on Heaney’s poetry. Apparently, one of Heaney’s poems, “The Rain Stick,” was inspired by and dedicated to Brandes and his wife, who introduced Heaney to his first experience with a rain stick. For those not familiar with them, rain sticks are made by hollowing out a tubular piece of wood and partially filling the tube with pebbles or small beads. When the stick is tipped end-over-end, the pebbles filter down through obtrusions inside the tube, replicating the sound of rain. Here’s what a typical one looks like:

A rain stick. (Wikimedia/Andy Brice)

Brandes brought a rain stick to the talk to demonstrate its operation so the audience could understand how its sound is reflected in Heaney’s poem. The lines from this poem that stand out to me most are:

Upend the stick again. What happens next

Is undiminished for having happened once.

Twice, ten, a thousand times before. (lines 12-14)

I think these lines resonate with me because they indicate the romantic notion that nature is unending. In an era of climate change, it’s hard to feel secure that life on Earth will continue indefinitely. But these lines imply that for recorded time up to now, natural phenomena have happened again and again and again. Perhaps even without human life around to hear in the future, rain might persist. I find that idea oddly comforting.

Another poem that struck a chord with me was “Digging.” In this poem, Heaney explores the generation gap that exists between him and his father and grandfather. His father and grandfather were farmers, and Heaney describes in the poem the physical labor involved in harvesting potatoes and peat. But Heaney has chosen a different career path (or a different path has chosen him). He’s a writer. The lines in this poem that resonate with me most are:

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it. (lines 28-31)

My reaction to these lines is complex. First, I hear a sense of loss that’s implied by the recognition of generational difference. Heaney admits he has “no spade to follow men like them,” indicating an absence that makes his life different than, and perhaps potentially lesser than, theirs. His life is not marked by the dignity associated with carrying on a family legacy of working the land as his father’s and grandfather’s lives were. Additionally, by naming his tool, the pen, he highlights its contrast with his father’s and grandfather’s tool, the spade. This difference in tools is representative of the significant difference between the generations.

Yet in the last line, there’s a shift. Here he highlights a similarity. Like his father and grandfather who dig with a spade, he digs also, only with a pen. The tool is different, and certainly the results of the digging are different, but all three of the men dig. Whereas his father and grandfather dug up food and soil, he digs up emotions, memories, thoughts, imaginings, and sensations. While what they dig for is different, all three dig. This last line tempers for me the sadness of the preceding lines. The generations are connected by hard work, albeit of different types, bridging the gaps between them.

I reacted to this last line for a sentimental reason as well. It reminded me of a former professor I studied with in college, Dr. Twila Yates Papay. Twila was the director of the Rollins College Writing Center when I was a student there. I worked for her for three years after she selected me as a peer writing consultant, and I also took courses from her as part of my major in the English Department. In my previous post, I mentioned some of the academic journals I kept in her courses. When I worked in the Writing Center, she had the peer consultants keep both individual and group journals, and she was my adviser for an independent study project titled Journaling in Utopia that I completed for the Honors Degree Program.

One of Twila’s favorite lines when teaching her students how to journal was to tell us to “dig deep.” By this she meant that we should describe with details rather than skimming the surface. She also meant that we shouldn’t stop our analyses with the easy or obvious answers. Instead, we should “dig deep” to try to get at the root of the issues we were exploring. As I did with the poems above, Twila wanted us to explore why words hold the meanings they do, what impacts the words might have on us, and where those impacts stem from. She also wanted us to strive to impact our readers. She wanted us to evoke emotional and intellectual responses from our readers. I hope I’ve done that for you. 

Twila was a mentor to me for many years, long after I graduated from college. After I ended up pursuing rhetoric and writing studies as a career path, I would sometimes run across Twila at conferences. She always made time away from the busy schedules at those conferences to join me for a cup of coffee or a meal. She would listen to stories of my current situation and also share with me stories of hers. Her husband Joe would be with her, and he would talk about a recent train ride he had taken or the latest model train he had added to his collection. 

Twila passed away in 2017, and I’ve felt the void ever since. Nonetheless, when I have faced challenges in the years since her passing, I’ve thought of her and been reminded that I’m not the only one to have faced such matters, for Twila was open and honest about not only the joys but also the challenges she faced. I’m grateful to have known her and grateful for her generosity of spirit and intellect that stays with me today. I’m glad to have attended Brandes’s talk and heard Heaney’s poem “Digging,” which reminded me of her.