Coming back to a childhood home for Thanksgiving is so often, for so many, akin to becoming a child again. Elizabeth, in starting her story there and then, is wading into troubled waters. Not only is she transforming into her old self, but she is forcing the memories of that old self upon her now adult mind.
Thanksgivings past are legendary and often booby-trapped affairs that many of us try to avoid, yet feel obliged to attend and enjoy. It is the perfect metaphor for the difficulty of writing a memoir.
It is no wonder that she became stuck. Elizabeth’s case of writer’s block and its solution was more dramatic than most, but she set herself up for it by not pussyfooting around. Instead, she recognized and started with the point!
And where did that get her? Stuck. Fortunately for her, she found the passageway out of her tunnel. If only we could all be so lucky.
Thanks so much for this very insightful comment, Susan! The funny thing is that I started the book where I did, thinking that the Thanksgiving scene was a good way to introduce the characters and our family's general dynamic—but I did not have in my mind that Thanksgiving is an encounter with family dynamics for almost everyone! It was only when Barbara and I were talking about the way patterns from childhood are there to be activated by the right context, that I understood why it is so universal. It's because, as you say, we become again the child we once were.
Re: writer’s block
Coming back to a childhood home for Thanksgiving is so often, for so many, akin to becoming a child again. Elizabeth, in starting her story there and then, is wading into troubled waters. Not only is she transforming into her old self, but she is forcing the memories of that old self upon her now adult mind.
Thanksgivings past are legendary and often booby-trapped affairs that many of us try to avoid, yet feel obliged to attend and enjoy. It is the perfect metaphor for the difficulty of writing a memoir.
It is no wonder that she became stuck. Elizabeth’s case of writer’s block and its solution was more dramatic than most, but she set herself up for it by not pussyfooting around. Instead, she recognized and started with the point!
And where did that get her? Stuck. Fortunately for her, she found the passageway out of her tunnel. If only we could all be so lucky.
Thanks so much for this very insightful comment, Susan! The funny thing is that I started the book where I did, thinking that the Thanksgiving scene was a good way to introduce the characters and our family's general dynamic—but I did not have in my mind that Thanksgiving is an encounter with family dynamics for almost everyone! It was only when Barbara and I were talking about the way patterns from childhood are there to be activated by the right context, that I understood why it is so universal. It's because, as you say, we become again the child we once were.