Last week’s memoir class began much like every first-week-of-November class I’ve taught for the last 14 years. No one had agreed to this beforehand. No one had said anything. No memo had gone out. There was no round-robin email suggesting that we turn our writing in any particular direction at the same time we turn back our clocks. It just happened, just like it happens every year. The reason?

The holidays are coming.

There once was a time when the onset of the holidays was actually marked on the day after Thanksgiving. Or so it seemed to me. But that was when I was a child, I guess, and had no notion of the shopping/cooking/writing/sending/visiting marathon that apparently begins with Halloween. Now I do. Do I ever. And while it means many things for us all, for memoir writers it means that while we are deep in rich territory (oh, that family behavior!), it also means that time is at a premium right now.

What to do? I suggest to go with what you’ve got. It’s the harvest time, after all. One student responded to this shift in the season by taking a kind of inventory of the people in her life who have helped her. And we were all profoundly moved. I loved the piece, particularly since it was being told in this season, where the backstory is that of taking stock of what we have. A fine theme right now, and one I’ve written about before here on TSP.

What have you got right now? I know you’ve got lists. Have you ever thought of utilizing one in your writing? It’s a great device. Tidy and thorough, it stands up to any assignment, from comedy to tragedy, and everything in between. We love our lists on TSP. I have an entire category here on my blog devoted to them. Have you seen it?

It’s an old journalism adage: Go with what you’ve got. So go with what you’ve got in this season. Use your lists, take stock, and write on.

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Me, on the swim team, before I knew the 15 Rules.

WHY WOULD I BE ASKED TO SPEAK at a school commencement, my daughter wanted to know? I am no one’s idea of a traditional role model. But I’ve been able to chart my life to do what I love, so my speech turned out to be a list of rules to help the girls do just that. 15 Rules for Living, from overseas travel to a certain pair of red shoes:

1. Never be without at least one pair of red shoes. There are few situations in life that cannot be improved by them.

2. Don’t read the Cliff Notes. Read the book. Much like life, it’s not what happened, but how it happened—how the insecurities of one person, the passions, the human inability to choose well, the human ability to choose brilliantly—result in the events in the story.

3. Wear lipstick. It feels great, and it’s fun, and all too often we depend on other people to make us feel good and show us a good time. Get yourself some lipstick, and every time you apply it, remember that this is one of your rules of life: to show yourself a good time, in your shade, on your terms.

4. If more than three people are rushing off to do something and it’s not an organized sport, stop, take a minute, and decide for yourself: Do you really want to do anything with this pack of people?

5. Choosing a college or a major field of study because somebody who likes you and is cute chooses that college or field of study makes about as much sense as eating raw, poisonous sea urchins: I know it’s done in some parts of the world, but I can’t imagine why.

6. If you fear it, try it. And we don’t mean merely piercing. Try out for the play, speak truth to someone in power, get help for a problem, say no to someone who wants to do something with your body that you’re not sure you want to do.

7. An old expression says you can never be too rich or too thin. Yes you can. Of course you can be too thin. Too rich? We all are, every day that a child anywhere on earth goes hungry.

8. It is not possible to be too funny.  Don’t envy others’ abilities to make people laugh. Work on your own funny voice. You have one.

9. If your college has a program abroad, go. We’ll get over it, and soon we’ll be bragging about how brave you were to go to Nairobi.

10. If it seems like a bad idea, it is.

11. There is no such thing as a good reason to drop out of college.

12. Be loyal. To your friends, to your family and absolutely, to the schools who teach you. It’s easy to pretend that your school doesn’t mean a great deal to you. Anybody can do that. But it’s an interesting woman who graciously credits others for the time spent educating her.

13. Unlucky? Nope. Here’s all you need to know about luck. You make your own luck. That’s a quote from Napoleon who knew a thing or two about seizing the day.

14. A quote from perhaps a wiser man, certainly a man whose advice I try to follow, “Never, never, never quit.” Said by Winston Churchill.

15. Here’s the secret to self-esteem: It begins and ends in how you are spoken to. And the fundamental voice you need to listen to is your own. Speak to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend.

Fifteen rules. When in doubt of what to do, try this litmus test:

Is this the Cliff Notes, or the real thing? If I simply took the time to go back to my dorm room and got my lipstick, would doing what this person wants me to do still seem like a good idea when I got back? Do I truly want to be a pottery major? Does this group have my best interests at heart, or do they want me with them because I’m special and I make them seem more special? Am I afraid of doing that, and why? Will I be proud of myself if I do it anyway? What would I say to someone else right now if I wanted her to succeed? What would a snappy pair of red shoes do right now to my attitude? And what that I know to be absolutely true about how to succeed, can I add to this list?

Here at TSP, we love lists. Check out some of our others.

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A SISTER-FRIEND FROM OUR extended network, writer and yoga instructor Joely Johnson Mork, sent us the following piece back in December, during which time all of us were otherwise engaged making other kinds of lists. But I keep thinking of Joely’s offering, and wanted to share it. One week after a loss she was certain she would never write about, the death of her best friend, I asked Joely, a former student in my memoir-writing class, if she thought she could simply bring in a list of thoughts related to the event. She actually she wrote a series of three lists, about her last visit with Mary. I offer them here, in another busy time of year, to again help us take stock of what we value.

Joely’s List That Helps With Loss

What I Brought
1. A copy of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “So Far.”
2. Three sticks of Buddhist incense that had been hand-delivered to me from Japan by a former lover.
3. A single change of clothes thrown without thinking into a canvas bag.
4. A week’s supply of Zoloft and Ativan.
5. My journal.
6. My marijuana pipe.
7. The turquoise necklace Mary brought back for me from Scottsdale.

What I Heard
1. Gale saying very solemnly, “Be prepared,” bowing her head to me as I walked toward the dining room where Mary was lying in her rented hospital bed.
2. The old-woman rasping of Mary’s breath.
3. Her husband’s surprised-sounding sobs.
4. The mechanical ocean sound of the oxygen tank.
5. Jeanne’s musical voice telling her daughter how honored she was to have been her mother and that it was OK to die now.
6. The moist crackle of fluid settling in Mary’s lungs.
7. The familiar, precious echo of Mary’s speaking voice breaking through her unconscious attempts to cough.
8. Thunder approaching with heavy boots and an empty sack slung over its back.
9. The release of rain on the leaves and earth outside the dining room windows.
10. The grinding of the hospital bed motor as we lowered the mattress after Mary had left us.

What I Said
1. On arriving, entering the kitchen to meet the crumpled faces of my friends standing there, “Oh, is she getting ready to spread her wings?”
2. “You have led an amazing life – you’ve done so much, we will all remember you.”
3. Whispered to Mary, when we were alone, “You are standing in front of a gate to a beautiful garden and the key is in your hand. Open the lock and let yourself walk inside. The sun is shining there – go, go, go.”

(For Mary “Mesa” Kittle, dear friend-sister.)

Of course, this reminds us of the gorgeous piece by TSP-new-sister Marilyn Pollack-Naron, and reminds us too, to read through the original comments sent to TSP and to Joely, as well as to ask you to send us your list, in the comments or by email to thesisterproject at gmail dot com.

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IT’S THE HOLIDAYS, the season to make lists. I had planned to write about that, as in what’s on my list/what’s on Margaret’s. But in The Sister Project’s first week online, so many of you emailed and commented about another topic that I’m moved to take it on here. The topic? Missing your sister at this time of year.

In just these few days, Priscilla wrote of reading to her sister as she lay dying; Melissa shared the story of her sister who was lost in an automobile crash. Lalita remembers her fourth sister as “a star in the heavens,” saying, “She remains a little girl while the three of us grow old hanging on to the edge of the earth, feeling enormously blessed.” And there have been others, each with a story of loss to share.

As I’ve said, I teach memoir. In each first class of a session, I listen to each student’s chosen personal essay topic. In every class, someone will choose to write about someone who left, about loss.

To get the topic going, I might ask the writer to simply make a list of what the person took with them when they went, because when people leave us, what they take tells us if they are going for good, going for show, or merely slinking off to someone else. Saltshakers are a good indication that he has not got someone else lined up. Taking only a sandwich tells us first that she’s hungry, and has little more than tonight in mind.

And we all know what he takes when he or she is leaving for good. Because it has happened to us, and it is in the list of what he took that the tale is told. That’s what makes the story truthful, as well as what makes it yours: What did he take of yours, what of his, and how do you define those, divide those, when at one time those lines were blurred by the smudge of love?

But people leave in different ways. In one first class, a woman sat stiffly, her arms crossed in front of her, dark bangs slammed right down to her brow. When it was her turn to reveal her topic, our exchange went something like this:

“I’m not even sure why I’m here.”

Uh-huh.

“My best friend just died.”

Oh. Oh dear.

“And I’m not writing about that. Nope. Got nothing to say. Too soon. Three weeks ago. Cancer.” She exhaled and unfolded her arms, and I exhaled, and we sat. All I could remember was the inutterable grief it was to lose my friend Susannah and what it is I did.

“Were you there when she died?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you live far away or nearby?

“Three hours away. I got the call.”

“What did you pack?”

“What?”

“What did you take with you?”

The next week she came in with a list. Actually it was three lists:

• What I brought.
• What I heard.
• What I said.

Under each were five mere sentences, 15 in all. And I hope she reads this post and sends the piece for you to read. It’s a wonder.

What about you? Have you lost a sister, blood or otherwise? While each hurt is unique, it carries within it its own identifiers that when shared, help us all to sort through grief, especially in this time of plenty.

Have a list? For some of us it would be what we drank or ate at the time, for others what we packed, perhaps what we prayed, or scribbled down, or maybe what we cook at the holidays to remember her by. I decorate my cookies with my friend Susannah’s panache; were she here, she’d be at my counter with me, covered in nine colors of royal icing.

Have you lost a sister, or a sister-friend, whether to distance, disagreement or even death? Write your list. It would be our privilege to see it.

_______________

Postscript: Artist Elsa Mora lost her older sister, though still living, to the dark maze of schizophrenia 10 years ago, a loss that inspires Elsa’s work even today. Read her story in the TSP Galleries.

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