SCHOOL IS BACK. After a long summer of not teaching, I am back where I love to be, three weeks into a new class on memoir. And it’s a great class: Twenty-one eager writers, all with their own tales, all willing to do the work to get the pieces on the page. And each week I ask the same question:

“Problems?” And we talk about who got stuck where, and why, and how. My favorite problem last week was from one fine young writer who simply admitted, “My story is too big.”

Ah. Yes. Too big.

Whose isn’t?

Mine was too, once, and here’s what I know about that.

In 1983 I published a piece in The New York Times Magazine entitled “Another Name for Madness.” The first, first-person account of Alzheimer’s in the popular press, it was about my mother, then 51, and losing her mind in handfuls. The magazine piece caused a response; putting me on The Today Show the next day, and pretty much every major talk show after that. I quit my job and spent the next four years on the road talking about the illness, testifying before Congress, the New York State Legislature, working with New York City to set up informational and referral offices and writing a book about the experience.

The title of that book was also to be, Another Name for Madness, for which my wonderful editor suggested a subtitle of, “The dramatic story of a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.” That subtitle does not read, “everything you ever wanted to know about the Roach family that they know to date, including but not limited to their immigration to the US, what they paid for the houses in which they lived, how tall they were then, and, woo-woo, a peek into the marriage bed of the parents.”

No, it does not.

My assignment was very specific, and in that I nearly lost my mind, as well, learning on deadline, living on someone else’s money (this time Houghton Mifflin’s) how to toss out anything that did not illustrate the dramatic story of a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. And pretty much 99% of our lives to date did not.

And in the course of reporting the book I learned a lot about my mother, reporting the story of her life before her illness so that you might fall in love with her before the illness wrenched her away, so that you’d value the loss we experienced, so you would understand our “dramatic struggle.” During the early stages of Alzheimer’s she became sloppy with the details of her life, and I discovered that she had been having an affair since I was 8. And that my sister had known since she was 9.

So, what do you do with that? Could we amend the subtitle to read, the dramatic story of a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, as evidenced in a woman who lied to her family without anyone but one of her children finding out until her dementia made her so sloppy with the details of her life that even the young woman writing this book was forced to notice what she could, had she been paying attention, noticed for 14 years?

Ah, no.

And then there was the eeensy little trouble of how to deal with her drinking. All her life she had been a heavy drinker, and mean when drunk. A fascinating, intelligent, compelling, educated, liberal-thinking, hard-voting, snap-witty, gorgeous woman, when drunk even her beauty became blurred. Well, alcohol being a brain insult, I had to deal with it in the biochemistry of Alzheimer’s and its possible causes, but how complicated does it get when you try to braid into the tale the immense complexities of being a child of an alcoholic?

Was I to write about her affair? Her alcoholism? These other stories of my family bulge out in ways that your stories bulge out when you try to tell one of them. And that’s another good reason you get up from the desk and go do anything but this. Instead, you have to tell these tales one at a time, pruning that octopus before it grabs you by the earrings and eats you alive. I know I’m not alone in having what in polite society we call a “complicated” family. Not a bit. So how do you do you write about them? By sticking to the story at hand, clipping it down on the page as you go, selecting carefully as you type, every day reminding yourself of this one single question: What is this about?

On the topic of her alcoholism, I actually have nothing intelligent or unique to say, though I’ve seen the topic done beautifully. Read Drinking: A Love Story by the late and great Caroline Knapp. But when Caroline Knapp chose to write another memoir about the relationship she had with her dog, and called it, A Pack of Two, she wrote about the same life—hers—with a different answer to the question “what is this about?”

What’s the story about?

Mine was the dramatic story of a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

What’s yours?

No related posts.

THE TRUTH ISN’T ALWAYS FUNNY. If you want a funny list, we’ve got it. But not here. This time I’m taking on the single, galvanizing not-funny aspect of the sisterhood. And just what is that? Time. How we manage time.

Yeah, sisters, we’re talking time, that hideous topic, that elephant in every room in our homes. And I’m doing it as a “don’t” list, as opposed to all our other TSP lists, taking this by the proverbial horns, and wrestling to the ground some of the things we all sometimes need to say. Please feel free to add, since to date my list is short, and not at all sweet.

I call it “The Big 5: The Please Don’ts” of the Sisterhood.”

Here it is.

1. Don’t tell us again how much you wish we could have been there, wherever it was you wanted us to be. We wish we had been there, too, but our child had a tennis lesson.

2. Don’t tell us we do too much. We know we do too much. But which of the things we do would you have us give up? That thing we do with you, perhaps?

3. Don’t tell us we buy too many books. One can never buy too many books.

4. Don’t tell us we look tired. We prefer to think we look fully engaged.

5. Don’t confuse a blank look with something we want to see. Much of any long-term relationship is pantomime, so get your mime on, honey, and at least look interested.

Anything else on your don’ts, or do those five about cover it?

No related posts.

SIX POUNDS DOWN. Blood pressure lowest of my adult life. Decaffeinated. Old jeans sitting on my hips. Dress that didn’t fit does.  Drinking green tea. Sleeping through the night. Only one question remains: Who the hell is this woman?

Let’s be honest, it can’t be me. Can’t be, not this woman who more resembles my serene-ish older sister, Margaret. Can’t be me who stuck out her arm at my one-year anniversary with the OB-GYN surgeon, and got back a blood-pressure result that was the lowest in my adult life. That can’t be me on the scale, smiling. And that absolutely, positively cannot be me actually falling asleep in the bed, instead of making lists and checking them twice, alphabetizing them, and then reciting them backwards.

Except it is.

Among the lovely things about this diet is how easy it is to adapt. No, we didn’t buy all Dr. Hyman’s favorite brand of intelligent but expensive supplements, since many of the ones I already take fulfill all of his suggestions at a lower price. Yes, we did buy one item, and the protein powder for the shake he recommends, but I did so because it contains turmeric, one of the great defenders against inflammation. In future I may simply add more turmeric to a less-expensive, fructose-free, and organic rice-protein powder. (Note: I have been taking turmeric daily in pill form since reading a Johns Hopkins study a few years ago on its possible defense against Alzheimer’s disease, the illness that killed our mother).

Striking, too, about this diet is how I now possess a wonderful vegetable broth recipe, since it’s required for the diet (you drink it between meals). Also good is how you can cook ahead. I did: brown rice in a big pot, as well organic chickens, which I roasted three at a time. (Margaret, a longtime vegetarian, used beans or tofu for her protein.)

We’re on a diet, my sister and I. Same diet, very different sisters. And we’re joined by Margaret’s best friend, Erica, whose work we’ve seen her on TSP, and whose interview with her brother we read when we were just a young blog looking to define ourselves. Completely different from either of us, she’s having great success, too. There is magic in doing this together, as there is whenever sisters and sister-friends set out for shared success.

Share our success, sisters. I’m calling it peaceful health, which for me, it is. And it’s a first. And it’s only two weeks in, with great results already.

(Scales image from Apartment Therapy.)

No related posts.

Lisa Ling; image from Wikipedia

SISTERS IN THE NEWS are not all that common, we find. We look. We love being on the receiving end of your good generosity for any such news items, as one of you just did. In from Elizabeth at learningtobake, came this, about a book we bet all of us will read when it comes out. Jointly offered by Lisa Ling, a special correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show, and her sister, Laura Ling, one of the women journalists captured by the North Koreans in March and recently released, the proposal currently being shopped around is said to examine “the meaning of sisterhood and journalistic ideals.” Here’s the full story. We’re excited, and wish the Ling sisters all the very best, as well as our sincere offer that if they need any help, they consult our memoir tips here to keep them typing with the rest of us sisters.

No related posts.

WRITER’S BLOCK? NONSENSE. There is no such thing. Despite the fact that writing books are chock full of time-wasting exercises with all manners and ways to get you to emerge from that supposed thing, I say nonsense to all of it since there is no such thing. Don’t believe me? Well, come along with the sisterhood of writing and we’ll change your mind.

I am firmly convinced that “writer’s block” is a phrase initially invented by someone who wanted to sell someone else some cockamamie product disguised as something designed to unblock the blocked. But in reality it was something to get you to buy something else, and keep on buying instead of writing; something invented by some devious writer who didn’t want the competition of your good work.

Then, immortalized as it has been by story, as well as no fewer than 33 film versions of blocked writers, as listed here, the concept has become so accepted that some people actually take haven under the shelter of supposedly having no more to write.

Well, it’s nonsense. Because no sister in the world would let you get away with it if you were, in fact, blocked. I know. I have a sister, we are both writers, and neither one of us has ever let the other stay blocked for more than a few moments.

What do we do?

Are you ready?

It’s diabolical.

It’s ingenious.

It’s called research.

Writer’s block melts away when you recognize that you simply do not know what to say next. In memoir writing, this is fixed by picking up the phone and doing a little research.

“Margaret?”

“Yes.”

“What was the name of the boy who rode the bus with me every day to school?”

“You mean your imaginary friend, or the real children, Marion?”

Ooooh. Nice. That got me going.

Two weeks later.

“Margaret?”

“Yes?”

“Were those blue-sashed Christmas dresses Grandma made us made from the drapes?”

“Those were Easter dresses, Marion. And Marion, that was Scarlett O’Hara who had dresses made from drapes. Not you.”

Yes, well. But there’s something to write about. And I did.

Some time later.

“Margaret, what’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

Stony silence, followed by the kind of inspiration that feels ever so much like an inspirational smack on the head.

As you can see, you don’t always get a direct answer. But you do get inspiration. And you move on. Because sisters make you move on. In fact, I’d say that you know you’re a sister when there is one particular person in your life who can get you to move on.

So go ask your sister. Biological, adopted, recently made. She’ll have something to say.

And write on.

No related posts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

No related posts.

I F WE’RE TALKING HEAVY MACHINERY, Marion, make mine a tractor. You know I am all about terra firma, and will be happy to leave this life without ever stepping into another boat (even if it does have a cool little outboard). This is my first photo, in response to Marion’s throwdown about favorite things, whether your sister knows about them, or shares them–or not. If you have a photo to share, email it to us with a brief caption at thesisterproject at gmail dot com (you know how to format that), and we’ll make a slideshow. Yes? Say yes. Marion asked us to, and you don’t want to argue with a red-headed baby sister; trust me on that.

No related posts.

PASSOVER IS HERE, and we look forward to our yearly Seder, blended as we will be into another family’s gracious celebration. It’s easier these days since there are only three of us to accommodate at their Seder table. It wasn’t always like this. And when it wasn’t, I got my first best dose of just how accommodating a sister can be.

When our daughter was 5 she had many outstanding qualities. Foremost among these was that she was relentlessly literal: If you said pink, she didn’t see cerise or fuschia or mauve. She saw pink. Anything to the left of that was “purplish-pink with a little red on top.” Anything to the right of that is “kind of tannish-pink with some extra white.” And anyone who didn’t see it that way was color blind.

So it was along such literal lines that my daughter approached the definitions of what makes a holiday, who celebrates them, and why. It was very important to her to know who of our friends and relations celebrates which holiday, and just how they do it. And, in the spirit of equality, she wanted me to provide for them all. This included her imaginary friend, Bibi Geggy. He’s Jewish. He’s also divorced, and at the time in question was dating two women (one, an Irish-Catholic named Rosie Davenport), and he’s a man who travels everywhere with his sister, Acalcia, and his dog, Walter Fleischman.

But don’t get me started on his lifestyle. Since I’ve written about Bibi Geggy before, I won’t repeat myself. Anyway, why would I, when just about every day Bibi raised so many new issues in our lives, including holidays.

 Bibi is a man of faith and, our daughter insisted, he needed to celebrate Hanukkah. Having no real idea how to do this, I called upon a sister. Granted, she’s Italian and a Catholic, but the lovely man in her life is Jewish, and I knew she honored his religious traditions.

What she posed was the option of a ninth night of the great festival. Now, even nonobservant Jews know that there are only eight nights of Hanukkah, but it seems that much like the 29th of February, the ninth night of Chanukah comes around only every so often. Together we assured my daughter that the holiday celebration would include the usual traditions: the latkes, the Hebrew prayer, the lighting or relighting of the menorah—and, of course, the empty seat, this time set aside not for Jehovah, but, rather, for Bibi Geggy.

The men wore yarmulkes and my dear sister-friend, Michele Santucci, served her famous homemade tortellini.

 The night was a smashing success. In the car home our daughter consulted with Bibi Geggy, who reported that he had such a fine time at Hanukkah and that he has hoping to be back for Passover. He was.

No related posts.