Eryn, wow! I just read the essay and am literally in tears in my office right now. It's a beautiful piece of writing and I can recognize it as a piece of writing that had to come out (like breathing, as you say). As someone who also writes about sex and real life people, I very much relate to these fears and questions! If I'm being entirely honest, part of writing (in general, but especially in memoir) is practicing some dissociation. Like...I can't let my brain fully grasp that people will read these details. With that tool, combined with my sexuality studies background and general sex-positivity, the sex writing feels easy at this point. Writing about family and knowing that it can hurt people is the much harder thing to navigate. My approach with my memoir: I have *almost* everyone the chance to read the sections they were in and give me feedback. My mom chose not to, and though she is happy for me, she still feels hurt by what she assumes is the portrayal of her in the book (based on snippets she's read and summaries she's seen). It's been painful, but we're still close and on good terms. I did not offer the pages to anyone in my dad's family because I do not feel any sense of trust with them. I'm still wrestling with the ethics of that, but I stand in my decision for now. We have to make decisions aligned with our values, and sometimes that will mean making our art and not sharing it with people who have not showed us that they can be in right relationship to it.
It's a particularly complex form of sharing when our life stories and discoveries include other people: we should be free to share the truth as we experienced it, but that doesn't make it any less difficult to do.
One of the many things I love about your writing is that the center of each piece feels like a river moving the reader through your experience. Although it may pass through lakes, over rapids, have tributaries feed into it, there's always a steady current in the center, pulling in the same direction from start to finish. I think you told the story you needed to tell to create that sense of movement.
We've all arrived where we are by passing through where we've been, and especially in reference to our childhood, how we react to the way we're taught is often more about the people teaching us than it is about our underdeveloped sense of personhood. We only form who we are in response to the forces the world exerts on us, and I think you conveyed that with so much compassion and grace.
I know you're doing the right thing for yourself and likely opening a door for others who don't have your skill with words. In the end, there was a story to be written and you wrote it, and it's not your fault if your experience of the truth is uncomfortable for anyone.
This is such a beautiful essay 🌊 I resonate so much with the struggle around writing about people in my life and also with the way that exploring our more dominant sides can bring up a whole host of feelings relating back to the patriarchy, our relationship with the energies people often perceive as “masculine”, and our pasts. Thank you for sharing — it’s such an important piece.
Wow, this piece really hit it for me. The title is jaw dropping (I’m an Aries sun myself). Familial astrology is so fascinating and you did a really beautiful job of succinctly summarizing an astro-unfamiliar reader, without losing your voice or the flow of the piece. As an astrologer and writer myself, well done. I’m inspired :)
If you haven’t already, I recommend the movie Sink or Swim by Su Friedrich. It reminded me of your essay – braided with mythology, a father who loves & leaves, and stories told through vignettes that paint a whole.
Eryn, wow! I just read the essay and am literally in tears in my office right now. It's a beautiful piece of writing and I can recognize it as a piece of writing that had to come out (like breathing, as you say). As someone who also writes about sex and real life people, I very much relate to these fears and questions! If I'm being entirely honest, part of writing (in general, but especially in memoir) is practicing some dissociation. Like...I can't let my brain fully grasp that people will read these details. With that tool, combined with my sexuality studies background and general sex-positivity, the sex writing feels easy at this point. Writing about family and knowing that it can hurt people is the much harder thing to navigate. My approach with my memoir: I have *almost* everyone the chance to read the sections they were in and give me feedback. My mom chose not to, and though she is happy for me, she still feels hurt by what she assumes is the portrayal of her in the book (based on snippets she's read and summaries she's seen). It's been painful, but we're still close and on good terms. I did not offer the pages to anyone in my dad's family because I do not feel any sense of trust with them. I'm still wrestling with the ethics of that, but I stand in my decision for now. We have to make decisions aligned with our values, and sometimes that will mean making our art and not sharing it with people who have not showed us that they can be in right relationship to it.
Sending you love and strength and admiration!
It's a particularly complex form of sharing when our life stories and discoveries include other people: we should be free to share the truth as we experienced it, but that doesn't make it any less difficult to do.
One of the many things I love about your writing is that the center of each piece feels like a river moving the reader through your experience. Although it may pass through lakes, over rapids, have tributaries feed into it, there's always a steady current in the center, pulling in the same direction from start to finish. I think you told the story you needed to tell to create that sense of movement.
We've all arrived where we are by passing through where we've been, and especially in reference to our childhood, how we react to the way we're taught is often more about the people teaching us than it is about our underdeveloped sense of personhood. We only form who we are in response to the forces the world exerts on us, and I think you conveyed that with so much compassion and grace.
I know you're doing the right thing for yourself and likely opening a door for others who don't have your skill with words. In the end, there was a story to be written and you wrote it, and it's not your fault if your experience of the truth is uncomfortable for anyone.
This is such a beautiful essay 🌊 I resonate so much with the struggle around writing about people in my life and also with the way that exploring our more dominant sides can bring up a whole host of feelings relating back to the patriarchy, our relationship with the energies people often perceive as “masculine”, and our pasts. Thank you for sharing — it’s such an important piece.
Wow, this piece really hit it for me. The title is jaw dropping (I’m an Aries sun myself). Familial astrology is so fascinating and you did a really beautiful job of succinctly summarizing an astro-unfamiliar reader, without losing your voice or the flow of the piece. As an astrologer and writer myself, well done. I’m inspired :)
If you haven’t already, I recommend the movie Sink or Swim by Su Friedrich. It reminded me of your essay – braided with mythology, a father who loves & leaves, and stories told through vignettes that paint a whole.