#039 THE MAGNIFICATION OF ONE MEMORY IN MEMOIR “Ivy Lodge A Memoir of Translation and Discovery” by Linda Murphy Marshall
What is the date you began writing this memoir and the date when you completed the memoir? I began writing my memoir in June of 2014 and completed it in June of 2020. It began as a 10-page essay for a June, 2014 workshop I attended and I continued to add to it after the workshop.
Where did you do most of your writing for this memoir? And please describe in detail. I did most of my writing in my home in Columbia, Maryland, seated at a round table in a bright, sunny room at the back of the house. The sun streaming in through all the windows during the day acted as a counterweight to much of my writing.
What were your writing habits while writing this memoir- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? Although I took many notes in pen, I did most of my work on my laptop, although I scribbled all over each printed draft (and there were numerous drafts). Often I would listen to Spanish guitar music while I wrote; music with lyrics proved to be too distracting. My beverage of choice, always by my side, was my own invention (I think): Diet Peach Snapple plus a packet of Peach Crystal light plus water and a lot of ice. I also treated myself to a Chai Tea Latte occasionally, if I’d had a fairly productive day. I wrote all day but was probably more productive from late morning to mid-afternoon.
Out of all the specific memories you write about in this memoir, which ONE MEMORY was the most emotional for you to write about? And can you share that specific excerpt with us here. The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer, and please provide page numbers as reference. The one memory that was the most emotional for me concerned an incident I refer to as the worst and best of my life. The worst, in that my father completely lost his temper with me when I asked for his nonfinancial career help (and my mother piggybacked onto his rant). It was also the best because it served as a watershed moment, a catalyst for me to begin preparations to leave my home in Kirkwood, Missouri and move to the East Coast with my small children. If my father had been even a little bit kinder that night, I probably would never have had the courage to do all it entailed to leave the area.
Excerpt:
p. 242-245
Standing on the threshold, anxious to end my day, memories roll over me unbidden about the watershed moment between my father and me that occurred in this room in 1984. If it hadn’t happened, I’d still be living in Missouri, not Maryland. I might still be married to my former husband, not my current husband of almost eleven years. I’d still be a housewife. I’d still be miserable. I should have thanked my father for delivering a nightmarish evening, while also the most life changing.
I called on my father one evening a few years after finishing my PhD, made an appointment to see him. I wanted to ask if I could use his name as a reference with local CEOs or CFOs to start my own translating business in St. Louis. An entree into his corporate world was what I needed, a foot in the door, a short letter of introduction to get my business off the ground. Not money. I wanted the opportunity to prove myself. I’d been doing freelance translating work for five years. Although I had steady work, I thought the next logical step would be to start my own business, bring in more income. Freelancing didn’t pay much, only ten cents a word, even if the word in question happened to be a lengthy technical German term for a dental prosthetic technique; a word was a word, worth ten cents in the marketplace back then.
I arrived at the back door, knocking on the kitchen door. My mother greeted me, visibly curious about my mission. I wasn’t dressed up because I would be talking to my father, after all. I had dressed in casual, stretchy pants with a loose shirt, my shapeless, baggy uniform, forever trying to camouflage what I thought of as my enormous, unattractive body, all my glaring flaws and unsightliness.
Like a secretary leading a client to an appointment, my mother led me to the living room after giving my outfit a brief once-over and before casting a knowing look at my father. She appeared to return to the kitchen, although not out of earshot, as it would turn out. My father initially acted friendly but some- what formal since, as usual, he seemed uncomfortable being left alone with me. He inquired about my husband and two small children, at home a few miles away. My siblings, parents, and I all lived within about a ten-mile radius of each other.
We made small talk. Harmless, innocuous topics. But then I got to the point—why I’d come, why I wanted to talk to him. I didn’t want to waste his time, forever thinking he—anyone— had far better ways to spend their time than with me. When I broached the subject of the letter, though, experience having taught me to tiptoe up to the topic, his anger suddenly surfaced like hot lava from a volcano when he realized what I wanted. No gradual building of emotions occurred, no follow-up clarifications or questions. He went from zero to two hundred in a matter of seconds. Using every ounce of his vocal cords, he began to shout at me repeatedly, “You are out of the nest! Do you hear me? You are out of the nest!” giving special emphasis to the word out. The only interruption from his rant occurred when, running out of steam, his voice laced with sarcasm, he bellowed that he would be happy to loan me twenty-five dollars to place an ad in the St. Louis Business Journal to drum up business. As though this constituted a generous gesture on his part. As though money were the issue. I somehow managed to interject that I didn’t want his money, that it had never been about money, I just needed access to the business world, to the connections he had. But he had stopped listening.
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Can you describe the emotional process of writing about this ONE MEMORY? Writing about this memory was cathartic, but it made me sad because even after so many years, I still did not/do not know what set my father off, why my seemingly innocuous request so enraged him. I wish I’d asked him when he was still alive, but I probably wouldn’t have had the courage, afraid to reignite his rage.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? I think, if anything, I was exceptionally forthcoming about what happened. It had such an impact on me and led to such major changes in my life that I felt I needed to write it all down, share it, not just to share with my readers, but in an attempt to better understand it myself.
Linda Murphy Marshall is a multi-linguist and writer with a PhD in Hispanic languages and literature, a master’s in Spanish, and an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Maryland Literary Review, the Ocotillo Review, Chestnut Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bacopa Literary Review, PopMatters, Storgy [UK], The Bark Magazine, Catamaran Literary Reader, and Critical Read. She was featured in American Writers Review, where she was an Honorable Mention for the 2019 Fiction Contest. She was long-listed in Strands Publishers’s 2021 International Flash Fiction Contest, and was a finalist in the 2020 Annual Adelaide Literary Contest for one of her essays. In addition, she is currently a reader for Fourth Genre and a translation editor for the Los Angeles Review. Her sketches and paintings have been featured in art shows and galleries.