Parlor Games
When I was just getting started as a writer, I immediately took some risks. It wasn’t something I set out to do, it just came out that way. For example, I wrote an essay called “The Life and Times of My Breasts,” and sent it to Parents Magazine. It was about breastfeeding, but not the usual sort of thing you’d see in a mainstream magazine back in the early 1990s. I wrote openly about the horrors and humor of having my breasts swell up to the size of two Volkswagons in the earliest days at home with my firstborn, and how I tried to find relief naturally, according to the advice in one of my myriad tomes for new mothers, by stuffing raw cabbage leaves in my improbably gigantic nursing bra. No relief ensued, however. All that happened is that the leaves literally steamed and wilted from the heat of my painfully engorged, swollen, and feverish breasts, which, in unjust defiance, refused to shrink or soften despite the pungent stench of the softened cabbage.
I wrote, too, about the stark surprise much later, after weaning; the detached amazement I experienced over my newly regained and now much smaller breasts, deflated and light, like empty socks. And of course I wrote about the awe of my daughter (and later my son), the closeness and love of nursing them, and the totally blissed-out high of a warm, sated child in my arms, of seeing that tiny and impossibly soft head lolled back like a drunken sailor, or fragile bird. Parents Magazine loved the piece, and I, after happy dancing all over the house, reflected that it had been a risk to write that kind of essay, but it had paid off. And it was just what I wanted to write. It felt fantastic.
According to my mentor, the poet and creative genius Paul Matthews, the idea of risk in language is connected to what we would essentially think of as an early French parlor game. Writes Matthews in his classic book, Sing Me the Creation, “The Troubadours in the South of France in the 13th century played a literary question-and-answer game called ‘jeu-parti,’ or the ‘divided game.’ From this comes our word ‘jeopardy,’ meaning danger. It is a marvelous root, that in the midst of our word-play we might be confronted by a real question so that our whole being stands before a creative risk, a jeopardy, to be faced directly or shied away from….
“Such moments in writing nearly always have something of the question, ‘Who are you?’ hidden inside them,” Matthews continues. “Without that fundamental question, in fact, no real conversation is possible, and yet we spend so much of our lives talking about other things in order to avoid it. When, however, that question is asked, the possibility of a poetry arises.”
I love this intertwined concept of a parlor game, jeopardy, the unexpected question of essential self, and poetry. And anyone who’s ever played talking games such as “two truths and a lie” knows how potent the brew of fun and risk can be when packaged in the guise of word play.
To carry the same possibilities–the same juxtaposition of fun and danger and authentic identity–into our writing is a very worthy endeavor.
January 5th, 2013 at 2:08 am
I love your writing. My only teacher has been the smell of my newborns or when after a few months, they began to beam at me! Well also the mischief of my brothers and their bright eyes and trouble making. Christ my game of jeprody is completely nude in the middle of the highway. You really can’t win there. However sometimes your poems put Rambau to shame. He would be the first to admit it. I rip myself to pieces with words, without the proper sanction of the hallowed institutions! To me that’s the only way to go, raw, about and for the people, of wihich i am.You are as well gorgeous!
January 5th, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Thank you for sharing this wonderful piece. It speaks to me because I too nursed my children and was in awe of my body. I find myself in awe of it once again, not because of the beautiful abilities it has, rather, the devastating effects of losing a sex organ. I had a hysterectomy in September, and I grieve for those lost moment when my children were in my arms nursing. I grieve that (despite the fact that my husband and I could not afford anymore children) I will never have another child. It’s a struggle which I have made small attempts to put it on paper.
January 5th, 2013 at 6:29 pm
Tracie, I’m sorry about the hysterectomy. That’s a big deal. I’d love to see some of those small attempts to put it on paper if you ever want to share. About nursing–I nursed my 3 close-in-age children for literally a decade straight, because I nursed them for a long time. The whole extended breastfeeding thing; it worked for us. About not having another child, my husband and I have six between us (blended family, we each had three children from our first marriages) and yet I still sometimes grieve the fact that I won’t have another child. I mean, theoretically I could, but I’m 44 and my husband had a vasectomy before I met him, which aren’t even the main reasons for not having another child. There are so many reasons. And yet. I think you know what I mean. Thank you for staying in touch!
January 5th, 2013 at 6:34 pm
Sean, the smell of newborns is a remarkably potent teacher, is it not? The proper sanction of the hallowed institutions is highly overrated. You should come to my writing and yoga retreat this summer solstice if you can. You would love the crazy-beautiful energy, like your jewel like posts on Facebook, surreal and shimmering. I savor those when you post them. Meanwhile you should follow my the Facebook page for my blog. Thank you commenting. Writing is like spitting into the wind. You rip open your heart and send out its contents, after which there is most often a resounding silence. Or a wet cheek. Right? So thanks!
https://www.facebook.com/elephantrockretreats
January 6th, 2013 at 10:59 pm
I was very impressed by your blog. I wish I had been able to read your essay, I am sure it must be as humorous as I found this to be. I agree with a great deal of what you say about writing, especially when you are pulling from down deep, too many people can take your words and misinterpret them, or use them against you. I applaud you for being a risk taker. As much as I like to write, I was afraid to take the risk. I was too afraid of rejection. Of people reading my material and wondering what was wrong with me. Maybe it’s time for me to take that risk as well. Again, very impressive work. I would also like to add that while nursing is a beautiful thing between a mother and her child, holding your newborn grandchild is a definite second place.