Taboo
"I don't want you writing any more," my aunt said before she died.
Writing, in the view of my family, is now and has ever been a disease. Normal people, the aunts and cousins tell me with pursed lips and wrinkled noses (as if they both taste and smell something foul), do NOT write. They do not even wish to write. Telling stories--and their voices fill with rank disgust as they pronounce the word "stories--to perfect strangers is vile. It is contemptible.
Over the years, I have been ordered not to tell dozens, perhaps hundreds, of stories...indeed, not to think of such tales. I have been commanded to say nothing ill of my mother, a strange, tormented woman afflicted with what I now realize was undiagnosed bipolar disorder. I have been forbidden to speak of my father, a much-married alcoholic about whom many contradictory stories swirl. I have been forbidden to mention my de facto grandmother (the mother of my Aunt Mary's best friend), the daughter of an immigrant who took her mother as his second wife in an American church while he had another wife and eight children back in Italy. I'm not supposed to mention that the first wife eventually saved enough money to come to America, discovered her husband had married again...and ordered him to support both his families, since both were his responsibility. Nor am I allowed to speak of the man who would have wed my Aunt Mary, who may have been a roistering tosspot, a mean drunk or an abusive bastard. I am not sure of his end, either. He may have died as a military sailor in WWII, or been in the merchant marine and had his ship bombed, or simply wandered out of town and never been seen again. There are countless tales like this in the family--taboo stories with multiple endings.
Not only am I forbidden to write of the family, I am forbidden to write anything that might reflect ill upon the family. I have been banned from writing any fictional parents who are cruel or neglectful lest the world think my parents were thus. I've been ordered not to write about skeptical or irreligious people, as that would upset Aunt Anne; not to write about schools, as that might get my schoolteacher cousin in trouble with the school board; not to write any satires about bureaucracy because half the family works for the State of Connecticut; not to write poetry, because "only long-hair toffs and hippie types write poetry"; not to write about science fiction, because it is pure trash; not to write plays, because some members if the family think that plays are wicked; not to write about magic or demons, as that will condemn my soul to Hell. In short, if there is a topic on Earth, be sure that my family has commanded me not to write about it while they are alive.
I had not realized until this past weekend how much they had forbidden. Small wonder I have had so much trouble writing--they forbade EVERYTHING.
Well, I have tried to accommodate them, for the sake of peace in the family, and I think that was a mistake. But the family has not acknowledged my existence since my Aunt Mary, who raised me, died--why should they? Being nice would garner them no more monetary prizes.
I think that the compact--if compact there ever was, for they demanded all and offered nothing in return--is now dissolved. I have had enough of editing myself before I write a word, and more than enough of this self-imposed writer's block.
And if they do not like it, they will just have to endure it.
Writing, in the view of my family, is now and has ever been a disease. Normal people, the aunts and cousins tell me with pursed lips and wrinkled noses (as if they both taste and smell something foul), do NOT write. They do not even wish to write. Telling stories--and their voices fill with rank disgust as they pronounce the word "stories--to perfect strangers is vile. It is contemptible.
Over the years, I have been ordered not to tell dozens, perhaps hundreds, of stories...indeed, not to think of such tales. I have been commanded to say nothing ill of my mother, a strange, tormented woman afflicted with what I now realize was undiagnosed bipolar disorder. I have been forbidden to speak of my father, a much-married alcoholic about whom many contradictory stories swirl. I have been forbidden to mention my de facto grandmother (the mother of my Aunt Mary's best friend), the daughter of an immigrant who took her mother as his second wife in an American church while he had another wife and eight children back in Italy. I'm not supposed to mention that the first wife eventually saved enough money to come to America, discovered her husband had married again...and ordered him to support both his families, since both were his responsibility. Nor am I allowed to speak of the man who would have wed my Aunt Mary, who may have been a roistering tosspot, a mean drunk or an abusive bastard. I am not sure of his end, either. He may have died as a military sailor in WWII, or been in the merchant marine and had his ship bombed, or simply wandered out of town and never been seen again. There are countless tales like this in the family--taboo stories with multiple endings.
Not only am I forbidden to write of the family, I am forbidden to write anything that might reflect ill upon the family. I have been banned from writing any fictional parents who are cruel or neglectful lest the world think my parents were thus. I've been ordered not to write about skeptical or irreligious people, as that would upset Aunt Anne; not to write about schools, as that might get my schoolteacher cousin in trouble with the school board; not to write any satires about bureaucracy because half the family works for the State of Connecticut; not to write poetry, because "only long-hair toffs and hippie types write poetry"; not to write about science fiction, because it is pure trash; not to write plays, because some members if the family think that plays are wicked; not to write about magic or demons, as that will condemn my soul to Hell. In short, if there is a topic on Earth, be sure that my family has commanded me not to write about it while they are alive.
I had not realized until this past weekend how much they had forbidden. Small wonder I have had so much trouble writing--they forbade EVERYTHING.
Well, I have tried to accommodate them, for the sake of peace in the family, and I think that was a mistake. But the family has not acknowledged my existence since my Aunt Mary, who raised me, died--why should they? Being nice would garner them no more monetary prizes.
I think that the compact--if compact there ever was, for they demanded all and offered nothing in return--is now dissolved. I have had enough of editing myself before I write a word, and more than enough of this self-imposed writer's block.
And if they do not like it, they will just have to endure it.