Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 133—Vanya Erickson Speaks Fluent ‘Boot Language’
127 Plays6 years ago
"We all need little successes," says today's guest Vanya Erickson. Vanya Erickson, author of the memoir Boot Language. You can find her at vanyaerickson.com, that’s Erickson with a CK, and follow her on Facebook @vanyaerickson.author. In this episode we talk a lot about how she survived her often brutal upbringing. It was one of emotional and physical abuse from two parents who couldn’t be more different. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Twitter @CNFPod and me @BrendanOMeara. It has a Facebook page too. Go check it out. I’ve curtailed my social media use by a LOT. I check Twitter only on my computer and only once a day to connect with you. If you’ve taken the time to say something nice or engage, I’ll do my best to reply or retweet or otherwise give you a high five. And if you dig the show, share it with your circle. That’s how this thing grows. Trust and passing it hand to hand. I’ll play the long game. Like it or not, I’m not going anywhere. Sucka. Thanks to Goucher College's MFA in nonfiction and the noun despair for their support.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
The Creative Nonfiction Podcast is sponsored by Goucher College's Master of Fine Arts in Nonfiction. The Goucher MFA is a two-year, low residency program. Online classes let you learn from anywhere, while on-campus residencies allow you
00:00:15
Speaker
to hone your craft with accomplishmenters who have pulled surprises and best-selling books to their names. The program boasts a nationwide network of students, faculty, and alumni. Which has published 140 books and counting, you'll get opportunities to meet literary agents and learn the ins and outs of the publishing journey.
00:00:38
Speaker
Visit goucher.edu forward slash nonfiction to start your journey now. Take your writing to the next level and go from hopeful to published in Goucher's MFA program for nonfiction.
About the Podcast
00:00:54
Speaker
Today's episode is also brought to you by the noun despair. Driven to despair, he threw himself under a train. Despair, the complete absence of hope.
00:01:11
Speaker
I don't know what to say, man. Happy New Year. That's a start. How are you? What's going on with you, CNF-er? It's just you and me here, man. Hey, I'm Brendan O'Mara, and this is my podcast, the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to the best writers, filmmakers, and producers about the art and craft of telling true stories.
00:01:36
Speaker
Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Twitter, at cnfpod, and me, at Brindman O'Mara.
00:01:46
Speaker
It has a Facebook page too, the Creative Nonfiction Podcaster at CNF Pod Host. Go check it out. I've curtailed my social media use by a lot. Me and the Mrs. are doing kind of a big digital detox in January. Also detoxing on the old alcohol for the month too. Can't hurt.
00:02:08
Speaker
I check Twitter only on my computer only once a day to connect with you. If you've taken the time to say something nice or engaged, I'll do my best to reply or retweet or otherwise give you a high five or fist bump. I prefer the fist bump.
00:02:24
Speaker
And if you dig the show, share it with your circle. Share it with a friend. That's how this thing grows. Trust and passing it hand to hand. I'll play the long game. Like it or not, I'm not going anywhere. Sucka.
Interview with Vanya Erickson
00:02:38
Speaker
Today's guest is Vanya Erickson. Yeah, that's right. There's actually a person that I speak to.
00:02:43
Speaker
author of the memoir, Boot Language. Boot language. No, it's boot language. You can find her at Vanya Erickson dot com. That is Erickson with a C-K. And follow her on Facebook at Vanya Erickson dot author.
00:03:04
Speaker
In this episode, we talk about a lot, especially about how she survived her often brutal upbringing. It was one of emotional and physical abuse from two parents who couldn't be more different, but we'll get there. Sometimes I like to read a nice review that you wrote from the show. If you choose to write one, I just might read it live on the air, kind of like this. Even a nice email, because sometimes it just makes me feel good to share that with you.
00:03:35
Speaker
Check it. Check this email. This email from Mariam Abdul. She writes, My name is Mariam Abdulwal. Greetings to you my dear friend. My name is Mariam Abdul. I'm writing this message to you with tears in my eyes. The ongoing civil war in my country Syria has affected my life so much. I lost my family last year.
00:03:57
Speaker
My father was a rich businessman before his death. He was doing oil and gas business. He was also doing gold business. He made a big money. 25.3 million US dollar. The money is deposited with First Gulf Bank and Dubai UAE. I am the next of kin but I cannot retrieve or return the money back to Syria because of the war and killing in Syria now.
00:04:22
Speaker
Please, I need you to assist me receive the money and we can agree for you to invest it until I recover from my sickness and come over to meet with you. I want to appoint you as my late father business partner
00:04:35
Speaker
and the first Gulf Bank in Dubai will transfer the money to you. I will send to you all the documents and information for a deposit of the money. Please let me know if you can do this for me. This is my real story. Please, I need your help. You can contact me by email. Kind Regards, Mariam Abdul.
00:04:55
Speaker
seems like a jackpot here i was i was gonna go court some more advertisers i was thinking of doing a patreon page but it looks like i only have to do one patreon deposit here and to the tune of 25.3 million us dollar what could go wrong
00:05:17
Speaker
Okay, enough nonsense. I hope you enjoy what Vanya and I made for you. Thank you for listening to this episode number 133, the first of 2019.
Vanya's Childhood & Love for Horses
00:05:37
Speaker
I was reading on your blog, and it's something I kind of wanted to start off with, which I think would be kind of cool, is sort of your kinship with horses. And what benefit and where does that love of horses and being on horseback come from? And what do you glean from that when you're on horseback? It comes from being a young child and introduced to horses
00:06:04
Speaker
when my father purchased the cattle ranch in the Sierra Nevada. For me, it just alters my view of the world being on horseback. I'm able to, oh gosh, see so much. Sometimes as a child, I used to imagine seeing through the horse's eyes his experience of moving through the forest or across the
00:06:33
Speaker
great expanses where the cattle were. There would be that urgency sometimes. I had noticed his ears would pick up, and there we would be suddenly moving very quickly through. I could feel his excitement. And it just, it transplanted into me. And so there was this sense of awe, really,
00:06:56
Speaker
of connecting so well with an animal when, especially since my experience with humans wasn't so wonderful at that point, for me, horses really saved me from my experience. Oh yeah, it sounds like it provided you with a sense of escape, really. It definitely did, a sense of joy, of seeing joy in a situation that may not have been so positive, which was sort of a pervasive
00:07:25
Speaker
view that I have had through my life of finding the beauty in things that were not
00:07:32
Speaker
And I understand when you were growing up as well that you would have these, for lack of a better term, musical dinners where someone would pick a record and you'd put it on and you would have your meal while listening to these records. Tell us what that experience was like and how ultimately you had come to a particular decision for you of putting a Janice Joplin record on. Yes, the Janice Joplin
00:08:02
Speaker
Well, I tended to be someone who, as a child, might shock, I guess, is the best way to put it. My father, in particular, my mother was used to or she understood my need to be different. But my father, when he proclaimed that it was now going to be everybody got to choose one night a week,
00:08:32
Speaker
who got to play a record. And we had to sit through the whole thing, through the meal. And our meals, by the way, were quite lengthy in that my father would begin a debate or ask questions. And sometimes they'd turn into lectures where we would remain seated and he'd stand up with the chalkboard on the wall in our kitchen and begin to describe something. Maybe it was about astronomy or who knows what it might have been.
00:09:01
Speaker
My point is our dinners were often about two hours long. So the music was such an uplifting portion of it. It would be obviously the record was not going to last the entire time, but it was a marvelous experience in watching faces. I was quite observant of people's responses to my style of music versus my brothers, who it was always going to be Dylan, no matter what.
00:09:29
Speaker
My sister was into jazz, so we would be listening to, oh, just everything you could possibly imagine, Brubeck or Stan Getz. And Mom, of course, was always a spiritual or an opera. And Dad was, there was no question, it was always Beethoven. So it was pretty funny to watch our personalities play out in the types of music we chose. And of course, I would always choose
00:09:57
Speaker
the doors or Janice Joplin or anybody who I thought might slightly disturb the table. It said a lot about me in that I was using dad's favorite thing, which was music, as a way to assert my, well, who I was, which was it was hard to get that out without using music.
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, because when you read boot language, you realize that oftentimes your voice was squashed out by your father and just your circumstances of growing up. So I imagine that these dinners, when you're able to put a record on that,
00:10:44
Speaker
appeal to your taste that this was maybe your way or maybe one of your only ways to have your voice heard even if it was channeled through another artist. Very well said. Yes indeed my father preferred authority and so if somebody were well known or shall I say even popular although he was not a
00:11:14
Speaker
a fan of rock and roll, per se. He did admire lyricists, people who wrote words because words were so important to him as well. And so this was a great way to assert some sort of sense of power. You know, when he designed books to read every summer, there'd be a pile of books.
00:11:38
Speaker
And then there would be a free choice. And I'd always do something like wild in the streets or something that was in my mind hoping to make him think and to assert that I was different and interested in not just the classics, but many different things. And yes, you're right. It's all about what he saw as okay to use, to refer to.
00:12:07
Speaker
and taking my spin on it. At what point in your upbringing and maybe your teens and 20s did you decide that you wanted to sort of take up the storytelling mantle and become a writer yourself?
Beginnings of Storytelling
00:12:24
Speaker
I was surrounded by storytellers throughout my life. Not only was our basic cattle rancher, our guy who was always there on the ranch,
00:12:36
Speaker
Sid was just an amazing man. And he was prolific with his storytelling around a campfire. When we'd be on a cattle run or we'd be just doing a backpack trip, a pack trip with horses, we'd be, you know, miles in from civilization. And that was our entertainment, was listening to him tell his stories.
00:13:06
Speaker
of what life was like in his childhood. And it was always about horses. It was always about roping cattle or separating calves from their mothers or just amazing stories that just stayed with me. I began to write stories in my youth about him, about my grandparents. My grandfather was a cattle rancher and about just how life was.
00:13:35
Speaker
it really connected. I would share the stories at family gatherings, or if my grandparents came to dinner, I'd read to them about what I had done. And I just got a lot of kudos that way. There was a lot of support, not so much from Dad, because he was quite critical of my writing. But from
00:13:58
Speaker
everybody else, and then I sometimes perform them live, like in dance form, which may sound really strange, but I am a dancer, so I might do that and speak the words as I'm moving my body, which was something that I really dug doing. So I don't know if that explains it, but that's where it all came from, is listening to storytellers, my grandmother, my goodness,
00:14:28
Speaker
She would tell stories in a Scottish brogue. That's her heritage. And there would be, it just was transfixed by her words. And of course, as she gets older, she has Alzheimer's, but she will start off with, have I ever told you the story of whatever it might've been that we've heard a million times before? And I would say, no, please tell it again.
00:14:57
Speaker
because or just please tell it because it was really thrilling to hear someone who could tell a story, speak the words and just hold you to your seat. And so that's what I began to do. And of course I became a teacher and I taught writing for 23 years and still, you know, have a few students that I work with who want to publish and they're very passionate about it. But for me, I think it was just a matter of
00:15:25
Speaker
so many stories in my head that just had to come out. And they were very compelling to me. And so I'd share a bit with writing groups. I work with Laura Davis. She's well known for a courage to heal and quite supportive and moving me forward with telpo stories because I didn't think anybody would be really interested in hearing personal stories.
00:15:53
Speaker
I never thought about writing a memoir. But every story I began to write for her when I was, and I still am, a student of hers, it was always about my father or some odd circumstance as a child, which I thought was totally normal. And come to find out, no, this was a very bizarre childhood. And I just began writing and writing and writing and writing until when I was sharing it,
00:16:24
Speaker
people would say more and I'm going, you got to be kidding. You want to hear more about that? Yes, we want to hear. So this is where it went. It just it just spiraled into this thing that was just had me. It held me in its grip. As you were developing as a storyteller and a writer, what did you find that you struggled with that, you know, you had to just work through and just and build a better muscle and just keep getting better and better at over time?
Truth in Writing
00:16:53
Speaker
first and foremost was just having permission, giving myself permission to write it, to tell the truth. I kind of danced around the truth for several years in my writing and it didn't have the passion that it needed to have until I was ripped to shreds by an editor who then said, there's got to be more than this. There has to be more going on and I just
00:17:22
Speaker
I guess I saw the wisdom in her words and I had to trust. That's one thing you need to know. It's been difficult for me to learn how to trust other people. My background is such that it was nearly impossible to trust adults. And so as I grew older, it was just like stepping my toe in the waters, trying something out and then fleeing.
00:17:52
Speaker
try this and then, ooh, running away. I just stuck with it. And I went deep and it was transformational. Those stories became what they really were. They were the emotional truth. And that was what was hard, was really deciding to write the truth.
00:18:13
Speaker
Your upbringing was so polar in so many ways. Both parents were there, but not really there in so many instances. You had that very authoritarian father, and then your mother, who is a Christian scientist too. So it's such a divergent set of parental figures. It's like, how did you learn how to navigate those two poles and come out of your childhood the way you did?
00:18:43
Speaker
That's a great question. It's funny because there are times when I was in the middle of it, I'm not navigating this. I don't know how to get out of here. I did have a set plan that I'd leave as soon as high school was over. I was going to figure out how it was going to just survive. My father, for your listeners who don't know, was a lieutenant commander in World War II. And he came home greatly damaged.
00:19:12
Speaker
became an alcoholic, a raging alcoholic. In contrast to my mother, who, during the war, while he was off, became a Christian scientist. It transformed their relationship, meaning they just did not get along thereafter. And so she was this very quiet, yet quite religious Christian scientist who
00:19:42
Speaker
I believe that there was goodness in everything. I do partially carry that with me right now, that there is goodness in everything. If I can find the good in it, then everything's going to be all right. But mine's a milder version than hers. Everything was rose-colored for her. She had a tough time believing that he had said what he had said or was doing what he was doing. But she wouldn't speak up, let's put it that way, for
00:20:09
Speaker
me or for anyone in the family, but she would just hold fast that God would persevere and everything would be all right if we just pray about it. I just learned two languages. That's all. I learned my father's footsteps. That's where the term boot language comes from. I learned the pace and the pressure of his heels because he always wore cowboy boots.
00:20:35
Speaker
would tell me what I was going to experience when I walked into the room where he was. Or it would tell me just his mood. I was just listening to him in the kitchen or walking outside. I knew exactly what I was going to be dealing with. And this was a lifesaver. And it came upon me when I was probably about 11 years old, I realized, you know what? They have their own language.
00:21:04
Speaker
And for mom, it was just learning to be a different person with her. She was very gentle because of her religion removed it to some sense, because we couldn't talk about things that bothered us. That was not okay to talk about. Not only just symptoms, because if you talked about a symptom, like I have a headache or a stomachache, that gave it power. And so that was not okay. So you wouldn't discuss it.
00:21:33
Speaker
I managed to communicate with her just by my moods, I believe. I would talk to her about things, and she would express her interest, and especially if I was able to and was very successful at diverting her attention into things that she loved. Let's talk about dance, or let's talk about music, or let's talk about going to the opera, or
00:22:00
Speaker
anything like that and she'd come alive. She'd be very animated, the animated actress that she was before she met my father. Yeah, your mother was very, very worldly. Both of your parents in a lot of ways were very worldly, like well-read and cultured with music and dance and everything. And it strikes me that in so many ways that so much
00:22:27
Speaker
Your childhood was so tumultuous. Sometimes you don't expect such a tumultuous childhood to come from such sort of well-rounded and cultured parents, if that makes any sense. Oh, it totally does. I'm totally with you. And when I reflect upon it, it's like, you've got to be kidding. These two were well-educated. And Dad was brilliant. He was a Stanford grad.
00:22:56
Speaker
you know, just an amazing mind when he wasn't drinking. And then there was mom who, my goodness, you know, she was fleeing alcoholism. Her mother was an alcoholic. They were both traumatized at some point in their lives. And so they never quite worked that out. And then they're stuck together and they're producing children and they're passing along their trauma to the kids.
00:23:25
Speaker
And that's the sticky wicket. That's where it gets really muddy because do you really get angry at two people who've seen or experienced horrific things so much? I mean, it just broke me wide open when dad would relive kamikaze attacks at the table.
00:23:52
Speaker
And literally, he was there. It's a psychic break. He was experiencing it, his mannerisms of covering his head and shouting for different people to do whatever. I just, my heart just broke open. And all this time, I had been so angry, a very angry teenager. It was at that point, the most horrific of his reliving experiences.
00:24:22
Speaker
where I just saw it all in a flash. Oh my God, I'm not the only one damaged here. He's damaged. Mom's damaged. And here we are trying to fix things. And if I don't stop it, if I don't stop this continuation of the trauma, then my kids are going to be traumatized. That's pretty much where it started for me was to the stopping of it was critical from there on out and the acceptance.
00:24:52
Speaker
the acceptance that he had been harmed. And this is how he handled it. Some people drink, some people don't. Some people have nightmares, some people don't. Some people, whatever happens to be, we're all different. We're made differently. And he couldn't maintain life without the bottle and poetry and sitting out in the forest. And who am I to really complain about it?
00:25:20
Speaker
I mean, he did his, I truly believe he did his very best. It was just, it was not good as a child, but as an adult looking back, I'm so very grateful to him for many things that he, the good things that he was able to pass on, that love of horses.
Complex Parental Relationships
00:25:39
Speaker
How could I not love him for that? The Sierra Nevada, my God, it's the love of my life. And it's all because of him.
00:25:48
Speaker
Is it challenging to look back having that distance and even you know you write about it in boot language that there's a real telling scene that really is illustrative of your parents and their relationship to each other and to you in KK, your sister.
00:26:05
Speaker
that there's one scene where he says that he doesn't respect you and then how can he love anyone he doesn't respect and then he further hammers that point home. I don't love you with your mother sitting right there not saying anything. So how do you look back on such a poignant scene like that and even from the remove that you have now and feel that kind of love that you just spoke of?
00:26:34
Speaker
It's a contrast, isn't it? Yeah. I actually am a great lover of contrast. It's okay to respect and love this person who gave you these things. And it's also okay to be angry as hell, even at 64, at your father who would utter the words, I don't love you to his child and mean it. It wasn't, it just wasn't in passing.
00:27:04
Speaker
He hammered it, as you say, and he was really honest. He didn't love me. And there's that, oh, gosh, it's just a confusing thing as a parent for me. Is there any point where you don't love your children? And if that's true, do you say it out loud? And just the differences between how someone approaches a subject, you might
00:27:35
Speaker
If I were upset with a child, I might say, hey, I don't know that I can trust you right now. It would be a much softer response than I love you. I don't know how I could possibly love you because I don't respect you. When you're a kid, it's devastating and clearly I haven't gotten over it. So I think you could hold both the anger over that horrific scene
00:28:04
Speaker
that plays in my head randomly like stray bullets, it just comes out and there it is again. It's almost like I need to remind myself, hey, don't be too happy. Don't be too excited about how lovely your dad was and giving you all these wonderful experiences and teaching you this and that. Remember this, it's that, I think that's that tendency that the human brain loves is to find the negative and remember it over and over and over again.
00:28:32
Speaker
And there's a great scene too where that really speaks to the acceptance that you were so desperately seeking with your father when he was, I believe he was boiling potatoes and he was throwing them to you and you would occasionally drop some because they were so hot and he could just pick them up out of the water without even feeling anything and he's throwing them to you and you start to get a bit proficient with catching.
00:28:56
Speaker
catching these things and that to me was a very telling scene from what you were seeking from your father. So what was that moment like for you and how did you aim to seek those out throughout your childhood? Oh my gosh, that was such a moment. Okay, so he's throwing potatoes at me and we're being playful.
00:29:24
Speaker
And I don't remember a time as a child being playful with my father, not one. For me, I grabbed at it, even though he's throwing potatoes at me to catch and then put on the plate. Don't ask me why. Any normal father would have put them in, whatever. And we had taken a bowl to the table, but that's not how he did it. So he was throwing potatoes at me, and at first, of course,
00:29:54
Speaker
the first one I'm like, what is he doing? And I drop it and it's all over the floor, right? But he keeps coming and curve balls and over the hand and between his legs. And he's just, I was so enjoying the moment. It was as if, you know, we were outside, you know, playing ball, you know, having a great old time. And it's like, who is he? It was just, that was also a moment where I kind of split open and realized he is so many people.
00:30:24
Speaker
And it's when I began to notice the change, the difference, depending on how much he had been drinking, because he was a secretive drinker, because alcohol wasn't allowed in the house because of my mother being a Christian scientist. So he'd go out to the garage where it was hidden, right? So that was that, was my joy, utter joy at being played with.
00:30:53
Speaker
And then at the same time, getting my hands burned and being willing to have my hands burned in order to be played with because I wanted his love so much.
00:31:06
Speaker
And you referenced earlier that of course you and your siblings underwent a certain degree of trauma because of your parents and you had to elect at some point or another to put a stop to it. At what point in your life did you make that conscious decision to stop that pain and stop from passing it to your children going forward?
00:31:33
Speaker
I would say there were so many times where this haunted me, where my anger and his voice was in my head telling me how to respond to something one of my daughters might have done. And I had to, it was so visceral. It was like I was wrestling him to the ground. No, I am not, but I was wrestling me.
00:32:01
Speaker
And it was like it was two people. I wanted to smack a child or I wanted to scream at a kid for doing something or other that was naughty or, you know, not dangerous. I understand, you know, a child running out in front of this. I totally get grabbing a child and pulling you back. But in a circumstance where it's not life and death. What is the point of the
00:32:30
Speaker
paddling over and over the hitting or the, in dad's case, pulling out the belt. That never was an impulse for me. But it was definitely to strike because I'd be angry until I sat with it and realized, who is this serving? And all this is about is anger. It's not really teaching anybody anything. This is my anger. And so what I think it really came to a head
00:33:01
Speaker
so to speak, and kind of a funny way to put that since I'm about to talk about my daughter who comes home from a sleepover and she has shaved her head partially. She has not completed the job. She has begun shaving her head. She returns. She's mortified. And I didn't stop dad's words. And I told her exactly what I thought of her and what she had done. And they were every bit
00:33:31
Speaker
my father's words, what he, it's actually the exact words that he used one time when I was about her age, when I did something stupid, she just crumpled. And I instant, I just knew in that moment, what the hell have I done? I can't, I've worked so hard to not be him, to not be my father, that I need to just
00:33:59
Speaker
I need to move and do something quickly, quickly, quickly. So I reached out and grabbed her. Fortunately, she didn't flee. She started sobbing. And I began to tell her that these were my father's words. And she says to me, will you write about him already? I want to know about this guy. Wow. He's been hidden.
00:34:24
Speaker
He's been, you know, you shared that one time about your father reliving the Kamikaze attacks. But other than that, I really don't know. And so I realized, oh, my God, I've kept this in my head. Stop it. Don't do these things. Don't say these things. Don't be your father. But I've never really shared where I came from. And so that's where boot language started. I began to write stories about him. And now she's like my biggest fan.
00:34:53
Speaker
She totally gets it. Just being an adult and then a parent, did you ever just, and you would hear his voice come out of your own mouth, did you ever just ask yourself, like, can I ever escape this person? Can I escape the transformation of, will I become him, even though that's like your greatest fear? Oh, gosh, yes. I was, you know, I didn't want to have, I didn't want to get married and didn't want to have children because I was so afraid that I would hurt somebody.
00:35:23
Speaker
I didn't want to, didn't want to. I was 28 and, you know, everybody around me is getting pregnant and yada, yada. And no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, I had a child when I was 30 and everything was blissful and she was a marvelous baby and couldn't be easier. And so I just decided I have no problem. I'm not going to eat with my dad until these young ladies who were adorable babies became teenagers who were
00:35:54
Speaker
Challenging is the best way to put it, as many teenagers are. And yeah, that was when I determined, that was really my turning point, was the whole hair thing and realizing, oh my God, hair grows back. Who gives a shit? Pardon my French. That's fine. I mean, really, who am I to say you don't, you know, in the end, after I shaved her head, I actually was the one who completed shaving her head because
00:36:22
Speaker
She was terrified to go anywhere else. And I was moving the razor across her scalp, realizing, oh my God, what am I doing? But this is so cool. Her head is so beautiful. I'm noticing how beautiful she is. And then here she is bald and attending functions. And people are asking me, is she all right, thinking she's got cancer or something? And I'm realizing how gorgeous she is. Her eyes are bigger.
00:36:52
Speaker
You know, she looks fabulous in earrings. And I just let go of it.
00:37:00
Speaker
probably there's always going to be that impulse to have that, you know, your, your max reaction to something. And, but then, you know, through your experience and wanting to be different and depart from that, like there's, there's a kernel in you that can probably, that can recognize it and switch it before it becomes hurtful. Is that something you found out in your, yes, absolutely. I mean, it just, we all need little successes,
00:37:27
Speaker
I noticed that with my students, they just need something small at first and then it grows and then they learn about, oh, I don't do that thing. Oh yeah, I need to put a period here, whatever it happens to be. And so it's a life experience where you're constantly being rewarded for, oh, that worked really well when I didn't respond like dad. This is really successful for me. Little steps.
00:37:56
Speaker
baby steps toward becoming a much better person to be around and then, of course, fostering, you know, fostering other kids, listening to children. That is a biggie for me. You know, when the girls, when my daughters were teens and they realized what I was doing as I began to write, you know, their friends would come to me and talk to me about stuff they were going through. And it would be like I was the mom they wanted to be with.
00:38:24
Speaker
And I realized, wow, this is like something else again. I mean, I knew I was a good teacher, but I didn't really translate it into my real life and my kids' friends and all of that. So it was, for me, a great movement in my heart, realizing that I had a lot more to give by being me rather than my father.
00:38:52
Speaker
Earlier you said that the editor that you were working with, you know, eviscerated you for dancing around the truth. And how did you start to become comfortable being uncomfortable enough to start to dance with that truth and dance with that fear and to get to the point where you are ultimately the best version, the best version was coming out on the page? I think this had a lot to do with my Zen Buddhist master.
00:39:23
Speaker
And she, Carolyn Atkinson just simply said to me when I told her what the editor had said, she smiles and she says, have you considered turning around and facing the dragon? I said, I don't want to face the dragon. I mean, I know my feelings and I can tell you my feelings. She goes, but the depth is there. You need to turn around. I think you're going to find
00:39:51
Speaker
that it's not as bad as you think. So I did, and I began to really sit. It's funny, because in meditation, we're supposed to be not doing what I was doing, which I'm such a lousy meditator. Here I am telling the world this. Because I'm planning stories often. Themes will come into my head as I'm sitting, and I'm thinking, I'm trying to be doing nothing.
00:40:20
Speaker
And I'm finding fabulous words to go with whatever it is. And, and that's what started to happen is I sat with it and I would sit with the scenes that I was dancing around and I'd realize, Oh my God, there was so much pain involved. And I was just trying to gloss over it because I didn't think anybody'd be interested, but it doesn't matter if they're interested. I'm writing this first of all, first and foremost for my daughters.
00:40:50
Speaker
So they understand where they come from. What's the past? And so I think that's where it was, was being given the permission to write that and actually look at it and sit in it, sit in the depths of it and cry. And I think any memoirist on the planet will tell you they, if they get to a scene that is so horrific, they start crying. They can't help it.
00:41:17
Speaker
That's what happened for me. And of course, I'd be crying. And a daughter would come in and say, mom, stop already. You don't have to go. Yes, I do. I do have to do this. This is what I have to do. I am. I'm reliving it. Of course, that's very true in any memoir work. You're reliving the experience. And I had to be OK with that, which was super scary to go in there in every single scene
00:41:46
Speaker
relive that. And of course, when you rewrite and you're editing, you're living it again. And so it would, you know, maybe I experienced the hack-a-more scene with dad and his amazing response to me, uh, God, what? A hundred times as you're, as you're reworking it. And no, that's not quite right. And so it, it expands it. And at the same time, this sounds weird.
00:42:16
Speaker
It condenses it, and so you have this perfect storm of words that you've put together. I think that's probably my favorite thing is to edit work. I mean, it's fun to come up with a story. It's fun to get all the bones down. But man, flushing it out is something else again. It's such a high for me to take a paragraph that's good. Yeah, that's okay.
00:42:45
Speaker
But to transform it into the exact sense that you want is such a high. It's better than any drug I can think of. Do you find that when you're in that editing phase, the rewriting phase of a paragraph or chapter and so forth, that it almost exclusively gets better when you remove stuff from it? Oh, gosh, yes. Killing your darlings.
00:43:13
Speaker
There'll be a sentence in there that, oh God, isn't that the most fucking amazing thing I've ever written? And lo and behold, that isn't the one that I remove. It happens time and again. So I just kind of smile at my tendency to love some perfect sentence and then realize, nah, maybe not. I'm not here. Maybe some other time, it'll go into some other work. But yeah, that's an interesting thing.
00:43:43
Speaker
it gets stronger and the change in it when you're really working at removing just the perfect number of words and varying your sentences and all those things that you need to do. The power of how words fit together and make meaning for the reader and how well the punch is. My whole intent is to tell a good story,
00:44:13
Speaker
to be interesting and, of course, remembered, also tell the truth. And it's an interesting mix to get that all down there on paper and to also have a visceral reaction with your reader.
00:44:32
Speaker
And through the course of any part of your writing, but you could even, we could tie it into boot language too. How did you deal with the ugly middle, the grind of the ugly middle of the draft, where I always like to say where you're through the honeymoon period of having written a thing, but you're in the middle of the ocean, you're too far away to swim back and you're still very far away from the shore you want to get to. So how do you navigate those waters?
00:45:00
Speaker
Oh, God. It's so funny because I'm in the middle of a new piece that I'm working on set in World War I. My grandmother's experience, it's not a memoir. It'll be a fictionalized version of her experience as an ambulance driver in World War I. But that's exactly where I am. I'm just beginning the middle
00:45:28
Speaker
And it's like, crap, where am I going? It kind of opens you up, doesn't it? You suddenly realize that somebody ripped you open, and where do I go? How do I repair this thing? The beginning's so fabulous. Now where do I go? For me, as a pantser, which is how I wrote boot language, because it was anything that was hot.
00:45:56
Speaker
was what I was writing. And so they were all over the place, you know, 20 different stories all over the place. And for me, that was piecing that baby together. That was like a big puzzle, all these very interesting, intriguing moments in my life. And then how do they fit together? Do I start here? Do I
00:46:18
Speaker
Do I, oh, I know, immediate raise. I'll stick the beginning of, you know, the beginning of the detox scene, the very beginning, as a teaser. And then I'll do this. And then it was like it was hysterical watching that process and people's suggestions for how that goes. And so the muddy middle for boot language wasn't as difficult, I'm going to say, for me as working on a novel.
00:46:47
Speaker
So for me with boot language, the middle in the muddy middle would have been everything after the cattle ranch was purchased. And so I'm going, well, gosh, I, I, I always start by chunking. Okay. We've got the hack-a-more and we've got the slaughter scene. We've got the, that'd be kind of interesting if they were paired together. Okay. And so that, that's really what I was doing was, was do these work. I mean, there were so many scenes that were cut.
00:47:15
Speaker
Um, fantastic scenes that I just love so much. And they were darlings of mine, of course. And they just disappeared from the manuscript because they didn't fit. They weren't, they made no sense in the muddy middle. And so, uh, that's not going to happen. And so it's such an intriguing thing, this muddy middle thing, especially as never having written a novel before. And as I move into that, it's like, wow.
00:47:45
Speaker
Okay, we can do this, we can do this. It's just learning how, for me, now I'm learning how to actually outline. And I'm using Story Grid, which is fabulous. And I have a great editor there that's working with me on the accuracy, how to do this, how to use life experience, things that happened in World War I and also write a novel at the same time.
00:48:10
Speaker
Um, and using bits and pieces of my grandmother's life, um, in there to, uh, that makes, it makes it enticing for me. If I have some buy-in, it's some part of my life in this grandmother that I never knew because she leaped from a four story building before I was born. Um, what a, what a compelling figure. And my mother used to tell her that story all the time, my bedtime story.
00:48:41
Speaker
That's my life. And so I think that this is so true. It's difficult. And we all have to find our way. For me, it was realizing I needed my hand to be held. But someone who's done this before who says, try this, try this. How about that? Just progressing. Just little tiny steps. Again, it's baby steps.
00:49:10
Speaker
You get this far. OK, I want you to take it from this to this. Email me that. And so that helps me, little bits.
00:49:20
Speaker
And I love talking about books as mentors, so to speak. And what are some maybe three to five books that come to mind that you revisit or books that have informed your writing and the way you are maybe structuring your current novel, but certainly how you, what certain memoirs maybe that inspired you to write boot language? Yes, early on when I realized I was writing,
00:49:50
Speaker
memoir. I was reading constantly. Mary Carr, Jeanette Walls come to mind as being, because they're grittier, I knew my story was gritty. And I needed to have sort of a smart-ass mental mind to work this out. And so I would say the two of them. But, for me,
00:50:19
Speaker
You know, what really is compelling for me, Edgar Allan Poe, Laura Ingalls Wilder, I would say story, the classic ghost stories around the campfire, very compelling for me. In fact, you know, as a kid, I wrote ghost stories because I just thought they were thrilling and I liked scaring people. But with words, not in reality.
00:50:48
Speaker
Um, and so I think that that's Alex's suspense. And, and so any of these things where it leaves you wondering, is this person, are, are they okay? Um, is there, is there something odd about this narrator, you know? And so I'm intrigued by that as well as, uh, you know, the memoirs where a child is not getting
00:51:16
Speaker
the treatment she needs because that's such a big, that plays so large in my life, working with students who don't get noticed and aren't heard and how important that is for kids to be listened to. And that's one of the reasons that I do TED talks with my kids and make sure that they are heard and that people listen and that, you know, that in itself is rather transformational.
00:51:46
Speaker
to have a body of people listen to someone who doesn't get noticed is an outrageously opening experience. And for the children, from the love letters I've received from the parents and everybody else, I think it's something that we need to do more of. I'm glad I do it, but I wish more people did it and to let children
00:52:15
Speaker
speak about something that's really important, whether it's feeling loneliness or wishing that they could do something that they've always wanted to do and why can't they? And I think kids, I knew I did, just want answers. Why can't I? It can't be just because I said so. That doesn't work. And it creates an angry child. And so that's what I'm thinking.
00:52:44
Speaker
But my influencers were people who were gritty stories that were suspenseful, you know, cowboy, anything that had to do, you know,
00:52:56
Speaker
Larry McMurtry, anything that has to do with telling a great story, and of course if it involved horses, my god, I was hooked. I love digging and unpacking a writer's daily rituals about how they sort of prime the pump to get the work done for that day. So how do you set up your days when you know you have a good writing day ahead of you? What's the routine that you set for yourself?
00:53:24
Speaker
OK, I begin at night. I set my computer to a scene that I am intending to write the next morning. And this happens probably five days a week. When I was teaching full time, this was every day because I was in the middle of boot language. And this is just how I went. I don't need an alarm clock. I would wake up at 3.30 in the morning, still do, and before anything.
00:53:53
Speaker
no tea, no anything like that. I would pad over to the, I go over to the computer and I look at what I left for myself last night and I just begin writing because there is that moment where you're not quite awake, where some of my best stuff has come out and it for me is what works, darkness works.
00:54:21
Speaker
I work until it's light, and then I go have breakfast. And then I come back, and this sounds weird, but I turn off the lights, I close the curtains, and darkness again descends, and I continue writing until I really can't do any more, maybe three or four hours more. So that's every day. You know, things get in the mix is why I say five days a week.
00:54:49
Speaker
Something else will happen. I have to go do something. I'm speaking or I'm teaching or whatever. But for the most part, that is what works. Darkness works for me. So I am better early, early in the morning before anyone's up. And then again, late at night, I dig it. I'll sneak back into the room, my office, and oh, I got to do one more thing. And I'll there for a couple more hours.
00:55:20
Speaker
the darkness in music, which is, you know, I listened to the period that I'm writing about. So when I was working in boot language, specifically a specific year when I'm 11, this is what was popular. And I'd load that up and that's what I listened to. And it was so incredibly helpful. If I'm writing about dad, it would always be Nat King Cole or the platters or Beethoven, somebody. It would just channel him. And I'm not kidding.
00:55:49
Speaker
Same thing for mom, it would be Puccini and I'd be listening to this beautiful Aria while I'm writing and I'm sobbing while I'm writing because I'm writing about my mother and you know something she's doing and you know it's so helpful to find that thing you are so right and yes for me it's darkness and music.
00:56:12
Speaker
When you're looking and reading other people and reading people that are your peers or people younger than you or even a little older than you, how have you dealt with feelings of jealousy and inadequacy with your own work over the years? And when that feeling creeps in, how do you choose to channel it? What a great question.
00:56:37
Speaker
Yeah, I've been burdened with jealousy. Yeah, me too. That's, that's why I ask it. Yes. It's, it's something that really hits, you know, even, um, when, when my publicist said that I would be being interviewed by you, I thought, Oh crap, everybody he interviews so much better than I am. They are so,
00:57:02
Speaker
much farther along and they've been doing it forever and who am I? There's a lot of who am I to think I can do blah, blah, blah. That goes on in my head frequently, like I'm asked to speak at the Bay Area Book Festival and then I go, wait a minute, who am I? What can I talk about? And I'm thinking, well, after that initial who am I comes, I know who you are, you've been speaking to crowds
00:57:33
Speaker
for a very long time. You've been speaking to students and the parents and performances all your whole life. So just shut the fuck up. Pardon me. Just be quiet and know that you are okay. And yes, boot language is your first book. And that's a little scary when you're, you know, you're out there is your first time. But
00:58:02
Speaker
That is, it's okay. It's okay to be jealous. I mean, it's natural is what I'm trying to say. Totally natural response for a human to look at somebody else and go, God, I'm going to be on the same panel as him. And that's all right. Because you got to start somewhere. And you just, I think what it is is I just
00:58:30
Speaker
buoy myself up again and say, you made it this far. You made it first of all through that childhood. That is something. And now you've had a great career and people love you. So just shut up and move forward and spread the word. That's all.
00:58:49
Speaker
And before we let you get out of here, there's one more thing I'd like to ask you about this great short column that you wrote for Mind Body Green. And it's the counterintuitive realization that finally freed me to give zero fucks and speak my truth. So how did you arrive at this column? And how did you finally come to that counterintuitive realization that it's okay? I think
00:59:18
Speaker
There comes a time where you, at least for me, this is what I did. First of all, I came to the realization there's no complete cure for trauma. So if there's no complete cure for trauma, and when I was in my 20s, I was diagnosed with PTSD, so there's that. I'm aware I have it, I'm accepting my life. So if I'm accepting my life, I'm facing my fear,
00:59:48
Speaker
and I'm writing those scenes that I was told right to get to the truth, to make it a more compelling story, get to the truth, no more dancing around. And when I came upon the realization that that made me feel so much better, that I didn't have to apologize for my freakouts, my occasional random behavior,
01:00:17
Speaker
that is so connected to my past. It is okay that I don't, hmm, we're told, we're fed the line. If you just do take this drug, see that therapist, join this group, become that religion, you're gonna be fine again. Your trauma won't be there anymore. And I just say, it isn't true. And I have given my permission, myself permission to be okay. And the people that I work with who are trauma survivors,
01:00:47
Speaker
are so grateful to understand that this is true, that there is no cure, and they've felt guilty their whole lives. People will say, aren't you over that yet? And so this is very empowering. And once that empowering, that ball of fire is sitting in your belly, you just don't give a fuck anymore.
01:01:16
Speaker
Well, shit, we made it to the end. Thanks to Vanya for coming on the show. If you like the Liars Club or the Glass Castle, you'll love boot language. Give it a shot. Buy the book. Head over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to subscribe to my newsletter where I send out my monthly reading recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast.
01:01:44
Speaker
Once a month, no spam, can't beat it. Yes, take in the riffage, take in that beat. Give the show a follow on the social media channel of your choosing, at cnfpod on twitter, at brendan omer on twitter, at cnfpod host.
01:02:01
Speaker
on Facebook, or to create a non-fiction podcast, but Facebook has this, you can have a handle, you can have a handle. It's exhausting. Like I said, at the top of the show, I've curtailed, I've curtailed my social media use significantly.
01:02:20
Speaker
It makes me feel crappy. And I already feel crappy enough as it is. So I've chosen to go to the edge of the grid, not off the grid, just the edge. So I can look over the edge of the grid, down into the murky depths at the bottom. But if you take the time to reach out, I won't reply. No doubt.
01:02:47
Speaker
I gotta go, man. Thanks for joining me on this CNFing journey. I'm not doing a whole lot of writing these days, which makes me think, if you can't do interview, see ya.