New Essay Alert: An epistle for Edenia
The first excerpt of my new book was published & I had to share it with y'all
If you’ve been following my journey, you know that my mother died last year and we hadn’t spoken in 364 days. We had a complicated, often hostile relationship. Ma was my first bully, and I ran away as soon as I could—I went to boarding school at 13 and never moved back.
What I didn’t know or expect was that Ma had started but never finished a memoir and she journaled. She left me all this writing with specific instructions: “para que Vanessa escriba un libro.”
I’ve been working on a memoir for well over 15 years. Shortly after my brother died in 2013, I realized the book was about how my relationship with my mother. I’ve worked on the stories steadily since, published some excerpts, found the structure and made the memoir epistolary. I had nine letters, their titles, and I knew the questions I was trying to answer in each chapter. But I knew something was missing and I didn’t know what. I didn’t tell anyone this because it frightened and frustrated me that I was stuck. I confess, I wasn’t kind to myself…
How is that possible, V, after all these years of mining and writing your life! Que carajo haces entonces?
Then I found ma’s writing and I knew immediately what was missing were ma’s stories written in her hand.
I’ve spent the last six months, since October when I was finally able to read all of Ma’s writing (two crates full), weaving our stories together in a new book…the same book I’ve been writing but so different. The work has been both balm and bomb as I grieve—bomb because ma wrote in such exquisite detail (ma was a writer!), that it’s shattered me at times…
Yesterday, the day after what would have been my mother’s 70th birthday, AGNI published the first excerpt “An Epistle for Edenia.” I am having all the feelings.
This weekend at the She Is! Writing Retreat, during an exercise where we went within, I was surprised by the quiet, the softness I encountered. I’ve been so used to being a storm, seeing and feeling the results all my healing moved me to tears. The writing I’ve been doing these last few months is a huge part of that.
It is my honor and my joy to share an excerpt of the essay here. You can read the entire essay on the AGNI website and it will also be in print (shipping in the coming weeks) so you can order that too.
Without further ado, I introduce you to Edenia…
Dear Ma,
I was in my early twenties when I told you I am a writer. You dug into the same bookcase you had in the living room since I was a kid (which still held the Compton’s Encyclopedia set you bought from a door-to-door salesman back in the mid-eighties) and took out a legal pad filled with your writing. “Yo comencé a escribir mi historia,” you said as I flipped through the pages. Your hand was so hard, the backs of the pages felt like braille.
When I started reading you yanked the legal pad from me and laughed when I reached for it. I whined, “Lemme read. I wanna read.”
“Cuando yo me muera,” you said, still smiling.
I’ve thought of those pages so many times over the years. I thought about them when you died last June.
Read the rest of the essay here. Please share and comment.
You can also watch me read an excerpt of the essay next Tuesday, April 23rd at 7pm ET, at the virtual launch of AGNI 99. If you were wowed by the essay in print, you should hear me read it! Register on Eventbrite to receive the link.
I love y’all. Thank you. Now imma go hide and nurse myself through this vulnerability hangover.
Peace, Vanessa
P.S. As I wrote this newsletter in the pre-dawn hours, still lying in bed, several owls (I counted three but there could have been more) started hooting their hearts out in the forest outside my window. I always pay attention to messages from nature. This one told me: “You are on the right track. Keep going.” I shall.
Vanessa, I just finished your piece. I am bawling in my living room with bittersweet sadness, joy and recognition of so many items in this essay. 💕💕 Beautiful work—thank you for honoring your family & the difficult relationship with your mother—they are with you always, that I am sure, from owls to hummingbirds and everything in between, and guiding your back as the Storyteller they deserve. ❤️
Love that this has happened, published excerpt, Owls, and all! Congratulations and a HUGE hug from the opposite coast! ❤️👏🏾