After the birth of my second child, I was wrought with postpartum anxiety. As always, I sought refuge in words. Although I had never, until that point, had any true ambition with writing beyond my journal, I suddenly found myself with a 30,000-word document: a brain dump of grief and trauma.
What started as an homage to my kitchen table (something my mom had pulled out of her maternal grandmother’s carriage house and refinished in her 20s, whereupon it was passed around our family for decades) quickly morphed into a postmortem about the ex-boyfriends I collected in my late teens and early twenties.
But even that, it turns out, is not actually what the story is about. The story is about the thing I didn’t, and don’t, particularly want to write about. But it’s the story I need to tell.
Over the last five years, I have wrestled with how and where to tell this story. The traditional manuscript and attempt at a book deal? A serialized newsletter, once I had it all polished up and pretty? Handmade zines sent via snail mail? Nothing felt right, or the logistics felt too complicated for my present life (I have two children who need a lot of my support! plus a toddler, who also needs a lot of my support!).
Finally, a lightbulb: what if I wrote it as a series of flash memoirs? What if each piece was accompanied by a visual element: a photograph, a journal page, etc?
And so, welcome to In a Strange Land, a micro memoir project.
I plan to share a new installment every Monday here on Substack (initially I thought I would post to Instagram, but most people said they would rather read on Substack, plus I have more control of audience and formatting over here). I don’t have this whole thing planned out, but this newsletter has always been about the process, so thank you for allowing me, and this project, to be a little imperfect. I am going to aim for posts to flow from week to week cohesively, and of course, each piece is a complete story— the beauty of flash!
If you like coming-of-age stories, LiveJournal, and/or early aughts nostalgia, I hope you’ll like this, too. If you are the child of a parent with substance abuse issues, if your family carries a legacy of trauma, or if you’ve had your heart broken, I think you’ll find something that resonates.
As always, feedback is welcome. I want to grow and improve as a writer! I want to tell a good story! I just ask that you be mindful that these are some of the tenderest moments of my lived experience.
Finally, I may change some names and identifying details, with respect for individuals who didn’t realize I was taking (copious) notes the whole time. Any dialogue is reconstructed as best I can to remain true to what was conveyed. This is creative nonfiction but I’m not making things up to serve the story.
The first installment will be up tomorrow. I’m still playing around with Substack’s features to see how I can keep things organized and easy to read in the order they are first published, and I’d like to make some cute graphics, and I’d like to include other elements that tie into the story (journal prompts! a reading list! a Spotifty playlist!), and and and… don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, and all that.
oh, and this project is in addition to the type of content I would normally share here. tbd, but I’m planning to post about journaling and goals and all that good stuff on Wednesdays.
Thanks for reading!