This is definitely NOT a cookbook!
I was shocked the first time I read some of the stories out of my new book, “What to Do With the Yokes” at our senior’s center where I volunteer. When I started, they weren’t talking to each other. They were in a place they didn’t want to be – adult day care. I chose the happiest stories and before long, they were laughing, talking, and some cried, even the men, for their life that was gone. One man was laughing so hard, then slapped his knee and said, “Read that one again.”
Eventually, they were all talking to those at their table, and I heard comments like, “Let me tell you what I did to my red wagon when I was about 10.” I was stunned. I began reading to senior centers and other writing groups and sometimes it was a horrible struggle to keep my composure. The experience was good for them . . . and good for me.
You can’t imagine how pleased I am to evoke happiness in others.
The other unexpected good thing was from people who had a bad childhood. I thought they’d resent the stories but it turned out to be just the opposite. One woman grew up with an alcoholic father and terrible home life. She too is an author, and said she’d never write her memoirs. But she loved her mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles and I convinced her to write some of her memories of them.
They were happy stories and it occurred to her that there was happiness in her life after all, and she would dwell on that. You can’t imagine how pleased I am to evoke happiness in others. One young mother said these stories gave her a better way to raise her children than the abusive way she was raised.
Yes, I remember my childhood like it was yesterday. I became that little girl again while writing the stories and saw my parents as young people raising their young daughters – how everyone looked, what they wore, how they moved, and the sound of their voices . . .
