From where I am sitting I can read the opening paragraphs in Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird:

“Start with your childhood…plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O’Conner said that anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible. But grim and horrible is okay if it is well done. Don’t worry about doing it well yet, though. Just start writing it down.”

And that is what I began to do when I first started ‘The Whippoorwill Chronicles’ in January 2006. This was to be the beginning of a long and painful, sometimes paralyzing, journey.

Having made my decision to continue to write this memoir, after much forgiving and healing, I feel it necessary to introduce the ‘new reader’ with a post of where this journalistic journey began.

This is sadly one of my favorite photographs.

We were on a family picnic in Germany. My mother appears to be smiling.

This is where I believe that it all began to fall apart for my brother and I. It fell apart for our mother long before this moment in time. However, that is her story and not mine to tell.

I haven’t looked at this photograph since I last wrote about it in the original Whippoorwill Chronicles. It still remains one of my favorite photographs no matter how many sad emotions it continues to evoke. For I still believe this is where it all began…at least for us, my brother and I. The craziness that was to become our childhood and the emptiness that was to define much of our adult lives. I must however retract the misstatement about the above photo. Although we were on a picnic, it could never be termed a ‘family’ picnic. For we were never a family.

Several years ago my mother made the choice to deny my existence. This was not a new experience for me. There have been many times throughout my life where I have been on her (as her children lovingly called it) “sh*t list”. Years at a time, when I was disconnected from both my parents (because my father would always fall in line with my mother’s directives - even if it meant denying his children what they needed most) and the siblings left behind. Because of my non-existence in the life of my parents, what I write here cannot be interjected with their perspective. For this I am both sad and grateful. Emotions that are so tightly wound together for me when I talk about the non-relationship I have with my parents and my four siblings.

So this is my story. Strictly from my perspective.

Elizabeth Loftus (a psychologist whose specialty is human memory) states that we can ‘remember dangerously’. My theory is that we ‘remember protectively’. We piece together the puzzle that is our past so it makes sense to us in the least damaging way. There will always be those pieces missing where the edges are blurred and the memory is undefined. And our emotions will surface to fill in the blank spaces so we can feel whole. Flawed, but whole nonetheless.

I chose the title “The Whippoorwill Chronicles” to tell my story for the following reason.

The whippoorwill is defined as a “bird that nests on the ground, in shaded locations, among dead leaves…these birds forage at night…and do not flush from their nests unless underfoot”. “The whippoorwill is infrequently seen but it’s loud calling at dusk makes it well known”.

This is how I have felt much of my life. Like a whippoorwill. Seeking to camouflage myself so my mother could not find me. Wailing under the cover of night so I could be heard and not discovered.

Whippoorwills are known for their song. You may not see them…but you most definitely hear them.

This is my story. Song by song.

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