I’ll just chalk it up as another quality for which this modest man never received credit. The major difference between today and the times of Jefferson, Lincoln, and even Truman is that writing is no longer the province of the elite or educated few. Composing about trauma is now simply more available to everyone, including Claire, whom you met at the opening of this chapter.
Our Storied Present
Throughout that semester, Claire had insisted that she had no real traumas to explore in writing, until a couple of months after the course ended, when she sent me a thirty-six-page paper describing and analyzing her repeated sexual abuse inflicted by her older brother, whom she revered:
I adored Kent growing up. I wanted to be just like him. I didn’t want him to join a gang or get arrested. I simply admired his independence and toughness. I felt safe when he was around. (Course Document 2003)
The following excerpt recounts the first episode when Claire was about seven years old. She and her sisters were “playing house” with Kent. With Claire’s younger sisters sent out of the living room by their make-believe father, they laid under a blanket stretched between the living room couch and a coffee table to form their bedroom. Claire describes how they talked to each other as pretend parents:
“So honey,” I began to say, “How was your day at work?”
“Fine,” he said with his back facing me, “I had a long day and I’m tired.”
“Okay honey, go to sleep,” I replied in a motherly way.
I turned on my side and pretended to go to sleep when I heard Kent moving around. I could tell at that point he was looking at me, and it felt like he was closer to me than before. I was always cautious when Kent was silent and near me. He was always trying to pull some kind of prank. I quickly turned toward him, to see what he was doing. He was laying on his side, raised on his left elbow, facing me.
“You didn’t give me a good night kiss,” he said playfully.
“Ugh,” I replied automatically, “That’s nasty.”
“Well, that’s what mamas and daddies do and you said you wanted to play house.” I stared at him suspiciously, but he had a point.
“Not a real kiss, just a little one. We’re just playing,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Okay,” I said cheerfully, “just a little one.” I kissed him on the cheek. It didn’t hurt and it didn’t feel too weird. I had kissed Kent on the cheek before and plus I had kissed DeShawn Perry last year in 1st grade under the jungle gym. At that moment, Darla started complaining about Trish messing with her in the other room. Without thinking, I jumped up and reprimanded Trish. I walked slowly back to my pretend bedroom. I was hoping that Kent was asleep. He wasn’t. He was lying on his back with his head resting on the pillow and watching me as I crawled in. At that moment, I realized how small the room was. I didn’t say anything to Kent and laid down with my back facing him. He broke the silence.
“We didn’t finish,” he said quietly. He was practically whispering, “Mamas and daddies do other things.” I knew he was talking about sex. Mama had the birds and the bees talk with me seven months ago. I looked at him and then the light blue ceiling. It was semi-transparent so I could faintly see the white tile of our real house. I guess my silence signaled him to go ahead. He climbed on top of me. He started moving his body up and down, just like the people on TV before mama turns the channel. My clothes were on and so were his, but for the first time I realized he had a penis. I knew that boys had different genitalia from me, but I had never thought of that in terms of my brother. It seemed like forever he rocked on top of me. The weight of his body caused my chest to hurt and I wanted him to get off. I didn’t say anything. He rolled off of me and put my hand on his penis and held it steady. I held my breath; I was scared to breathe and more scared to move. He began to fondle me as I lay stiff. I kept looking at the ceiling.
Kent could tell I was nervous. He looked at me and said, “Remember we’re just playing.” I nodded but I knew we stopped playing. He didn’t sound like a daddy, I didn’t sound like a mama, but instead we reverted back to brother and sister.
I always hate myself when I think back on that day. I could have ended it all right there, but I didn’t. What makes me more ashamed is the reason why I didn’t stop it. While I was lying there, I knew what we were doing was wrong. I knew that I should have run out from under that blanket and called Mommy and Daddy, but I didn’t. I let Kent do that to me. For many years, I told people and myself that I was frozen with fear. This was the truth, but it wasn’t all of the truth. I was scared of what Kent would say or do to me if I left, but I was scared also because part of me enjoyed it. I remember now that I had a window of opportunity to get out of that situation. Darla and Trish started fighting again, and I went to pretend spank them, then I quickly returned to Kent, to finish our business. (Course Document 2003)
As Claire stated earlier, this was painful for her to write; it’s even painful to read. While there are far more differences than similarities among Jefferson, Lincoln, Truman, and Claire, they are similar in their risk-taking and courage in writing about these topics. It is not surprising that Jefferson, Lincoln, and Truman have long been cited in the top tier of America’s leaders. I suspect that Claire will be regarded as a top educator. Their writing quoted in this chapter shows fluency with language and vigorous thinking—two extremely important and entwined processes that I’ll take up next. Following this, I’ll briefly explore three additional pillars of writing about trauma: form and structure, other symbols, and other people.
Fluency and Thinking
About her writing of repeated molestations, Claire stated, “As I began writing, more and more incidents began to pop in my head.” This is the magic: Words trigger thoughts, and thoughts elicit words, and so, the cycle continues. The most basic reason, then, for Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s, Truman’s, and Claire’s using writing as a means of comprehending, organizing, and therefore, better controlling their traumas, is a simple one—they could write and write easily. They were used to it; they were comfortable with it; they trusted it.
They were confident that, through writing, they could impose some semblance of order on chaos. Composing through trauma works because writers can generate visible language, which in turn prompts thinking, which in turn leads to more and different writing, and the cycle of fluency continues. We often think of “fluency” as referring to how much language—spoken or written—we can produce. But, this is only half of the equation as generating language also means generating thought. The two cannot be separated, even though we have managed to do so, for a very long time. Consider the following writing, completed by a fifteen year-old boy.
I have a question for you dad is it wrong to love someone who you hate so much to want to die and hope to be released, and to be saved what would you say if I said I don’t think it would bother me to watch you die at my feet does that make me insane? Or am I just lost and confused about who I am supposed to be am I the monster the world outside of me and my beast portrays me to be do I kill to survive or take the cowards way and hide when the world looks at me what do they see a coward a hero or just a lost and abused soul so dead so dark my heart no longer beats with life as I sit there wishing that I could die I am so fucking weak inside of me I feel gone do I have this right to want to watch you bleed and fucking scream for turning me into a beast? I have a question for you before you leave when I was so messed up on my drugs that I was almost dead inside did it hurt you or did you just laugh at the thought I was hurting deep inside. (Anonymous, from state government youth services instructor, 2006)
Most readers will find much to criticize here. Sadly, the first criticism will likely be, “This kid can’t write! What lousy grammar!” While I love grammar as much
