Family Myth

"You realize that that is a book waiting to happen?" My therapist said last night.

"Yeah, I know. My family actually wants me to write it," I answered uneasily. "But I don't think they understand that they won't come off so well. Plus, it's really difficult to write it. I mean, do I go linear? Or use flashbacks to fill in the voids? And, *sigh*, I don't even know what's real! At the end of the day, it's more like a Tolstoy novel than a memoir."

I was trying to talk about my dad, but in order for my dad to be understood, I always feel like I have to go back to his dad. And in order for his dad to be understood, you've got to go back to his dad. Luckily, at that point, the stories get a little fuzzy so Great Grandpa Callahan's legacy is diluted as far as my psyche goes. The single story that does get passed down on Carleton Callahan involves a physically abusive alcoholic, a Christmas tree, and teenage sons lying in wait. If you have an alcoholic in your family, you know how that one ends. I bring these things up in therapy more as a breadcrumb trail for my therapist than an excavation of my troubled past. Except, after leaving my session last night, I started to think more about the Callahan Clan and how I feel burdened by their history. However, somewhere near UCLA, it hit me that I didn't know the Callahan history as much as I knew the family lore. The stories that have been handed down to me by an older generation. Stories that were handed down to them from people who were supposedly eye witnesses. At which point my former cop turned to my former editor and said, "Eyewitness accounts are unreliable. Where does the truth end and the fiction begin?" My former editor answered, "You can't fact check any of this. The participants are all dead. These are oral narratives."

Ahh, storytelling! Now, we're talking. When I was younger, I equated my love of story with my love for books. But! I also loved television and movies. And I loved a good recounting of a dramatic family vacation. I even loved gossip as long as there was a beginning, a middle, and an end. I considered all these loves separate identities. Different boyfriends, if you will. But I've recently realized that they weren't separate boyfriends, just different facets of the same boyfriend, and his name is Narrative. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if this love of narration comes from the family that enjoys telling a good story in the guise of a melodramatic family history. (Did I mention these folks are Irish? Hmm...)

Once I took the personal involvement out of the equation, I was able to hear the stories in a new way. They really were quite interesting. Like the one about my Great Grandmother Mary coming from Italy as a poor orphan, put into a Catholic convent, adopted by her much older sister, impregnanted by an Irishman then married to a widower. This is the stuff great literature! Or the very least, a good beach read! Instead of feeling burdened by these crazies, I felt excited about them. Hey, I can make some money off of these people! And suddenly, they were all forgiven. Every single one of them. Thearpy. Good for psyche. Good for the wallet.