Something New

It has been said that there is nothing new in the world.  That even those things we perceive as new are merely variations of what existed before it. As a creative being, I find this difficult to believe.  Especially when it comes to the written word.  True, there are only so many words available to describe the human experience and the world in which these experiences take place.  However, each of us experience life from a different vantage point making the possibility of newness a reality. So what’s my point?  Terry Tempest Williams creates something new in When Women Were Brides. “Everything feels new (21).”

In the beginning, Williams writes “I am fifty-four years old, the age my mother was when she died (1).”  The reader is immediately aware of the familiar stories of life and death, mother daughter relationships and the passage of time.  There is nothing new about these themes. However, Williams’ technique of telling an entire story in the first sentence of her memoir is something I have not encountered.  Another amazing technique happening in the first sentence is Williams’ skill of simultaneously placing the reader in the future, “I am” and the past, “when she died.” Definitely a compelling reason to continue reading and to search for what else is new.

Keeping her promise not to look at her mother’s journals until after her death begins a stretch of intrigue that keeps the story mysterious.  Upon discovering that each shelf of journals is blank, Williams gives the reader a glimpse of this blankness by leaving six of the pages that following the discovery blank. Silence has never been so loud.  Williams writes, “Her absence becomes her presence.” Again the reader is placed in duality—absence and presence.  We’re still on page one.

It doesn’t take long to realize the significance of the blank journals and their silence interweaved throughout the book.  Their ongoing life and death lessons. They are the gateway to exploring voice and passion as a writer and a woman.  Williams deploys them to show both strength and weakness, voice and silence.  “The blow of her blank journals became a second death. My mother’s journals are paper tombstones (15).” As the reader contemplates with Williams why her mother’s journals blank, Williams continues to layer the book with unexpected surprises, “A woman’s water breaks, and she goes into labor.  Birth is imminent. A writer’s imagination breaks loose and she, too, goes into labor (21).”

Williams uses repetition to further show the impact of the blank journals. Although the phrase, “My mother’s journals are...”  is repeated throughout the book, it is an uninterrupted list from page 191 to 194.  Here are few of my favorites:

“My Mother’s journals are a blinding truth (191).”

“My Mother’s journals are white flags of surrender (191).”

“My Mother’s journals are a cruelty (191).”

“My Mother’s journals are her colored hair left white (192).”

“My Mother’s journals are diapers washed and folded (194).”

“My Mother’s journals tell me nothing (194).”

“My Mother’s journals tell me everything (194).”

These poetic truths return us to the beginning, a binary of knowing nothing but knowing everything.  Two opposing revelations gained from the same evidence. In this way, “Everything feels new (21)” about this book.