Cold Feet on a Hot June Morning

What’s a wedding without cold feet? Some stories did not make into my memoir, but sometimes an interview will bring one out, which is what happened in the interview I did with Michael Brantley.

Michael was one of the first people I met in my MFA program at Queens University. He was in his fourth and last semester when I was just beginning, and he was one of two peers I studied with at the start of the two-year program. I learned not only from Michael's critiques of my work but also from his strategies and successes of becoming a published author soon after he graduated. (Here’s a link to his first book.)

Thank you, Michael, for this interview, and for being a part of my Queens family.

Here is the first part of the interview: 

MB: How did your book come about?

SC: When I was 29, on a June Sunday morning in a hotel in Cincinnati, I said goodbye to my college friends at the end of my bridal shower weekend. I was standing in the lobby, and as each of my friends left to drive away and back to their own lives, I made my way to a payphone to call my  fiancé—my own future life. That’s when I felt a panic wash over me. The feeling didn't leave me for a couple of hours, but I chose to ignore it the entire time that it stained my mood and thoughts. It took me many years (and a wedding and a divorce) to understand what my body had been trying to tell me that I dismissed. (Back then, I was good at dismissing.) My memoir doesn't really begin there, but that's one of the first things I wrote down. Eventually, the memoir became much bigger than that part of my life, and it forced me to explore what I believed about love, destiny, fear, and faith and how those things had informed the many choices I made and shaped who I am today.

MB: How long have you been writing and publishing and what brought you to it?

You can read my answer and the rest of the interview here.

Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life

A few years ago, someone remarked to me how different his sons were. Both were early teens, both brown-haired, smart, athletic, both members of the basketball team. But when they played basketball, the oldest—I’ll call him Daniel—would score a bunch of points and also miss a shot or two, yet afterward, Daniel would talk about the shots he did not make, how he messed up, what he should have done. He didn’t mention all the great shots, the highs of the game, the wins. He remembered the misses. 

The other son—I’ll call him Mike—would score one or two points out of all the shots he made, but afterward, he would talk about those one or two fantastic shots, the best ones, and never mention the misses. He remembered how good it had felt to do something so well. He remembered, not the lows, but the highs.

And who do you think was happier? It’s not hard to guess.

When I heard this story, I thought about which kind of person I was, and I knew immediately: I was a Daniel, the one who focuses on the misses. And what I thought next was: I want to be like Mike, the one who focuses on the wins.

That’s not to say there is something inherently wrong with each son’s way of behaving. Both boys were probably trying their hardest. One could argue that Daniel, focused on the failures, might have a better chance of making improvements by dissecting the misses. Sure, reflection and analyzation are good, but what I do is focus more on what should have been—even what might have been—instead of relishing the best parts of what is.

I have been thinking a lot about this story over the last few months, as I’ve faced my own ups and downs, some tries and wins and losses. I have had to ask myself what kind of person I want to be. I have had to ask myself how I want to live.

Recently I was visiting my hometown in Ohio, which is located in a part of the state particularly prone to grey from November through March. When I moved to the South many years ago and experienced my first sunny winter, I revelled in the light. But this year, for the first time, while out on a walk in Ohio, I looked up at the grey winter sky, and I thought about how I had never noticed its complexities before: the swirls of color, the changing texture, the marbled dark mixed with white. I had spent so many years hating the grey that I had missed out on its loveliness, its elegance. How easy it would be to see only the bleak and sad things in the world. How easy to miss the beautiful and the good.

I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions. I do try and make changes, just not necessarily starting on January first. It’s been months now that I find myself more and more determined to focus on the positive. I hope it isn’t a goal for only 2018 but for life. 

This blog originally appeared in the Johnson City Press on January 14, 2018. 

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In case you missed it . . . The Southern Literary Review spotlighted me in an author interview, and the Dayton Daily News listed The Going and Goodbye as a 2017 favorite nonfiction book. Read about all this here.

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Going and Goodbye

by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

Giveaway ends January 26, 2018.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

A List of Favorites, Richard Wilbur, the Importance of Memory, and Rejection

Christmas came early for me this year: I am so grateful and humbled that my memoir made it into the Dayton Daily News’ list of 2017 favorite nonfiction books. Thank you, Vick Mickunas.

The other big gift: I had the great privilege of reflecting on writing memoir and rejection and a whole host of other things when the editor of Southern Literary Review interviewed me. He started out asking me about Richard Wilbur, and if you haven't read any of Wilbur's poems, I'll link to my favorite of his here: "The Writer."

This poem has a long history in my life, and I chose the poem's end as the epigraph to my memoir. This was a choice I made long ago, before the memoir was even complete. Here is what the editor, Allen Mendenhall, asked me, and my answer.

AM: Shuly, thanks for this interview about your memoir, The Going and Goodbye. I want to start by asking you about the epigraph by Richard Wilbur, in part because he passed away just about the time your book was released. I find that intriguing because you quote him on the subject of life and death, which you grapple with in the book.

SC: I was lucky enough to meet Richard Wilbur when he came to my undergraduate university not long after he had served as poet laureate. Because I was one of the editors of the literary magazine, I had the privilege of having lunch and spending some hours with him, along with other students. A few years later, while in graduate school for journalism, I took some poetry writing classes as a way to get through my journalism degree (not that the journalism program was bad—I just longed to be studying creative writing). In one poetry class, my professor, David Citino, asked that we all memorize and recite a poem, and I chose “The Writer,” which is where the epigraph comes from. To this day, I cherish the poem for what it did for me then—help propel me through a master’s degree I didn’t love but that served me well—but also for the story the poem tells: of someone needing to write in order to, in essence, live.

AM: Could you live without writing? 

SC: Yes, but I think I would suffer now without writing. It has helped me grapple with and understand a great many things in life, and it has served as a steady companion. That being said, I can imagine that it’s possible that one day I won’t turn to it anymore. I journaled from when I was a child until about ten years ago—journaling was a constant in my life. One day I just stopped for no apparent reason, and I haven’t journaled since. I think things can run their course.

AM: As I read your book, I felt a tugging, aching longing for people and places of my past, even as the story was yours. With every gain in life, it seems, there’s a corresponding loss, just as there’s a loss with every gain. Most of these involve relationships, romantic or otherwise, and the remarkable way in which our emotional state at any given moment is bound up in the feelings and desires of others. 

SC: One of the things I wrote in the book was that I like beginnings, before I’ve had to pick one thing over another—because with every decision, there is one thing that gets chosen and another that isn’t, sometimes many others. And those others have always been hard for me—I am capable of grieving deeply for them. It’s taken me a long time to realize that those choices might not have turned out as I used to imagine them. What’s that saying? Something about how unhappiness comes from focusing on what isn’t rather than what is. I believe that.

To read the rest of the interview at Southern Literary Review, click here.

Thanks, as always, to all of my blog subscribers. Two of you just subscribed in the last week—a warm welcome to you both. 

And I hope everyone reading this has a peaceful holiday season.