CONVERSATIONS WITH MY FATHER

REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS

 

1. The Evolution of My Project

 

At the beginning of my thesis journey, I was not short on ideas for a project.  In fact, I had a list of five viable options fighting for my attention, none of which were “Conversations With My Father.”  However, it was working through the possibility of each of these ideas which ultimately led me to create this project.

Three of my early ideas directly related to my career as a writing teacher.  One was chronicling my one-to-one computing classroom environment, one was based on designing a new writing course for High School senior, and the last was based on teaching personal narrative writing to sixth graders. However, I have always held fast to the notion that I am getting my Master’s degree for personal fulfillment and satisfaction rather than to bolster my upward career mobility. Thus was the end of these three paths.

I have always been fascinated with stories that engage the audience with a heightened level of participation.  Those classic “choose your own adventure” books provided me countless hours of entertainment as a young girl. As technology has evolved, so too has our ability to interact with our reader. At the onset of this journey, I was set on creating a technology-rich fictional narrative which incorporated various tools and modes of communication including text messages, social media posts, handwritten letters, and emails, to name a few.  After some early soul-searching, I quickly realized that this idea, while novel and exciting to me, would likely wear off and become all too gimmicky to sustain my attention for a full-length thesis.

The last idea to be crossed off my list was the writing of a memoir based on my husband’s fascinating life story.  This is something I still plan on following through with. However, upon further reflection, I realized that I have a pretty interesting life story to share with the world.  Thus, my project was born.

At first, I was intent on creating a fictional memoir based on the idea of conversing with my father through evolving modes of communication.  In this way, I would be able to combine my interest in how mode impacts the construction of meaning with my personal experiences. However, soon after beginning the creative writing process I knew that the focus had to be more about 9/11 rather than the technological component. I felt an overwhelming urge to divulge intimate details about my experiences related to 9/11.  Thus, the decision to include artifacts from 9/11 quickly became a core component of my creative work and the experimentation with multi-modal communication took a back seat to the larger scope of my involvement with 9/11.

In addition to my interest in audience participation, I have always been drawn to stories that alter perspective based on time, be it the sequencing of events as in the 2006 film The Lake House or the juxtaposition of time/space reality as in the 1998 movie Sliding Doors.  In creating the double-sided book format, which reads both in natural and reverse chronology, I was able to explore this fascination and ponder its implications both from the perspective of a writer and the impact on the reader.

 

b.   The Research Process

 

i. A Journal Entry

 

On September 12, 2001, I wrote a journal entry in my  little green notebook. It’s not the type of thing you read very often, but it was one of the first things I read in preparation for my creative writing endeavor.  What was I thinking back then?  I wondered as I pulled it out of the bottom drawer of my bedside table. Upon reading, I realized that at that time I never thought there would be normalcy in my life again.  The events of the previous day were, to me, unfathomable. I felt as though I - no, we - had regressed, in a way, to something less than human.  I used this as fuel with which to write my first letter to my father for this project.

ii. Artifacts

The second phase of my research process involved looking through a box of 9/11 artifacts which my mother had collected over the years. I engaged with the contents of the box from a critical perspective, deciding which elements could be included in my creative piece. Three plies began to emerge: yes, no, and maybe. Some of the items in the box were ones which I had never seen before.  Others I had not seen in quite some time. All contributed to the development of the chapters of my work. From the “yes” and “maybe” piles I could see chapters beginning to emerge, each following a clear thematic and chronological order. My story was beginning to take shape. These artifacts became an important part of my journey, guiding my writing process and informing the creative decisions I made along the way.

iii. Videos

Early on in the writing process, I watched news coverage and other videos and listened to audio recordings related to 9/11 in attempt to recall the emotions I may have felt at the time.  As I watched the first video, I recall thinking about how little coverage I had actually seen about the attacks. I suspect that in the days and months that followed I was preoccupied with dealing with the death of my father.  It was an emotional experience, to say the least. It was almost ass though I were living through September 11th for the first time, only now it was through the lens of a researcher, rather than a victim’s family member. I felt, for the first time, perhaps, a grief for others, the country, and the world.  I began to ponder the gravity of the events as an outsider, in a way. I can now understand that I lived through 9/11 the first time in a selfish way, mainly concerned with the fate of my own loss, my future, and my family’s well-being. So many years later, however, I allowed myself to grieve all that was lost that day.  It was an unexpected outcome, one for which I am grateful and do not take for granted.

In addition to watching 9/11 footage, I watched hours of home movies. This was not a usual occurrence for me. In fact, coincidentally, I had only just recently obtained the videos from my cousin who compiled them onto a USB for my family. By far, the most impactful aspect of watching the home movies was hearing the sound of my father’s voice again.  His image, I realized, was something I could over refer to, but his voice was something that I had not hear in many years. His New York accent was more distinct than I recall. The nuances of his tone and pitch were pronounced as I listened closely. It was this experiences that influenced my final “chapter” in which I hear, for the first time in many years, my father’s voice as I imagine my future death.

iv. Emails

Another part of my research involved looking through old emails.  At first, I simply wanted to get my timeline straight. For example, I had forgotten how soon after 9/11 I had returned to work. What I discovered while looking through an archived email account of mine was that I seemed surprisingly “ok” in spirits soon after 9/11. I read emails with former colleagues in which I joked around and made plans to meet up.  As I read these, I wondered How was that possible for me? This knowledge was helpful for me as I crafted similarly lighthearted exchanges with my father in my work.  I realized from this discovery that I didn’t have to maintain the distraught and devastated demeanor of the first journal entry I wrote.

 

c.  The Creative Process

i. Modality

 

• writing handwritten letters versus electronic communication

 

ii. Perspective

 

• writing from my father's perspective / his evolution in my mind

 

Over the years I had written to my father on various occasions, but this time it was different.  He would be writing me back. In that first handwritten letter I told him about starting my thesis and what my life was like now, not really knowing if I would include it in my actual creative work (I did).  I didn’t write back to myself as my father for some time. After that first letter, I decided to start at the beginning. I dated the letter “September 12, 2001” and wrote to my father. I couldn’t bring myself to write as though I were him until after a few letters.  It was dated “September 18, 2001” and I tried to mimic his handwriting as I remembered it. It was an emotional experience. As I tired to take on his persona, it also felt empowering. It felt as though he was really speaking to me.