Conversation with Janet Grace Riehl

I'm honored to have Janet Grace Riehl as my guest today and to be included in her blog tour as she discusses her audio book, Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry & Music. You can find a complete list of Janet’s tour on her blog. The previous post on the audio book tour was at Molly Lundquist’s Lit Lover book club site. There Janet posted a regional recipe of scrapple, a guest blog useful for both individuals and book groups, tips on how to appreciate both book and audio book together, and a review of “Sightlines” audio book.

Following a family tragedy, the death of her beloved older sister, Janet Grace Riehl returned to her childhood home in the Midwest. Her book, Sightlines, a Poet's Diary, came into existence as she confronted and processed the pain of this great loss and reconnected with her family, her ancestral home and family, and herself through story poems. Her father joined her in the collaboration of the audio book, reading his own poems and adding his music. Janet, it’s a pleasure to discuss your book, and audio book, and what lie behind their creation with you.

JMH: One of the main themes running through your 90 poems, Janet, is the gap between the memories you carry from your childhood of your family's home place, and what you find before you upon your return so many decades later. I can intimately relate to this theme, as I left my family home in my early twenties, returning many years later to nurse, first my father, and later my mother, in the final months of their lives. I'm sure many of our readers have experienced this gap between memory and a new reality of place and relationship. Tell us how this felt and how it crept into your poems.

JGR: One of the over-arching themes of Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary was how ephemeral, changing, and transient our lives are. Buddhist call this “Impermanence,” and include this principle as one of the four noble truths.

During this period of time impermanence showed up in several ways: Julia’s sudden death; my parents aging; my mother’s vulnerability in her illness that required constant care; the fragile and fractured family system; my displacement from the place I’d called home in Northern California back to the place of my childhood.

I’d visited the homeplace often in the gap after I left for part West in 1979. But, that’s not the same thing as living there. Life and circumstances and the physical identifiers on the Homeplace had moved on.

All of these changes and signs of impermanence were unnerving, but useful in illustrating this powerful principle.

JMH: As a writer of children’s fiction, I often borrow from my own and my children's childhood experiences in order to express the natural emotions and responses to life-like situations through my characters. Thus I am especially interested in how your childhood influenced the woman you have become. What part did your childhood experiences play in the way you chose to confront the grief of the tragic death of your sister?

JGR: In childhood my parents emphasized self-sufficiency. I often roamed the woods. They also emphasized hard work, being stoic, moving ahead, achievement, a life of service, and the deep importance of family and heritage. My Buddhist training and intuition led me to go into the small retreat around my birthday at the end of 2004 which gave me the leading to write the book.

The hard work, moving ahead, achievement, and life of service came together in making the book. My motivation for writing the book was a prayer that it be useful to others. This wish shaped the form of the story poems as the narrative vehicle. Moving ahead, achieving, and working hard were all needed in completing the project.

Me, stoic? Not so much. Rather the opposite. But, my father is, and that influenced the understated, simple way I revealed emotion. If I was overcome with emotion, I cried upstairs into my pillows or went out into the woods to wail and keen.

Self-sufficiency was essential because the situation I found myself in was rather isolated, with minimal support.

Emphasis on family and heritage is clearly one of the major themes in Sightlines.

JMH: Your father's music is an integral part of your audio book. Was music a big part of your childhood?

JGR: Music was part of our lives, big time. My father’s music is part of his heart’s blood. Other than his family, music is no doubt the thing in life Pop is most passionate about. We sang in the car together. We went to square dances where I learned to waltz standing on my father’s steel-toed work boots. Each of us children played several instruments and joined music groups at school.

My father’s greatest grief is that he had to give up playing music while we were kids and well into his middle-age because of family demands. It’s a joy to see him doing that again now.

It’s only because singing and playing were a natural part of life that I felt I could sing by myself at my talks and on the audio book. I have at least as good a voice as Garrison Keeler, I reckon! That gave me courage.

JMH: I have a few more questions for you, but since this is getting a bit long, I’ll limit myself to one more today and continue with a few more important questions tomorrow.

You have described your childhood as "anachronistic." I think I can see this in your poetry in Sightlines. Could you tell us more about what you mean by "anachronistic childhood?" How did such a childhood affect you as the person and writer you are now?

JGR: My parents came from families that were wedded to their land. We lived on land in the family for generations. We carried a sense of legacy and stewardship.

Our main goal as a family was to save up enough money that each of us children could go to college, with everything paid for. Mother made Pop promise this as they walked away from the altar. This meant that we worked like serfs raising and putting up food on our land and my grandparents on my mother’s side.

Living in the country we were socially isolated. While my friends lived in suburbs just stirring in the 1950s and ‘60s, we lived outside time within our own family culture. They had Barbie Dolls, training bras, make-up, the newest fads, new clothes, and TVs when they first came out. We did finally get a TV so we wouldn’t be next door watching it there.

I read books from the late 1800s and early 1900s, scouring our bookshelves for what I’d missed. I wore clothes mother cut down from Julia’s. Mother knitted me this beautiful outfit, but it was so incomprehensible within the context of current fashion, that everyone laughed at me when I wore it. That happened a lot—being laughed out and excluded—because I was out of touch with the times—not modern—and a thoroughly odd duck.

This gives you a sense of my childhood. There were losses in this way of life, but gains as well. I’m sure I wouldn’t have shaped such an idiosyncratic life if I’d grown up more conventionally bounded by conformity. As a result of my upbringing I’m stronger and make my own choices, with less outside influence.

JMH: Thanks for your time and in-depth answers, Janet. I look forward to continuing our discussion tomorrow with more questions about childhood influences on your poetry as well as some about your grand nieces. 

Janet Riehl’s internet tour continues July 10^th on Susan Gallacher Turner’s http://sculpturepdx.blogspot.com  and Mary Cunningham’s WOOF! (Women Only Over Fifty) on July 15^th. Her guest post will discuss how to use collaboration to reach your dreams as an over-50 woman.  http://www.woofersclub.blogspot.com/

Want to win a free copy of  Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music?Watch the featured video of the week.  Leave a comment underneath the post. Janet will run a drawing among the comments.

Releasing Suppressed Emotions/Healing with True Fiction

Perhaps it's because of a childhood experience that I empathize with a child separated from his or her parents—and why I write and publish books that express the trauma such children experience. It is my hope in publishing these books that readers will understand and accept their own feelings and know they are not alone. Too often, kids think that their feelings are wrong and that they are somehow to blame for the situation that has left them bereft. From the feedback I have received from kids reading these books, I know my hopes are realized. The books touch a sympathetic chord in the reader. The trouble is, these books are not popular with the adults who supply books to their children. They worry that True Fiction books will make kids sad—and that being sad is a bad thing. The truth is that tears are not only healing, but necessary in resolving emotional pain. If you wish to know how this process works see the "path of tears" to "emotional healing" at http://www.cyquest.com/pathway/3step_process.html

Books based on real emotion brought on by situations real kids face, which I call "True Fiction" are designed to help kids break through the blocks that keep painful emotions inside. When I was growing up, emotional blocks were put in place by the grown ups in my life who were given these messages when they were kids: Crying is for sissies, don't get mad, don't scream, and for heaven's sake, don't cry! Though it may not be as commonplace today, I think these messages are still being instilled in some kids.

I was nine years old when I got my first "job." I was thrilled and very proud of my prowess. I got to ride for neighbors, keeping tabs on a herd of dairy cows during the day, so that they could graze the grass growing along the quiet country road that ran by their house. After milking in the morning, Frank would let his cows out. An hour or two later, I'd saddle up one of his horses and ride out to see that they hadn't strayed too far. If they had gone more than 4 or 5 miles from home, I'd get them headed the other direction. I'd get on the horse and go check on them every hour or two.

Even though we lived only five miles from my employer, arrangements had been made for me to stay overnight. That way, no one had to drive over to pick me up and then take me back every day. It made sense, and I was fine with the arrangement—at first. There was one place along the country road that I could look across the river and the railroad tracks to see my home in the distance. As I sat on my horse and looked longingly at home, I wondered what my parents and siblings were doing and whether they missed me, I was overcome with homesickness. I wanted to be with my family. Each day, the sadness grew as I sat on Frank's horse and stared homeward. By the time I'd been away about two weeks, I felt I couldn't stand it anymore. The grief of missing my family overwhelmed me. That night, when the boss's wife, Lois, as was her habit, came into the bedroom I shared with their four-year-old son, to check on us, I produced an audible sob, rather than pretending to be asleep as I usually did. She asked what was wrong, and I told her. She phoned my parents who were already in bed, sleeping. "Tell her to go to sleep. We'll come get her tomorrow." Oh how I wish I'd been satisfied with that, but I thought I'd die of grief if I didn't go home that night. My employer and his wife bundled up their sleeping son, started up their old pickup truck which had no headlights. Lois held a flash light out the window as Frank drove. They saw me to the door where we woke my tired parent's again. The reunion was not the glad welcoming I had envisioned. Mom and Dad were embarrassed and outraged at the trouble I had caused the kind neighbors. I'll never forget the concern in my little sister's voice when she asked, "What's wrong with Janet? Is she sick?" and the scorn and disgust in Mom's when she replied. "No. She's just homesick" and ordered me to bed.

That incident further reinforced what I'd already been taught. Only sissies cry, and selfish feelings are not acceptable, so keep them hidden if you have them at all. What I learned later in life, however, is that emotions suppressed in childhood affected every aspect of my life as an adult. Years of therapy have helped me know intellectually, that permission to feel and express emotion is healing. How I wish every parent would encourage their children's expression of what is going on inside them and let them know something I didn't learn until I took child development in college: that it is okay to cry.

As I said in the beginning of this blog entry, the books I write and publish have a mission. Their purpose is to allow the reader to feel what is inside them by portraying the same feelings through true-to-life characters and events. Tears are healing. Unless children can confront his true feelings they will remain suppressed, and suppressed feelings are the source of inner pain, self abnegation, and a lack of self-esteem that keeps them from realizing their full potential.

The Miranda and Starlight series, through engaging characters, portrays the feelings of loneliness and abandonment of a young girl whose mother has left her to live with grandparents and go to a school where she feels unaccepted.

Through Danny's Dragon, kids relate to the loss of a parent who has died. They experience Danny's feelings as he deals with the denial, guilt, isolation, and anguish that are the natural stages of grief. Kids who have suffered the loss of a parent, close friend or even a pet are comforted to know they are not alone, their feelings are natural, and the loss is not their fault. Kids who haven't yet experienced the death of a loved one are better able to sympathize with those who have and better prepared for it when it does happen. Kids who are holding feelings of loss and grief inside will find a way to let the healing tears flow when they read this book.

Kyleah's Tree and Kendall's Storm (coming next year) bring to life the feelings and hardships associated with separation not only from parents, but from a twin or close sibling. Vicariously, kids who are orphaned or separated from loved ones for any reason will be able to experience and understand their own feelings. Tears will flow, but there will also be joy and satisfaction in the adventures and triumphs of the wisdom and growth they see in Miranda, Danny, Kyleah and Kendall.

Jenna MacDonald, An Inmate's Daughter, and her brother suffer not only the loss of a parent, but also the stigma that hounds them wherever they go, forcing them to keep a guilty secret and feel shame that is not rightfully theirs. With millions of children in the same boat, this book should be flying off the shelves and into the hands of kids who could find comfort in knowing they are not alone and that there is hope for them. Most of these millions, statistics say, will follow their parent's footsteps and become incarcerated themselves later in life. Why? Because no one takes gives them a chance. Intervention, it is shown, can make all the difference. Books like An Inmate's Daughter go a long way in helping. Every school and library should have one. Every child who has a parent in prison should read it. Every child who knows a child with a parent in prison should read it to understand and empathize with those who do.

Children who have read these books report that they love them because they can relate to the characters. They want to read more like them. Adults who think they are protecting their children by only getting them books that help them escape reality may be depriving them of books that will change their lives by evoking healing tears.

If you know of children who could benefit from True Fiction stories like those mentioned here, let them or their parents know about them—or better yet, give them one for Christmas. They may be found in book stores, Amazon.com, or from the publisher. (click here to order.)

True Fiction for child victims

No matter how one feels about the war in Iraq, all must surely agree that the children who are left behind are the innocent victims. As I watched news clips after the invasion of Iraq, I felt deep empathy and sorrow for the children pulled from the arms of a mom or dad, and in some cases, both, after a prolonged and tearful goodbye. I listened to a mother left behind with three preschool age children who at first missed their father. When he did not return right away, they refused to talk about him, for it was easier to forget him, than to suffer the pain of his "abandonment." When a new boy started school with my grandchildren, I learned that he had come to live with his grandparents when both his parents were deployed to fight in Iraq. 

How does that feel? I asked myself. But I knew, just from agony of homesickness I suffered from a two week separation from my parents when I was nine. And they were not that far away. Just multiply that experience a hundredfold or a thousandfold, and I'd have an idea. What if they never came back? was my next question. How could I know what that was like? I had recently lost my mother and five years before that, my dad. I know the ache of missing them. But I'm an adult. My parents were in their eighties and their deaths were not unexpected. I could only imagine how painful it would be for a nine year old to lose a parent. 

But imagine I did, getting into the heart and mind of Danny, a fictional nine-year-old boy, as best I could. He is a rancher's son, and very close to his father. They worked and played together, and when Danny asked for a horse of his own, his dad could not refuse him. The horse, Dragon, becomes Danny's pride and joy and constant companion until the day his father dies. Then he can't look at him anymore, sure that it was the expense of the horse that forced his dad to join the Air National Guard, go to Iraq, and die in a fiery plane crash. Blaming his horse and himself, he withdraws from everything. 

The story continues as the loss is compounded on his family, (himself, his mother, and older sister) each dealing with his or her grief privately. Financially unable to hold on to the mortgaged cattle ranch, they move to Denver to live with Danny's grandparents. 

Can Danny adapt? Will he survive this additional loss of everything he has ever known. Will he get his "Dragon" back? Will his family, torn apart by deep personal sorrow, ever regain the happy unity they once shared? When Danny confronts the "enemy," an Iraqi classmate in the Denver school, will blame and hatred overwhelm him?   

The answers may be found in "Danny's Dragon" by Janet Muirhead Hill in book stores or online at www.ravenpublishing.net.