She of Three

Gilmore Girls: Writing and Mothers and Daughters

Together, this bonded pair navigates issues of family, relationships, estrangement, resentment, ambition, and privilege. In their interactions, the line separating parent from child is often blurred.

Writing Role Models

I wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, finding kindred spirits in female characters from books and film whose ambition was to write.

The imaginative and wistful dreamer in young Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, who stores away the minutest details of everything she observes in life. The strong-willed and outspoken Josephine March from Little Women. The resilient and tenacious Roseanne, from the sitcom of the same name. Protagonists who looked to writing as a means of escape from their current circumstance and, importantly, as fulfillment of their truest selves.

Only in my imagination, where I concocted worlds that were worlds apart from my reality, did I feel safe and unafraid.

I’m A Writer (and Other Lies I Tell Myself)

“I’m a writer.”

That’s what I’ve told myself, and others, for most of my adult life. Heard myself utter the phrase countless times in response to the dreaded “What do you do?” question at parties and other social events. My go-to response: “Oh, I’m a writer,” I’d say matter of factly and break eye contact, proceeding to take repeated sips of my drink in the hopes of avoiding follow-up questions. I’ve used the line so often that it’s void of meaning.

“I’m a writer. But am I?”

Was it true, saying I was a writer? Technically, yes. I made my living as a healthcare writer and marketer. Not my dream job by any stretch, but I was writing, so that meant I was a writer, right?

Depends.

Was I really writing? I was putting pen to paper—or rather fingertips to keyboard to screen—endlessly chiseling away at report after report of clinical trial data. The process felt like writing. The method and research felt like what was required for writing. But the creative outlet was absent.

I’ll Get to It (One Day)

I had ideas—the ideas were always present. But I couldn’t muster the energy or motivation to act on them. They nagged at me, though, those ideas. I kept a running list in my head of all the topics and themes I would revisit “one day” when I had the time to give them the attention they deserved. Weekends never seemed long enough, and everything else competing for time and space nudged the writing out of the frame. “One day” never came.

So I did what I considered the next best thing. I started carrying a journal in my bag. Yes, I became one of those annoying “writers” who carries a journal to jot down ideas that descend from the ether. Was it useful? Nope. And why is that? Simple: I seldom wrote anything down. What I occasionally scribbled were random phrases and the odd sentence or two that I was sure would make a great opening for a poem or essay. That’s what I convinced myself, anyway.

The pocketbook graffiti was disconnected, irrelevant, and unusable. Scrawling illegible and unintelligible notes in a paperback journal didn’t make me a writer—but it made me feel like one. That journal was my security blanket. Whenever I doubted who or what I was, I could slip my hand into my bag, run my finger along the book’s spine, and feel instant validation.

It Isn’t Writing If You Don’t Write It Down

A creative writing professor once told me: “It isn’t writing if you don’t write it down.” Profound, isn’t it? I took heed to those words while a student, inarguably my most fertile writing period. Is that the case for all writers, I wonder? Is there something about the ambiance of writing classes that makes one feel more creative, motivated, confident, supported?

So I started writing a page every day, figuring something would click. Some days were easier than others because, for me, writing doesn’t just happen *snap fingers* like that. It’s never as easy as flipping on a switch and – boom – out pour the words.

“What are you waiting for?"

I need time and solitude. And inspiration!

Those fleeting moments when inspiration strikes are blissful. My brain gushes words faster than my fingers can type, and the pages flow like molten lava. Who am I kidding? That rarely happens. Most days, the well is dry, and my brain stalls like a car with a dying battery.

Writer’s block: the two most frightening words for any writer. Wikipedia even describes it as a “condition.”

How do you break through the block? Discipline. JUST WRITE! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Good question, I muse, staring at my silhouette against the blank, white page, biting the insides of my cheeks, feeling like a sham. It’s always easier said than done.

Adolescent Scribing

Productive writing periods have a short shelf life for me, at least on paper. I live in my head, listening to a running, incessant dialogue of all the things I should be writing but am not. One could say I’m having internal conversations with myself—and perhaps it’s more of an undiagnosed mental condition than a sign of skill. Or maybe the thoughts in my head are right where they belong and aren’t fit for public consumption. Maybe I’m more of a dreamer than a writer.

Surely the boxes of journals stored away in my basement prove otherwise. Oh, the time that was dedicated to filling those pages. My “Dear Diary” entries during adolescence set the stage for more well thought-out excerpts detailing my feelings on life, music, sex, fear, loneliness.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but those adolescent years spent scribing saved me. Writing and music—and often writing about music— quelled the desire to disappear.

My Mother’s Journal

Many writers are fond of saying that they didn’t choose writing. Rather, writing chose them. Cliché though it may be, it rings true for me. Writing spoke to me on a primal level. It awakened me, and I abandoned all notions of who I thought I was and what I was capable of. I couldn’t ignore it had I tried.

I was “chosen” a few months after my ninth birthday, when my mother gave me a journal that she kept while she was pregnant with me. Its ruled, pocket-sized pages were bound with glue and white string, and enclosed by plastic green covers textured to look like alligator print. A tiny lock once hung from a bronze clasp, now green with patina.

From that point forward, writing was a vital part of my life. It was the only thing I wanted to do, the only thing I felt I was any good at.

The Book Only I Can Write

In the fall of 2016, Gilmore Girls was revived as a four-part arc, which offered a glimpse into the characters’ lives over the course of four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall.

Disillusioned that her career aspirations haven’t panned out, we see thirty-something Rory adrift. A former flame convinces her to write a book about her friendship with her mother, describing it as something only she can write. That’s when it clicks: this is what she was meant to do.  

Similarities abound.

“Writing keeps me connected to my mother.”

I'm also writing a book about the unique relationship I shared with my mother. She asked me to write it a few weeks before she died. I always intended to do it— “one day” —but it simmered on the back burner for many years until I, too, suffered career disillusionment and finally started listening to what the universe had been telling me all along. I knew that it was, to borrow a phrase from “Gilmore Girls,” never or now.

While my and my mother’s story differs from Rory and Lorelai’s in the sense that it doesn’t have a happy ending, I felt closer to my mother when taking care of her in her final months than I ever had. It was the strength of our friendship that carried us through the darkest moments. And by writing this book that only I can write, we’re connected still.

Fall Reflections

My mother loved fall, and I do, too. Coincidentally, Gilmore Girls enthusiasts list the fall episodes as some of the show’s best.

Shedding old thoughts, regrets, resentments, fears, belongings—all those things that clutter one’s mind and space, in preparation for rest and renewal.

More than that, I’m thinking about my mother, and how Gilmore Girls captures the best and worst aspects of the relationship we had with laser-like precision, and how I wish our time hadn’t been cut short.

Kathi was my biggest inspiration, for writing and everything else. The Lorelai to my Rory.