Hope Edelman is the author of The Possibility of Everything, which SV Moms Group bloggers are discussing today for the SV Moms Group Book Club. Join in the book club discussion here. Hope graciously answered questions from our bloggers. Thank you, Hope!
1) From Jessica,
Silicon Valley Moms Blog - Do you think you would have eventually taken
an alternative approach to dealing with Dodo if you hadn't been headed
to Belize?
That’s a good question.
The answer probably would have been no. Back then, I felt like searching
for a healer in Belize was my last-ditch effort before pursuing the
psychiatric route in Los Angeles, which I’d been avoiding partly because
of my own fear of what it might uncover, and partly because our health
insurance was very basic and wouldn’t cover any of the cost. I didn’t
know any spiritual healers in L.A. at the time, so it never occurred
to me to pursue an alternative route here. That seems strange to me
now, since such healers are so easy to find and now I know quite a few
of them—especially in Topanga Canyon—but for whatever reason, I
didn’t look into it back then. I can only guess that I needed to go
to Belize and have the experience I did in exactly the way it happened,
and that my mind and imagination were closed off in certain directions
for that reason.
2) From Lisa M.,
Silicon Valley Moms Blog - Early in your book you mention how your husband
expressed "hurt surprise" when you tell him your idea for
a book that explores situations like yours, where the husband works
crazy hours leaving the wife mostly in charge of child rearing. How
did he react initially when you told him about writing "The
possibilty of everything?" Was he open to the idea or did he express
misgivings over disclosing such intimate details about your marriage
and child, Maya? Lastly, what did your husband think of the book (when
it was finished)? Did you have him read it before it was published?
Thank you! I just love your writing.
Thanks, Lisa! I think
by the time I was working on TPOE in earnest, which would have been
around 2007, my husband had become much more comfortable (or maybe just
resigned to) being married to a nonfiction writer. He understands that
I write about my life not to expose people or settle scores, but in
an attempt to get at underlying truths that will help readers navigate
their own lives. Interestingly, he was the one who championed the idea
of this book more than anyone, and all the way through he believed that
its message was more important than his ego, which I admire hugely.
He pretty much gave me license to include whatever I needed to tell
a complete story. That said, I always have him read pages before they’re
sent to my editor, and he has veto power to change or remove whatever
he wants. He has an excellent reputation as a businessman and regular
citizen in our town, and I don’t want to damage that it any way by
printing my version of events.
There were very, very
few things he asked me to change or omit in this book. Just two or three,
as I recall. One of the truisms of writing memoir is that people almost
never object to the things you think they will, but they’ll ask you
to change or delete passages you’d thought were completely benign.
That’s what happened with us, and because the details he wanted me
to leave out were so small and didn’t change the story at all, it
was very easy to oblige.
3) Lori from New Jersey Moms Blog - I would LOVE to know how your
daughter is doing now--how old she is, what she remembers from the experience,
if your daughter still shows signs of being "spiritually sensitive,"
if you've talked about it and especially, how your life has changed
now--if you have any spiritual practices--where you're at now with your
outlook toward the unknown and how that informs your daily life. Also,
how has it affected your marriage? Has it made you closer with your
husband? THANK YOU!!!!!
Maya is twelve now,
in seventh grade, and she’s completely fine. (Well, as fine as a twelve-year-old
girl can be, massive amounts of eye-rolling aside.) She remembers bits
and pieces from our trip in 2000, mostly from the second half. The first
few days, when she was running a fever, may have been experienced more
like a dreamscape to her. We brought her back in 2008 to reconnect with
the people who’d helped her before, which was a terrific experience
for us all. She and Dr. Rosita share a very special connection.
Maya has a very strong
appreciation for nature now and an unusual affinity for plants, which
I like to think comes from having been helped by them in the past. She’s
also interested in the spiritual dimension of life, but I can’t tell
if that comes from her time in Belize or mostly from growing up in Topanga
Canyon. When she applied to middle school last year she wrote an admission
essay about going to a dowsing conference with her father when she was
six and how she now using dowsing rods to find her iPod around the house
when it’s misplaced. I thought, “Oh my god! This school is going
to think our family is nuts!” but I also didn’t want to censor her
self-expression so we mailed it in. The director actually loved the
essay. He appreciated that it revealed who she really was.
As for my outlook toward
the unknown, I’m much more openminded toward alternative thinking
and alternative medicine than I was ten years ago. When we went to Belize
in 2000, my husband and I were on very different ends of that spectrum,
and the trip brought us both closer toward the middle, into a range
that’s much more amenable for co-existence. We respect each others’
viewpoints, and overlap on a wider range of beliefs and ideals now,
whereas I couldn’t have said that before. But even though I’m not
as skeptical as I was before, I’m definitely still the more skeptical
partner in the marriage. The difference is that now I feel my skepticism
is more thoughtful and pragmatic, rather than reactive.
My husband loves that
I wanted to learn more about alternative healing to write the book,
and he encouraged me to take Dr. Rosita’s Mayan Spiritual Healing
workshops in Belize in 2008 and 2009. Both times he watched the kids
alone for 10 days at home so I could go and believe me, that’s no
easy job.
4) Cindy from Chicago Moms Blog - The leap of faith and the courage
required to make this leap are recurring themes in your book. I found
it interesting while reading The Possibility of Everything to realize
that faith can extend beyond spiritual matters to those of sharing our
stories - since those stories can be about some of the most intimate
moments of our lives. Was faith required for you to lay bare some of
what could be perceived as less than great parenting moments - for instance,
your occasional lack of patience with Maya, or the struggle to force-feed
her the cough medicine. (I'm not passing judgment. Believe me, I've
been there - we've all been there!)
I think of writing as
an act of faith all its own. Every time I sit down at the computer I
have to believe both in my own invisible abilities and in the power
of words to create something out of nothing. So, yes! Telling this story
was absolutely a leap of faith, and sharing it even more so. I knew
it was a personal risk to publish a book like this, and that I might
well come under fire for my spiritual beliefs. I didn’t expect the
storm that would erupt online over my parenting practices, although
in retrospect I can understand it. When I committed to writing the book,
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t try to sugarcoat the story
to make myself look good. I wanted to write a true, authentic story
that honestly revealed who I was—or who I think I was—ten years
ago, even if I feel that I’m not exactly the same person now. That
part was very difficult for me, since there were moments when I found
myself judging my own behavior in the past, and I had to struggle against
the impulse to change or soften some of the scenes to save face. Even
more than faith, it felt like I had to find courage and humility to
write those parts of the book. But if even I judged myself as I wrote,
of course other people would feel the impulse to judge me, too.
That hotel scene in
Guatemala City where I force medicine down my daughter’s throat was
by far the hardest scene in the book to write, and I really debated
whether or not to put it in. It illustrated an important moment when
I came very close to hitting bottom from frustration and fear, but I
knew it ran the risk of depicting me as violent and maybe even unhinged.
Some memoirists worry about throwing other people under the bus when
they write, but I think I threw myself under the bus a little with this
one. I decided to put it in because I knew that almost every mother
has a moment in her pasts where she had to resort to physical force
to get a child to take eardrops, or eyedrops, or oral medication against
the child’s will but for the child’s well-being. Most of us are
afraid to talk about those moments because we worry how others will
think of us, so in addition to this being an important scene in the
story I hoped that it would help other mothers feel all right about
the choices they’ve made, too. This scene has wound up being the one
that mothers want to talk about most.
5) Cindy from Chicago
Moms Blog - In The Possibility of Everything you describe the loss of
your mother and your extensive research into the experience of other
motherless women, but not in a way that connects your own trauma with
your daughter's disturbing behavior. I'm thinking specifically of the
moment at the beautiful and amazing climax of your book when Maya asks,
"You're crying, Mommy. Why are you so sad?" I heard questions
like this from my own daughters when they were young. At the time I
felt the need to remain vague and then to distract because the reality
seemed too complicated and too frightening. Since writing the book,
have you considered the possibility that a part of Maya's internal struggles
may have been a reaction to the stress of her growing suspicions and
understanding that her mommy had something terrible, most terrible,
happen to her.
Interesting question,
Cindy. As you point out, Maya was only three and too young to understand
what death meant. I hadn’t gone into the story much with her beyond,
“My mommy died when I was seventeen, but that’s not going to happen
to us.” I think the stress that my husband’s long work hours had
on the family, and the weight of doing most of the parenting on my own—coupled
with my tendency to get easily overwhelmed--played the larger role in
her behavior. But then again, a good part of the stress I felt was because
I was out in California without any family to help me, and missing my
mother so much, and feeling overwhelmed because of her absence, that
I’m not sure I can separate out all the strands. So yes, I do think
that the early loss of my mother did play into Maya’s struggles somehow,
but I’m not sure the connection was such a direct one.
6) Linsey from Silicon Valley Moms Blog - I understand that you just
returned this week from a trip to Guatemala. What were you doing there?
Do you return there often? How has
writing the book The Possibility of Everything affected your travels?
Is it strange to return there? Did Maya join you on the trip?
I was invited to teach
at the Write By the Lake workshop run by Joyce Maynard. Twenty-eight
students and four instructors spent a week together at Lake Atitlan.
It was my first time in the highlands of Guatemala, which are just spectacular.
Before, I’d only been to Guatemala City for that single fateful night
in 2000, and to the Peten region where Tikal is. I took this trip alone
but my daughters badly wanted to come, so next time I’ll try to bring
them with me if I can.
To write TPOE, I went
back to Belize four times, twice to study healing with Dr. Rosita, once
with the family, and once to fact-check the book and shoot footage for
a video trailer (which you can see at www.thepossibilityofeverything.com). I stayed at Crystal Paradise
several times, visited Ovencio in San Antonio Village, and formed connections
with several organizations that work to improve education, literacy,
and rainforest preservation in Belize. A portion of the book advance
was donated to a book drive for the San Ignacio Library and toward building
two new classrooms in San Antonio. Belize is a beautiful country, but
only about 60 percent of its citizens can afford to go to high school,
so some of the book money was also donated to send two children to high
school in San Ignacio this year.
How a Jewish girl from
New York fell in love with a tiny Central American country, I’m still
not sure. But I feel deeply connected to the place, and would like to
keep going back, if I can. Also, my Spanish has gotten a lot better,
I’m happy to report.
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