Exclusive Interview: Rebecca McClanahan Reveals the Hidden Inspirations Behind "Light Falls On Everything"
LL: I have attempted to write about my mother sinking into dementia, but I find myself unable to return to my drafts as it is still so raw and painful. How did you take care of yourself while working on this project? (We learned in chapter 14 that you dislike the word “self-care!”)
RM: True, I’m not a fan of the term; it feels like a new-age buzzword to me, suggesting surface-level changes to a person’s lifestyle. During the caregiving years, I didn’t need “self-care”. I needed a life preserver, a life raft, to keep me from going under. My husband, who helped immensely in my parents’ care, was that life raft, encouraging me to take breaks, to keep some of my teaching commitments, and to arrange for my siblings to cover whenever they could. As for the “raw and painful” writing/revising emotions that you mention, that was part of the process for me as well for a few years. But the more I worked with the material and the more I discovered the language and form for the inchoate feelings, the pain morphed into something bittersweet, closer to what the poet George Herbert described in his poem “Joseph’s Coat:” “My joys to weep, and now my griefs to sing.”
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