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Stein Club linocut print by Katherine W. Linn

The day after the reunion was the 92nd anniversary of Lessie’s death. I walked along the Elizabeth River, in a posh Portsmouth neighborhood, noticing the big houses with private docks and expensive boats. As I was walking, I was also birdwatching. My mother’s bird obsession has rubbed off on me, so I always observe those around me.

In the water, there were ducks, egrets, geese, and herons. In the trees, there were big glossy crows, cardinals, and mockingbirds. One was making such a racket above me that I stopped and looked up to see what was going on.

I saw a small hawk. It looked quite pleased with itself, stabbing at its prey, strewing feathers below. The cries were from a nearby mockingbird. She couldn’t save her fledgling, but she refused to let the hawk have a peaceful meal.

I tried to help. I threw rocks towards the hawk to get it to stop, but I have terrible aim. Then I knocked a big stick against the tree, and that worked, although too late for the fledgling. The hawk flew away from the tree, leaving the ground below decorated with soft, tiny feathers. 

The hawk, the fledgling, the mockingbird. I know my mother would have told me to leave the hawk alone, to not interfere with nature. But the scene reminded me of the classic triad: abuser, victim, witness. 

***

After my walk, I set out to find Pinners Point, the place where my father grew up. But it has disappeared, as I discovered when I got lost in a desolate landscape of shipping containers. 

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I can’t write a memoir, as I’ve explained, because I have a bad memory, a deep sense of shame, and a desire to keep some remnants of privacy in a world of constant surveillance. There are other reasons. For example, my lack of journals. Many famous memoir writers rely on journaling, and they often mention the importance of it in interviews about their work. Journals allow memoir writers to factcheck themselves, so they can stay within the boundaries of nonfiction. No one wants to be the next James Frey.  

From my twenties to my forties, I kept journals. This meant I also lugged heavy boxes full of memories good and bad from Massachusetts to Texas to California back to Texas back to Massachusetts and then up to Maine down to Virginia and finally to New York, from apartment to apartment to storage unit to apartment etc. I moved so many times that I still have anxiety dreams about packing. I never read my old journals but I thought it was important to keep them, for the future, because that is what writers do, and I was trying to be a writer. 

Eventually, I got tired of the bother and the weight of my journals. I didn’t want to just throw them in a dumpster so I decided to burn them. My ex J. suggested the fire pit at her father’s house in the country, and we drove up there from the city, for one last time of moving those heavy boxes. We built the fire, and I had a wonderful time throwing journal after journal, reminders of my past, into the flames. It was cathartic as hell. I felt unburdened. I regret it from time to time, but I haven’t kept a journal since. 

***

The main reason I went to Portsmouth, Virginia last summer was a family reunion. The reunion was with people I’m distantly related to, through my father and Nova Jenerette Stephens. These cousins are Black and I am white, but we have a common ancestor, Gabriel Jacobs. I’ve written about Gabriel here before. 

I’ve been in correspondence for several years now with my cousins Tyrone and Luke, who’ve helped me piece together parts of our family history that long puzzled me, for example: are we really a little Cherokee? (Spoiler, we are not. But we are connected through kinship with the Lumbee, Waccamaw, and other coastal Carolina tribes.) Tyrone encouraged me to come to the reunion, so we could finally meet in person. 

While meeting Tyrone and at least a hundred of my distant cousins of color in person for the first time, what struck me most was their kindness. It was a crowded party, but people tended to their elders and disabled. They played with their children. They were loving towards one another, and to me, and they meant it. There were all shades of skin there. Our interconnected families have been mixed for generations, from way back to precolonial days in Virginia and North Carolina: white, African, and Native. 

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for the Portfire Crew, with gratitude

For the past several years, I’ve talked about writing a memoir a lot. I’m embarrassed to admit this: for all my talking about it, it should be written by now. I also think about writing a memoir constantly, composing sentence after sentence in my head, but never writing anything down. My resistance is strong. It makes lists of reasons for me to stay schtum.

At the top of all the lists: I’ve lived, and continue to live, a messy life. I’m reluctant to share all the shameful bits let alone remember them. People close to me understand that I often play the fool. They’ve seen me create little hells for myself, with my good but naive intentions. I also have quite an index of personality flaws. Nobody but me knows about all my flaws and foolishness, and it’s better that way. I’m intimate with my shadow, but we’re on the down low.

I imagine some potential readers as my high school English teachers, who must be protected from my past and ongoing shenanigans. Other potential readers are my Gen-X peers from Mystic, Connecticut who are connected to Portfire. They already know too much about me, good and bad, so I don’t feel protective of them, especially the ones who find my writing “depressing” and “morbid” etc. If it’s depressing to read about, try living it!

Researching my family history has revealed truly Gothic levels of dysfunction going back generations. It is an ongoing revelation into my own trauma: the context of my messiness, the intergenerational aspects of it. If I’m going to write honestly, I can’t worry about readers who find it “too dark”.  I find it “too dark”. It’s incredibly hard to sit with and write about because of its darkness.

I can’t write a memoir. But I can write pieces of memoir…

***

Some context for readers who are not my high school English teachers or fellow Mystic Gen Xers:

• My father, Ben Jones, became famous during my childhood
• He played Cooter Davenport on the hit television series Dukes of Hazzard
• He then served two terms as a Congressman from Atlanta, Georgia
• He is probably one of the largest, if not the top, retailers of Confederate flags
• My father had a rough childhood; he is traumatized and traumatizing 
• We are estranged; it is not the first round of estrangement, but it is the final one.

***

Last summer, I made a trip to Portsmouth, Virginia, a small city where both my father and his mother grew up. I found the house that the family owned before the Depression. 732 Broad Street was in an old neighborhood crowded with Victorians. Our house wasn’t Victorian. It was grim and plain and squat. There were fake flowers and faded flags on the front porch. I drove past it a few times, then parked briefly across the street. I wasn’t brave enough to cross the street, to knock on the door. 

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