"Begin The Begin" is a song by R.E.M. with the refrain let's begin again, an opaque way of suggesting we need new ideas, something unorthodox.
How to begin the beginning? Why not use poetry to enter into a story? You can create glimpses (foreshadowing) in profound ways, because poetry provides plenty of imagery to hold onto in your mind's eye. It is like the metaphor of swimming: you do not want to be drowning in imagery. On the contrary, you want the reader to swim casually among the metaphors as their subconscious reaches the shores of consciousness. I tend to rely on symbolism and brevity to convey ideas for readers who are about to embark on an original tale. I strongly believe readers like decoding imagery, metaphor, symbolism. It is an active and engaging way to bring the reader into a story. Most readers want to make their own meaning, who can blame them? We all desire originality. Our hot takes are important to us. We crave epiphanies.
I knew that I was going to use poetry as the entry point to my memoir about my mother. It was an easy decision because poetry is the search for truth that confounds us. There is no language I understand to capture a person's true essence; particularly, my mother. I only have images and actions to rely on. I have no idea of her inner thoughts regarding her struggle to survive a deadly disease. All I have to work with are the edges of essence based on a finite amount of memories. Frankly, cancer was not the burden my mother brought to bear. On the contrary, her faith burdened her, and I believe she shouldered it with quiet courage. Generally speaking, I think the struggle of faith in something bigger than ourselves is universal, and with any language, words have tremendous power (Last two lines of the preface to A Mother's Prayer):
Stories Songs Prayers
unburden us all
These two lines represent what I wanted readers to wrestle with: How do we go about lifting our daily toil, lifting our our own spirits, and lifting up others? What we carry day-in and day-out is often a quiet struggle within. For instance, are we strong enough today so we may welcome tomorrow? At the end of the memoir, the epilogue refers to my mother's faith and unburdening: her "youthful body sun-spoiled and poisoned/adrift across cosmic seas full of light/that strikes harmoniously/becoming blessed prayer like song." This imagery refers back to the prologue. How to enter and exit a story is paramount; particularly, when it comes to nonfiction. You cannot make up an ending when you are telling a true story. Somehow you have to identify the end long before you even begin. For instance, the book begins with a trip to church and ends in a hospital church. These were powerful bookends involving faith and resiliency. In the epilogue, I chose to invoke the power of the sea as an iconic image of womanhood. After all, my mother was a swimmer.