The Seer and the Seen

Thoughts on the Nature of the Writing, Form and Function

What I hope to gain through this approach is an acknowledgment of the people whose perspective is rarely considered in community histories, both large and small, the people on the ground when the bombs fall from the sky.

I believe it is the absence of this perspective that makes the bombs permissible.

Some nights the early morning moon finds the space in my west window bedroom blind and says hello. It’s good to hear that voice.

I awoke one morning to the feeling that a laser light had penetrated my vision. ‘Checking me out,’ I thought. ‘Aliens, looking for help.’

One morning I awoke to the thought that since my grandson shares my father’s name, I ought to tell him about Dad. With no intent but that I began a letter. While what developed in the telling of When Once Destroyed is the result of that intention, other intention is the result of the telling. I did not foresee what would come of it. I did not intend what it became. The story directed me. I followed along the best I could. The intention was the result of the telling.

The moon and I are subject and object. The seer and the seen.

Writing the letter to Vern opened a door for an opportunity to combine form with function.

I used the direct address tradition of a tribal elder addressing his grandson to reveal from the inside out the history of his ancestral family home and its destruction.

This approach counters the Western academic tradition that Robin Wall Kimmerer explained in her wonderful book, Braiding Sweetgrass, of “separating the observer from the observed.”

I follow academic standards for research and documenting sources in order to substantiate the veracity in the details of my account. I do not adhere, however, to a traditional academic perspective. With my grandson at my figurative knee, I tell the story of “us” not the story of “them.”

What I hope to gain through this approach is an acknowledgment of the people whose perspective is rarely considered in community histories, both large and small, the people on the ground when the bombs fall from the sky.

I believe it is the absence of this perspective that makes the bombs permissible.

It’s clear to me that my telling of the story of the Holocaust as a teacher since 2001 was a light that guided my path on this journey.

In my attempt here to integrate the observer and the observed I am compelled to speak as honestly about myself and my family as I speak about the actors who brought death and destruction to my father’s home. No one’s name has been changed to “protect the innocent.” This is who we are.

What developed in the telling of When Once Destroyed is not the result of an intention. The intention is the result of the telling.