Osasere Ewansiha: How was the writing process of Dancing Between the Raindrops different from your novel, The Talking Drum, or other works?
Lisa Braxton: I wasn’t working on a full narrative. I was not attempting to write like I did in fiction, (like my novel) a story with a beginning, middle and end, with a narrative arc and with characters who I had created, fictionalized and had to keep consistent with the characters and the personalities I created for each one. In this case, I was putting together a collection of essays; I had been writing personal essays for quite some time. I’ve taught personal essay writing. As my parents’ health was failing, I was writing a lot about that because I was finding it cathartic to write about reminisces, how I felt, how hard it was to watch—especially my dad, who was always macho and in shape and muscular and all those things, watching him decline and watching my mother decline. I was doing a lot of writing and at some point, I thought I might have enough to put together a book. I had not planned to do this, but after I had written enough and I put a pitch out there with the publisher, Sea Crow Press, which was interested and said, “We would like to do a whole book. We need more pages, continue writing (about what I was going through) and reflecting on things”. Some of the essays I wrote had already gotten published in literary magazines and some I wrote from scratch when I was working on this collection. That was the big difference.
OE: How did the desire to honor your parents’ memory while incorporating your artistic voice affect your rhetorical choices?
LB: In some ways it was challenging because my father had dementia towards the end. There were a lot of funny moments; there were some very entertaining things that happened because of his dementia, but I did not want to make light of or make fun of it. So, I chose to write in a way that readers understood that he was behaving this way because it was dementia. I was describing also what it was doing to me, how hard it was for me, how challenging it was by trying to inject a sense of humor in it at the same time. So, I honored my mom and dad, but I was just very careful to make sure they came across with dignity as I was writing which I feel they did.
OE: Why did you decide to circumvent the typical memoir structure by adding poems, family photos, and other creative forms?
LB: The theme is grief and grieving and I feel that my audience, the major audience, are people who have lost loved ones, which just about all of us have lost a loved one at some point. But to keep it from becoming too sad and too heavy, I thought it might be interesting or might help to use different types of formats and lyrical styles. A number of my essays are hermit crab essays. They are essays that appear in a framework that we don’t normally see an essay in, but the packaging of that framework is used to create the essay. I imagine my reader might pick up the book, read one or two essays and put it back down and pick it up later.
OE: “Dancing Between the Raindrops” is also the title of one of the poems in the book, did one grow out or inspire the other?
LB: The title came first. I had the title before I even thought about writing this collection. Years ago, I liked the title, and I thought it would fit for what I was writing. I feel that it is so important to spend time savoring the moments, savoring the easy times, enjoying your celebrations, enjoying the good times, because the raindrops are going to come because the sad times, the hard times are going to come so savoring and enjoying these moments that you have before mom and dad pass away before things fall apart before you get ill- that’s where that name came from. Since I wanted to call it “Dancing Between the Raindrops,” I thought I should probably have a poem in there that is about dancing between the raindrops that has that title and is about that theme. So, the title came first.
OE: You describe your memoir as “A Daughter’s Reflections on Love and Loss,” what do you want your readers to see in these reflections?
LB: I want my readers to reflect on their own losses and if they could, look at the good times, look at the value of the time they had with that person who’s passed away and reflect on the funny moments- the things that happened with that person that made them laugh, or the things that were serious that were important to them that were significant- to look back at their own loved one and look at what they cherish about that loved one.
OE: Has there ever been a question you’ve always wanted to be asked about your work before that you haven’t been asked before? If so, how would you answer?
LB: That’s a hard question! Well, no but one question I get asked a lot is what is my writing routine. I always tell people that my writing routine is like making a hamburger: it comes out at the end, and it tastes good, but you don’t want to see the process. I work full-time and I volunteer with different organizations. I go to the gym a lot; I have a husband and my dog- in between everything else I do some writing here and there. I would like to write a whole lot more and I plan to quit most of the volunteer work I do by the end of the year so that I can spend more time on writing- which is my love. So, my writing routine is not like I sit down and spend three hours a night- it’s not like that. I write down ideas as I’m doing other things, or I go to work a little early or I write on the train on my way to work. It’s squeezed in here and there.