The last paragraph of the author’s note from my memoir states: “The spiral creates the space for time — past, present, future — to meld together. This book, like the spiral of time, brings together moments when it is the right time and not necessarily in chronological order. Embrace the spiral, dear reader, and journey through time with me.”
In my mentoring work with memoir writers, we typically reach a point in the process where they start to worry that what they want to write about doesn’t line up with the perfect timeline, whether that is the timeline of the specific story or the timeline they have plotted out when planning the book. At those moments, I remind them that time isn’t linear, life doesn’t work like a novel: a chronological series of events that transition us easily from inciting incident, climax, falling action and resolution. Our lives are complex and weave in and out of time as our understanding of self and experience matures. And when we are diving deep into the tangled web of our stories, we sometimes need to return to a past self, seek out an ancestor, or lean on the future self all while remaining present and in the now of writing the story.
When writers open themselves up to work with the spiral of time, they gain access to the past, present and future simultaneously.
What is the spiral of time?
“What is this spiral I speak of?” you may be asking. I, like many, moved through my understanding of time as I was given more tools and terminology to lean on. I used to refer to time as cyclical. A circle. Things repeat. We returned over and over. Like the seasons (winter to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall, fall to winter) we move through time always returning to a beginning. It seemed like a good enough way to explain how I saw time. It wasn’t until I lived in Aotearoa/New Zealand with the koru image (the unfurling frond) that I started to see spirals differently. Later, in my MFA, I would pull the spiral of time into my writing and my scholarship returning to Oceania for insights and clarity.
Te torino haere whakamua, whakamuri in Māori means, At the same time as the spiral
is going forward, it is returning.
The spiral creates the space for time — past, present, future — to meld together into the now. Our ancestors directing, guiding, defining as if they were here in the now and in the future. In this way, the past is always in front of us, and the Māori understanding of the spiral brings that into clarity. Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey, in her book, “Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures,” investigates the way the spiral exists within Māori culture and narratives. DeLoughrey states, “The spiral gestures to the past while moving into the future, positioning historical events in the present so that time becomes coeval or simultaneous.” We are our past, our history. Here. Now.
How does the spiral of time connect to writing?
As memoir and creative nonfiction writers, we are given the amazing opportunity to play with time. If we freely enter the spiral in the writing process, we open ourselves up to connections we may not have imagined. Often in memoir writing we gain new insights about ourselves, and access to patterns and connections we may have missed while living the events. This is how the looping of time allows us to cycle through the layers of experience.
It is a natural way to write and explore our story. We can easily move through the spiral, because it is our lived experience. The key is to manage that complexity in the revisions, which means providing markers for your reader of where we are in time. Some tips here are adding dates to the start of the chapter or sections of the chapter, providing ages/dates within the narrative, to provide clear markers like “When I was younger,” “In the past I,” etc. The writer can also rearrange the pieces to return the story to a chronological, linear narrative in the revision stage. The editing process allows you to return to the time system you prefer, but it is important in the draft stage that you don’t lock yourself into a timeline that doesn’t seem to match the way you are experiencing the story as you write.
The most important thing when writing a memoir is to follow the stories. I typically recommend using a “bucket” system. You might have five buckets (main themes) you want to explore in your memoir. In each of those buckets, you add stories, images, moments until it is full. None of those are part of a linear story — they are snapshots of time. Then, we bring all the buckets together, and before we tip them out and start combining them into the larger scope of the book, we take one last look to make sure we added all the elements we wanted in each bucket. Then, as if they were buckets of Legos, we bring them all together in one spot and slowly build out the first full draft of the book.
In the process, things that were not in the same bucket may be connected, elements may be moved to the side and not used. We have full control of where we place the stories and the timeline we want the book to mirror. It all comes together in the right order in the revisions and editing. I personally prefer to leave my story in the spiral form, because it is deeply rooted in my understanding of how time works. I fully believe I have access to the past, present and future simultaneously. So, my narratives will always reflect the unfurling frond.
Writers are the markers of time
It is as if time allows us to access parts of ourselves and our histories and our future lives, and as creative nonfiction writers, we have the great privilege of accessing each of those timelines and crafting a book that will one day be in the hands of others. They will join in on our spiral and we will connect through story and time. We have a way with words that allows us to be the markers of time. We put words on the page to capture moments after moments that create a life. What it means to live here in the now, but still be connected to our past, our ancestors, the land where we live and journey all as our future-self watches from behind.
I encourage you today, please play with time in your writing. It will open up spaces beyond your wildest dreams and may just give you the connection(s) you’ve been looking for all along. Don’t feel confined by the linear narrative. It was never here to serve us but to keep us in check. Break free. Experience time how it presents itself to you. And above all, keep writing. Your story is important.
Rebecca Beardsall (MA, Lehigh University; MFA, Western Washington University) is the author of the memoirs “The Unfurling Frond” and “My Place in the Spiral.” She co-edited three books, including “Philadelphia Reflections: Stories from the Delaware to the Schuylkill.” Her poetry and essays have appeared in Thimble, Origyns, SWIMM, West Texas Review, Two Cities Review, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, Crab Fat, Poetry NZ and Rag Queen Periodical. She is the owner of Lit Illuminated, a space that offers a range of ways to explore literature and the writing life. She hosts workshops, MFA-style seminars, independent studies, memoir coaching and mentorship, and a podcast. She grew up in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and has lived in various places, including Scotland, Canada, Montana and Aotearoa/New Zealand. She currently resides in Bellingham, Washingston – the ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish Peoples, Lummi Nation and Nooksack Tribe, who have lived in the Salish Sea basin throughout the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades watershed from time immemorial. Find her at: rebeccabeardsall.com.
