When I was in school sometimes I had to write about something in order to understand it (think economic theory here). That has also been true in my relationships. Often if I have been upset about something, it doesn't matter if it is something important or something trivial, if I write about it, like in a letter, I can figure out why it is I am feeling the way I am feeling. It is easier to see the ideas which simply aren't true, and which ideas are really important. And then, once I have figured it out, I can face that problem head on and handle it.
There is a story I have been struggling to tell since I was 9 years old. It is the story of how I came to be in the middle of a war in Nigeria, West Africa. Before my parents passed away they gave me all of their documents from that period. I have binders full of letters my father wrote to my mother, letters my mother wrote to her family, running notes from their research, essays they wrote years later, receipts, passports, and even my father's testimony before congress. There is plenty of fodder for this story, and yet I have continued to struggle with writing this story.
One day I was driving to school on I-475 and the story flashed before me in movie form. I decided at that point that I should write it as a screenplay and someone (God only knows who) would make it into the movie and the story would finally be told. The fact that I don't know anything about writing a screenplay, or getting someone to make it into a movie wasn't going to stop me. If I wrote it, somehow it would work itself out. So then I dove straight into the deep and murky waters of how to write a screenplay and from time to time, I work on it.
A couple of weeks ago I happened across a post on my facebook feed about a movie which is to be released soon. "Half of a Yellow Sun" is based on a novel written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is a wonderful author from Enugu, Nigeria. I am pretty sure her father was a student of my father. I suddenly felt as though all my years of work (albeit spotty work) was for naught. Here, someone has already made a movie about that conflict, so now what am I to do? My mother told me, "You are going to have to write this story", and I just didn't know what to do.
Then last night the strangest thing happened. Again, I was looking at my facebook feed and I stumbled across a link to Ted Talks with Chimamanda Adichie. At first I was hesitant to look at it at all, but then I decided I should see what this woman, who had done what I only "worked on", had to say. And what she said made me sure that I need to both finish the screenplay and write the book or books. "The danger of a single story" is why I need to write it.
My father spent the better part of seven years, much of the time away from his family, to bring higher education to the Nigerians. Even as a 7 year old child, I felt guilt and shame at being white and privileged. Those feelings only grew over the years. But those feelings were unwarranted. He didn't dedicate those years to making the Nigerians "more like us" but to making the tools available so that the Nigerians could be more of who they were - a people for whom he had a great love and respect. His mistake was taking sides in a political struggle where the odds were stacked against those that he championed. And me, I was just a little girl doing her best to get through the 4th grade.
