Finally, a Species of Gratitude: The Processes of Writing “A Lucky Breath”

Finally, a Species of Gratitude: The Processes of Writing “A Lucky Breath”

My new memoir, “A Lucky Breath,” is the story of the years I lived in a Costa Rican village told within the context of the days and months surrounding my divorce from the man I married there.  The memoir opens before dawn on the day I fled like a criminal from the bad marriage I could not imagine any other way out of.

The story splits subtly in the beginning, the forward-moving tale of leaving my husband and the misadventures that ensued told in an intensely zoomed-in present tense prose poem. Shuffled into this story like riffling a deck of cards, and narrated in traditional prose past tense, is the story of the previous five years leading up to that day. Told exactly backwards. The result of which is a somewhat-dizzying trip that takes the reader forward through a journey of uncertainties while also tumbling backward deeper and deeper into the past that formed the future—which is, in “A Lucky Breath,” the present. 

I lived the stories in the book during a period of six years. The writing of it has been a circuitous process spanning 22 years. 

Memoirs are funny creatures. First you have to live a story or participate in a world, then it has to conclude in some way. You grow up, move away, someone dies, you get a divorce—you must become someone else to enough of a degree that you find yourself somehow outside the frame of the story. And that can take a while. 

 I can see myself sitting at the kitchen table in 2001 with a pad of paper and a pen, spilling the first version of what is now “A Lucky Breath.” That draft was a condensed version of the forward-moving prose poem story with scattered scenes from my marriage to “Enrique,” all of which displayed the worst moments. It was a vomit of bile, pain, and anger. I wrote it to explain to myself what had just happened, to wrap it all up and lay it down some place outside of my body. To stop carrying it, with all its weight, everywhere I went.

I typed that mess up and saved it to a floppy disk. Remember those? And then I went about life, had lots of adventures, and wrote other books. Over the years, I pulled this story out from time to time. I could feel that it was good, or wanted to be. I picked at it, revising here and there. Adding a few things. Cutting out venom and melodrama. Imagining it could become a book, but certain I would never ever publish such a thing.

.

In the quiet following the publication of my second memoir, “Marry a Mennonite Boy and Make Pie” in 2018, I began to understand that this book wanted to live. It wanted to be a book—a good book—loved, listened to, fully created, out of the computer and into the world. But something wasn’t right. The manuscript described a woman leaving a terrible marriage, feeling intense pain, making a series of lamentable decisions even though she seems aware that the decisions are bad, and wailing about this self-inflicted pain. As if she were some sort of masochist searching out suffering then demanding sympathy. This is not who I am, nor is it what happened. 

I recognized that I needed to re-frame the story, display the beauty and the love that lead to the pain of leaving. So I made a list of happy moments, good memories, moments of epiphany, things and people I loved. And I wrote those moments. Writing in chronological order is not important to me—it’s easy to reorder scenes later. I prefer to write in what I think of as “emotional order.” First, I put down the parts that are screaming to be written (i.e. the first version in 2001) and then write things as they float to the surface. 

During this process in the solitude of 2020, it occurred to me that I could place the flashback scenes in reverse chronological order. I loved the idea and the effect, but it created a mind-boggling problem: I needed to introduce characters in the beginning that we are going to meet for the first time at the end. I wasn’t sure it would work. And even if it could work, in theory, I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull it off. But I decided to try. I told myself it didn’t matter if I succeeded or failed, since no one would ever publish it anyway. What mattered was to work on the book. 

I subscribed to an online editing software to help me tighten the manuscript in ways that I could never have done alone. Here in rural Costa Rica where I live, my writing community consists of cats. Very helpful during the initial stages when emotional support is required, but not so much with the technical work that comes later. 

In the beginning of 2023, I contacted the publisher of my last book and asked if he’d like to have a look at this project. I was hoping he might find a reason that he didn’t think it was a fit. He loved it. Said it was “compelling, tragic, and lovely.” We decided we could have the book ready by Christmas. 

And here it is, “A Lucky Breath.” 

The title comes from a scene at the end of the book where the story begins. It intends, finally, a species of gratitude. That has been the most important part of the process of writing this memoir: embracing it. All of it. Owning the joy and the sorrow, the delight and the pain. Loving all of it courageously enough to weave a beautiful tale out of it. 

—

Diana Zimmerman, author of A Lucky Breath (2023, Workplay Publishing), is a USA-born poet and memoirist who resides in Costa Rica.  Her works blend English, Spanish, and Italian.  Diana’s previous memoirs are: When the Roll Is Called a Pyonder (2014, Electio Publishing) and Marry a Marry a Mennonite Boy and Make Pie (2018, Workplay Publishing).  Diana’s poetry collections include Tell Me About the Telaraña (2012) and Certain as Afternoon/Certa Come il Pomeriggio (2019). 

A LUCKY BREATH

On the day she runs away from her husband, everything goes just as Diana has planned. It won’t be long, however, until her careful design unravels to the point where she finds herself nearly homeless in Costa Rica’s capital city.

Time fragments in this book, and travels in two directions at once. Spliced together with a harrowing series of events that leave her stunned and in danger, Diana relives her romance with the home she loved in the village of Los Rios and the man she married there.

Spartan prose poetry relates the story moving forward, while an image-dense presentation of life in rural Costa Rica takes us back further and further in time, unfolding layers of depth that make this book impossible to put down.

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing