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Volume 7, Number 1 - Fall 2008
A Reader Learns to End
the Story with Imagination
Interview with
Michelle Smith
Motherhood made Michelle Smith a reader. Eight months in jail turned her into a writer of journals and letters.
In a People & Stories series at Interim House that included a writing component, Smith used both those skills to shed light on the page—and on her own life. “When we’d read a story, the questions at the end would always relate to something in my life. It brings up stuff inside you don’t know how to get out, but the story brings it out in a different way. I often wrote about my grandmom.”
That grandmother was one anchor in a stormy adolescence; she was also the person who gave Smith, a Catholic-school student “who was always in the lowest reading group,” a love of stories. “[My grandmom] was from Poland. I’d help her with her English. She used to read the Bible to me. She told stories about shopping on Seventh Street, about her sisters, the 11 kids in her family. She died in 1999, and I’m just now dealing with it.”
That grief was compounded by severe post-partum depression following the birth of Smith’s daughter, now nine. Smith was 21, unmarried and unprepared for the challenges of motherhood. “It’s not like your child comes with a book [of instructions],” she said.
But she did read to the baby—Green Eggs and Ham, nursery rhymes—and credits that early exposure for her daughter’s love of reading.
Smith herself, though, continued to struggle through her twenties: short-term rehabs and recovery programs that didn’t work; an eight-month jail term that gave her long, empty hours to fill. “I read a lot in jail. I kept copy books; stuff that would aggravate me, I’d write down. It feels like you’re telling somebody.”
While in jail, Smith learned about Interim House and felt hopeful that a six-month program might offer the activity and introspection she needed.
“It was a long-term facility with groups all day—art, knitting, exercise. You learn about emotions and feelings you never knew you had. I’ve become more mature and independent here. I have more creative abilities now—stuff I didn’t know I could do. I love myself, and I have my family back.” Smith also marked one year of sobriety on July 10. “I never had that before. It feels good.”
In People & Stories, she read about characters who reminded her of her own life. Shay Youngblood’s story, “Did My Mama Like to Dance?” made Smith consider her own daughter. “She’s going to want to know what I did. No one wants to tell her I was a drug addict. But if she asks, I’ll tell her.”
Smith loved the dialogue that happened after each story. “Everybody had different things to say. You’d get to know their histories and backgrounds. In a setting like that, it’s okay to open up and let that out. You see each other in a different light; maybe you care a little bit more.”
Smith approaches reading differently since the People & Stories series ended in May. “I get more deep thoughts into what I read and imagine myself in it.” Early on, she sometimes wondered, “Where’s the rest of the story?” because the pieces ended with questions rather than tidy conclusions. “We had to think on them,” she said. “It’s your imagination that ends [the story].”