Secrets

Truth Thursday

I grew up in a house that echoed with secrets.There were the big, bad secrets that comprised my parents' crumbling marriage.There were secrets about my mother's upbringing – she was an orphan by the time she was 13 and lived with an aunt who had her own secrets.There also were secrets on my father's side of the family, including an older sister who died as a baby but about whom no one spoke.

These were dark, difficult secrets. The secret to my mother's history lay in a large, grey filing cabinet in our basement which contained the life's work of her father, an obscure but respected early 20^th century photographer who died tragically young and left many secrets himself. I have been wondering about these secrets for many years, and have recently embarked upon a project to unbind them, restore his name and bring his story to light.

In doing so, I am working with a photographic historian who is teaching me how to dig deeper to look for answers to my questions and to unearth the many secrets. It's overwhelming because each time I find an answer it seems to beg more questions. I am not sure I need to know all the secrets that were a part of my grandfather's short life, but I am moving forward.

Secrets are intriguing. Their very silence renders them powerful, even toxic, and, left untouched, they tend to grow a life of their own. The big ones have the ability to topple families and ruin lives. The little ones merely sit on our shoulders and inch their way into our day-to-day, and can become even comfortable companions.

As a writer, I look around a room and wonder what secrets are being held by the people sitting around the table. For we all have secrets – big and little. Some of us are harboring lifelong, aching secrets, and some of us just want to keep what we had for breakfast private. In this age of Facebook and Twitter, endless social media possibilities and tell-all blogging, it's hard to imagine that anyone can keep a secret anymore.

But we can. We do. We all do.

My kids are certainly starting to have secrets from me, which is as it should be. My teen's secrets are hopefully a little more sophisticated than the 10-year-old's, and my daughter's will be different from her brothers'. I think it's important that we all have a safe place in which to roll the secrets of our hearts over and over until we understand them. I am a fan of diaries and privacy.

But there are some secrets that need to be unwrapped and adjusted to the light of day. In novelist Tayari Jones' new book, Silver Sparrow, a bigamist, who has kept his second family a secret except to his very best friend, is outed. That's a big secret, and its revelation is both devastating and a relief. The "secret sister" lives a life of shadows until she explodes with the truth and shatters illusions all around her.These are the secrets that change lives.

I always tell my kids that we don't have secrets in our house, but I know that that's just not true. We may make an effort to be open and true about many things, including the more serious issues and those with great consequence, and there may be an open "Mom eyes" policy about email and texting, but I have no doubt that each of my children's rooms harbors secrets of its own. Secrets that may seem inconsequential to me, but that are large and important to them.

As a blogger, it may seem that I shine a light on my life so that there are no secrets, but indeed, I have some too. In fact, I just shared a secret with a friend at the nail salon – a perfect, anonymous forum for being completely open about something incredibly personal … and no, I will never blog about it. But I assure you the woman in the next pedicure chair had something to write home about after eavesdropping on us.

I just hope that I am old enough and wise enough to know when to allow my secrets to see the light of day, and when to keep them under wraps, in a special place, something perhaps painful, perhaps delightful, but a confidential piece of my heart that's for me and me alone.

 

 Photo of my grandfather, Lusha Nelson, circa 1935.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Linda Keely]

It is no secret that I really enjoy reading your blogs (even if this one left me feeling jealous that your nail salon friend knows something about you that I don't)!

[Cecilia @ Parenting Controversy]

This post reminded me of Oprah finding out that she had a half sister - her mother having kept that secret for all those years. The toughest thing about keeping big secrets that affect your loved ones is the constant weighing up of whether telling them or not telling them will ultimately hurt them more. I suppose that's why (as for the bigotry man) the secret coming out can feel like such a unburdening relief.

[Stacy]

Wow! This just blew me away. I hope that as you unlock your family's secrets, you'll unearth more to write about. Fabulous post!