Three Tales in Which I Am Not the Princess
I don't want to know "how" you made that artistic choice
Hello! Happy Thursday!
Writing this as I have donut dough rising (a disastrous attempt at group baking with toddlers, whoops) and am thinking about how wild it is that fall and winter submissions are closing in just a couple of days. The days are falling through the cracks in my fingers and, even though it has felt like September for two weeks, it is still August.
Yesterday, in my nonfiction class, I told my students that, while the personal essay, as a form, has existed for hundreds, arguably thousands, of years, we’re confronted with it as a Big Genre now because the internet makes it easier than ever to share your thoughts and experiences with a wide audience. I told them about Substack (which they’d never heard of, isn’t that something), and we talked about blogs and websites and very long Facebook posts. Anyone can write and publish a version of a personal essay for free, and we’re so used to encountering them at this point that we may not even register them for what they are. (We call it “a long post” or “a blog” or “a long caption” or an “op-ed.”)
I found myself again in that tricky-tricky territory of explaining to a group of intro students that there are a set of qualities that can help you write your own personal essays, or else discern that something you’re reading is a personal essay, but at the same time there really aren’t any concrete qualities or rules at all. Every rule can be broken if you do it well enough. So, it’s like: take this advice, it will shape our conversations, but also feel free to throw it out if the mood strikes you. This is a hard thing to explain to a group of people you are grading.
It’s like when I’m going through Talk Vomit submissions, my eyes glaze over at cliches or lead anecdotes that read as canned (like I’ve already read a thousand versions of them). But, that doesn’t mean no one should use cliches, right? Because sometimes a cliche can be used in a really fresh and poignant and articulate way. As soon as a rule comes into view, it blows itself up and doesn’t matter anymore.
This makes me think about an essay we published this summer in our Girlhood edition. We might call it, in the classroom, a “fragmented” essay, although I kind of hate that word because it makes students think they don’t need to worry about transitioning from one thought to another. Anyway, the essay is “Three Tales in Which I Am Not the Princess,” by Claire Hanlon. (See it in full below.)
Speaking of transitions, let’s move over to another related topic that I’ll bring back together in a minute. You know what always tickles me? When one Serious Interviewer asks a writer “How did you make the choices you did when you wrote this thing?” They might be asking about “using I,” or “using a lot of line breaks” or “bringing in a softening anecdote to complicate a difficult character” or literally anything. I was driving around after teaching this week and thinking about the weird act of trying to teach writing at all, and I laughed at the thought. I don’t know about you, but when I’m writing — really writing, really into it, really focused — I don’t think very much at all about these kinds of stylistic choices. I probably have some sort of idea about how I want a piece/story/novel whatever to look, but for the most part, the wand chooses the wizard, ‘arry. A story, to me, usually decides how to tell itself. And sure, as we take writing classes and we hone our craft and read lots of other writers, different techniques embed themselves into our own practice, yes. But the actual decision-making moment to me has rarely ever distinguished itself from the act of writing sentences.
Joan Didion famously said that “grammar is a piano I play by ear,” and I’m wondering if form doesn’t also fall under that instrumental metaphor. The story and the form, in my experience, are often inextricable. They unfold together during the act of creation. We may revise and try new forms on for size, but even then, it’s still a pretty organic exercise because you don’t know how it’s all going to look in the end. That’s always a mystery, no matter how much planning or conscious decision-making happens. Maybe those interviewers ought to ask why artistic choices work, not how they were made.
I am betting, although I didn’t ask Claire, that she one day was thinking about folk literature motifs and thought, huh, this sounds pretty relatable, why don’t I give this a go? That’s the beauty of creative writing: we can do literally whatever want, the fresher the better. We can fly in the face of all our writing instruction and just blow it all up (I say, semi-confidently, thinking of the open-eyed stares of my students).
Anyway, would love to hear any and all of your thoughts on this. Maybe I’m woo-woo looney. Probably a bit.
In any event, enjoy Claire’s essay, pasted below.
xoxo
Monica
Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk Literature Applied to the Romantic Plight of a Single Mother
By Claire Hanlon
The First Tale
MOTIF (T118) Girl married to (enamored of) a monster.
The man moves out and it feels like a vacation, which surprises me. It shouldn’t, since his problems move out with him. Surprise me, that is. It shouldn’t feel like a vacation, either, as I still have the baby and the house, the full-time job, all the usual responsibilities, and yet! I have room to breathe for the first time in what feels like years. No more evenings trying to wash bottles and box up leftovers and settle the baby down while the man says I am ignoring him, I don’t love him, and by the way, everything wrong in our marriage is my fault. This is not an exaggeration but rather a condensation of his complaints. He has much more to say on those subjects and many others besides, but those opinions do not bear repeating. I live in a quiet pocket dimension for five months, and then he moves back in and it all goes to hell in a weekend.
MOTIF (D712) Disenchantment by violence.
These details do not bear repeating either. A spell was broken, though. This is the salient fact.
MOTIF (R211) Escape from prison.
And so I take the baby and the car and leave the cat and the man and the friends and the job and the furniture and the dishes and the paintings and the plants and begin a new life.
MOTIF (Q121) Freedom as reward.
In this new life, I live with my parents. For two years I work and take care of my kid and try to lose myself in books and television because it is too painful to consider how the fairy tale of my life did not end in the happily ever after I had expected. It is terrible, in fact, to realize that I married not the prince but the monster, so I do not think of it at all. Instead, I savor the freedom of choosing things for myself. Television, clothes, opinions, interests, music—nothing requires, anymore, the endorsement of a capricious third party. This feels like the best gift I have ever received.
MOTIF (D1857.1) Old woman has lived for ages; (A2791.11) Why fruit of date palm looks like breasts of old woman.
The sweetness of that freedom fades, though, as choice and autonomy slide from novelty into normality. It takes a few years. By the end of the second year, life feels less like a vacation and more like grunt labor at minimum wage. I realize that I am lonely. I am exquisitely aware of my aging body. I feel old beyond my years, damaged and used up and wasted.
MOTIF (D1358.2) Magic spell makes person courageous.
But I am stronger than I was before, and all those little choices (the Barbie pink dress that shows off my legs, the mauve walls of my bedroom, that Phoebe Bridgers album I play on repeat, Buffy, speculative fiction, cheesecake for breakfast, not shaving my legs in the winter months) seem to have combined into a powerful spell. I never wanted to be the Princess of the story, so I take my spell and seek apprenticeship with an enchantress. We meet every week in a windowless office where she sits with me as I finally confront my anger and grief and loss and, yes, the monster that still roams my dreams.
MOTIF (J2051) Wise man short-sightedly scorned for his advice.
Try Tinder, a friend encourages. I shudder and brush her off, but later, in the privacy of my bedroom, I thumb open the app store and do some research. Tinder looks as unappealing as I had imagined, but I find other, more palatable options. And so it is that, at the age of 31, I dip my toe for the first time in the turbid waters of online dating.
MOTIF (K1741) Bluff: hero professes to be able to perform much larger task than that assigned.
I download a clutch of apps and straightaway encounter the first setback: the creation of an appealing but accurate persona. It’s hard, to distill the essence of oneself into a 50-word paragraph. If this were a fairy tale, we might call this the first obstacle. Fairy tale tasks, remember, are usually impossible without the help of benevolent magic. Alas, I have no fairy godmother, so I must rely on my own cunning.
MOTIF (J2400) Foolish imitation.
My first attempt: the minimalist profile (pictures only, wherein one relies on one’s looks alone to seal the deal). The men who show interest are categorically less attractive than me, depressingly so, confirming my suspicion that I am cute and approachable but definitely not hot.
MOTIF (H1388.1) Question: What is it women most desire.
I try the middle road profile, in which one toes the line and does the same as everyone else (the listing of occupation, pets, favorite foods and vacation climes). Fingers crossed that one appears normal and fun. My matches are, on the whole, the type you’d expect—they have dogs, they like tacos and margs, they go to the gym like it’s a religion. Because this is Texas, some wear cowboy hats and boots; they have the requisite pictures of hooked fish. These men are, in a word, basic. They do not interest me.
MOTIF (J1850—J1999) Absurd disregard of facts.
The thing is, I have been dead wrong in the past, so I don’t trust my initial instincts vis-à-vis my compatibility with basic bros. I spend many months matching with them, chatting them up, going on dates with pretty much anyone who asks me. What I find is, after all this research, my instincts have not changed. I may be initially attracted to any manner of physical attributes, but the brain is what will hold my interest, long term.
MOTIF (H312) Physical and mental requirements for suitors.
And, ok, if I’m honest, I’d prefer some specific physical attributes as well: glasses-wearing, greater than or equal to five feet ten inches in height, face handsome in a sandy, boyish way, with a generally intelligent-yet-hapless quality. I want, essentially, the kind of grown-up science fair boy who thinks reading voraciously is sexy and finds my peculiarities enticing. Not the Prince, but maybe his advisor.
MOTIF (D1314.1.3) Magic arrow shot to determine where to seek bride.
Sadly, my attraction parameters cannot be narrowed by the standard demographic filters of age, education, race, religion, or geographic proximity.
MOTIF (D1782) Sympathetic magic.
The third approach to the dating profile is what I call the “embrace your inner weirdo” option. I give it a whirl. I craft what I hope is the perfect profile, a whimsical description of myself (avid reader, slayed by poop jokes, give me cake for every meal, etc.) paired with the maximum number of photos (smiling, grinning, half-smiling, pensive face, grinning again, and the last picture is a Hail Mary, a surprise shot of a snarling possum on my back patio). I look winsome, I hope, in a nerdy yet appealing way to this unicorn of a man who will choose me from the thousands of other women available at his fingertips.
MOTIF (J1750—J1849) Absurd misunderstandings.
The men I snare are a mixed bag. I start to think th urban legend is true, the one that says men on dating apps play the numbers game by swiping right for every woman in range.
MOTIF (J1790) Shadow mistaken for substance.
I date, for a few months, a very funny man who sweats profusely and has a child the same age as my son. I overlook a handful of red flags; most worryingly, the way he treats my son somewhat dismissively relative to his own kid. If this were a fairy tale, we might call this an identity test, in which I fail to recognize the boyfriend for who he is (the Wrong Suitor). When he breaks up with me, I am shocked. It is the first time in my life I have ever been broken up with. I cry for two days and then remember the red flags and block his number.
MOTIF (H1149.4) Task: collecting an enormous amount of material (number of rare objects, etc.).
I swipe, match, chat, and meet up with so many men that I create a spreadsheet to track how many dudes have my phone number. If this were a fairy tale, we might call this the second task: bailing the pond with a thimble, perhaps. In fairy tale scholarship, these are classified, aptly, as Tedious Tasks.
MOTIF (D1812) Magic power of prophecy.
To remind myself of why I started dating in the first place, I write, for myself, a list of characteristics that Mr. Science Fair must possess: he must be responsible, intelligent, gentle, funny, motivated, self-sufficient, capable. The list dazzles me and, in a moment of weakness, I accidentally cast a spell on myself which grants me the power of divination. I know it will bring pain, but I cannot resist the allure of fantasy.
MOTIF (K1000) Deception into self-injury.
I peer into my future and locate the fairy tale man (ok, let’s go ahead and name him something cute but generic, like Nick or Danny or Jake) who chooses me and woos me and turns out to be even better than my hazy daydreams have prepared me for. Isn’t it great what my brain can create?
MOTIF (J2060) Absurd plans: air castles.
Nick/Danny/Jake is so handsome, and he just adores me. He posts flattering pictures of me on his socials with the hashtags #marriedup and #womancrushwednesday and #blessed. He listens and asks follow-up questions and doesn’t make me feel like a neurotic idiot when I can’t explain why I’m feeling so anxious today. He calls me darling, or sweetheart, or love, without sounding gross. He cooks! He does at least half or even more of the housework because we both work full time and, he asks me, in what universe is it fair for women to be responsible for everything? He’s kind to everyone, but especially my kid, who he loves like his own—
MOTIF (D765.1.2) Disenchantment by removal of enchanting pin (thorn).
And this is the ugly record scratch that pulls me out of my fantasy. I can never quite imagine the perfect alternate world where there is a Nick/Danny/Jake who can simultaneously desire me, love my son, and be a person worthy of letting into my little family of two. There is so much more at stake than my stupid heart and my shrinking future. The truth is that my inner weirdo persona is just a subplot to the main story of my life, which is motherhood.
MOTIF (H662) Riddle: what is dearer than gold? Mother love.
I have been entrusted with the small heart of a fresh human, so tender and pure and real that it scares the hell out of me. The gift of that heart! The joy on his little face when he sees me! I’ve been single for five years now and honest to God, I will stay single forever if it is the best choice for my kid. The truth of it is that I’m fine alone. I’ve done it and I can do it, and I’ll keep doing it, but sweet Jesus is it lonely sometimes. Not as lonely as five years ago, newly split and staring down my future like a bottomless cavern but still, God, the nights can be so quiet and empty.
MOTIF (J870) Consolation by pretending that one does not want the thing he cannot have.
So, I have a stern conversation with myself and tuck the Nick/Danny/Jake stories away for the longest, loneliest nights. I know I’ll keep swiping and hoping and holding out, and the texture of my life will stay silky and bland like unpressed tofu, because I am still the mother of a little boy who rules my world with his sour morning breath and his honey-rumpled hair and his constant challenging and wild imagination and the purest and simplest love I could hope for.
MOTIF (C773.1) Tabu: making unreasonable requests.
I suspect it is tempting fate to wish for more than this because, clearly, I have been given the sweetest gift in the form of this writhing, exuberant child, and to want more feels a little selfish. A little arrogant, even.
MOTIF (Q331) Pride punished; (L430) Arrogance repaid; (L435.2) Self-righteous woman punished.
And any reader knows that arrogance and selfishness do not end well for the characters in a fairy tale. See: eyes pecked out by pigeons, feet trapped and danced to death by red-hot iron shoes, head crushed in by millstone.
MOTIF (H1050) Paradoxical tasks.
The protagonist of the fairy tale is not selfish, but pure of heart. She is beautiful and good and selfless, like the mother I am expected to be.
MOTIF (H638) Riddle: what is costliest?
This is the point at which I ask myself, what is my role in this story? Not the Princess, this has been established. Perhaps I am the hero, with these tiresome tasks I encounter in my quest for love. If this were a fairy tale, we might call the object of this quest my Heart’s Desire, and, as readers of fairy tales know, the acquisition of one’s heart’s desire requires a costly sacrifice.
MOTIF (B11.2.3.6) Two-headed dragon.
Sometime around Father’s Day, I talk with my sister about how much pressure I feel, as a single (working) mom (with full custody and living geographically remote from my ex), to fulfill both parental roles for my kid. I joke that I’m a parental chimera, a MomDad a la that weird 90s cartoon, CatDog, the one where a cat and a dog share a single body and it/they have no butt, just a head on either end. Mom head, Dad butt. We have a good laugh.
MOTIF (H1130) Superhuman tasks.
But I can’t shake the conviction that it’s not enough to simply be a warm and nurturing mother. It feels as though I have to maintain about a 0.01% margin of parental error, or this kid is going to end up with, at a bare minimum, a lot of sadness. And it feels doubly cruel because this life is not one I planned for my child, but the result of circumstances completely out of his or my control.
MOTIF (J2010) Uncertainty about own identity.
The question I am left to ponder is: which version of the parental chimera will accrue the least amount of error? Can I be the beautiful and good and selfless mother while dating a string of men who may or may not end up hurting me? Finding my Nick/Danny/Jake feels like too much to hope for, at this point. On the other hand, can I be a good and selfless mother when my loneliness is like a wound?
MOTIF (X0) Humor of discomfiture.
It feels like a real-world version of the trolley problem, and I have never been good with moral philosophy. What I excel at is feeling guilt.
MOTIF (D1273.1.1) Three as magic number.
Fairy tale tasks come in threes.
MOTIF (B11.12.1.1) Dragon which cannot be killed with weapons is kicked in vulnerable spot.
One day in early summer my son cuts a picture out of a Walmart mailer and tapes it to his bedroom wall: a family of four and their dog eating dinner on a patio. Mom, dad, kids, dog, smiling. When I notice it above his desk (the mom, the dad, the siblings, this smiling, symmetrical family that we don’t have) everything inside me goes still. I have been expecting a moment like this and yet the kick of grief-laced helplessness to my gut is powerful enough to knock me speechless. I take a moment to blink and breathe.
MOTIF (F994) Object expresses sorrow.
Hey, look at that, I say, so casually. I ask where he found the picture, what he likes about it. My voice is light and conversational. He says that the family is so happy and they have a dog and a pretty backyard. I’ll be this boy, he says, pointing to the picture, and Mama, you be this mom! And Chicken [our cat] is the dog!
MOTIF (J2370.1) Children ask parents too difficult questions.
What is he trying to tell me? I cannot read his small, beloved face. He is six years old and has never known a time when his parents were together or when his father lived nearby. Regarding the reasons we are a family of two, there is so little comfort I can, in good conscience, give. He cannot know the darkness that clouded our former life.
MOTIF (J1030) Self-dependence; (A3) Creative mother source of everything.
I must admit, I have lost track of how many tests I have already faced and how many yet beset me. There have been tests to prove my worthiness, my character, the purity of my heart’s desire. There have been tests of fear, tests of vigilance, tests of endurance, of strength, skill, and faith.
MOTIF (H631.4) Riddle: What is strongest? Woman; (H652.2) What is softest? Mother’s bosom.
I kneel beside my son and draw him into my arms. A hug is the most powerful spell I know, and it feels meager beside the enormity of this moment. I like the picture too, I tell him, holding back my tears and shielding him from my broken heart.
MOTIF (J864) Comfort in the contemplation of impossible pleasure.
As for my quest? At this moment my search for love seems at best banal, and at worst, trivial. In this moment, I would gladly spend a King’s fortune of wishes on my child’s future, trade my last penny for a potion that will guarantee his happiness and fortune. But, as every reader knows, fairy tales are merely stories we tell when hope is not at a premium. Cast your line, and there it may be, your happily ever after, a golden coin waiting inside the next fish’s mouth.
MOTIF (H620) The unsolved problem: enigmatic ending of tale.
Is this a fairy tale? No, it is not. I am not the princess, nor, in the end, am I the hero. I am scaled and scarred, immense and ancient and undefeatable: the two-headed dragon jealously guarding her nest. There is no happily ever after, and there is no end to my want. It lives on, a brackish well of desire alongside a reservoir of love for my child, both drawing from deep, inexhaustible springs.
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Claire Hanlon spent her formative years moving frequently between the various islands and nations of Oceania. She landed in Texas in 2016 after a decade of mostly miserable luck in California and Montana. She is slowly earning a Master of Library and Information Science degree, while working in hospice administration, reading a lot of fiction, and writing essays. Her work has appeared in Blood Orange Review, Blood Tree Literature, and elsewhere. Find her on Instagram: @loveyclairey