Facing the Sun: Learning the Language of My Childhood

A blog post by
Publishing Intern Olivia Go

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My grandmother holds me while I am dressed in hanbok for Korean New Year, 2003

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Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, I walk downstairs to the basement of Smith College’s Wright Hall, sit in the same exact seat, and prepare myself to be humiliated.

I am learning Korean for the first time.

Our very first lesson was the alphabet, and even that basic introduction to the language left me reeling.

ᅡ sounds like ah

ᅮ sounds like ooo

ᅥ sounds like oh, but so does ᅩ

ᅢ sounds like eh but so doesᅦ

ᄐ sounds like t but so does ᄄ

For the life of me, I just can’t understand why multiple characters sound exactly the same. Wouldn’t one character suffice?

I expected a learning curve, but at week eight, I could barely read, and I misspelled things all the time. I start to wonder, will I ever be literate in this language that I’ve heard my whole life?

* * *

My mom and grandmother were born in Korea, and as a child, I always heard them speak to each other in Korean. Over kimchi, jigae, and rice they would gossip about my brothers and me, about my dad, about my grandmother’s church friend who wore atrocious shoes. My mother and grandmother had a lot of disagreements, but this language bonded them to each other like a secret. Although I could make sense of only bits and pieces of their conversations, it was beautiful just to listen to them speak the language of our ancestry. To my ears, Korean was the language of two grown women. I saw my own future in their exchanges.

(Left to right) My mom, me, and my grandmother playing with gold jewelry, 2003

I grew up in Santa Clarita, California, the land of Six Flags, people who “want to speak to the manager,” and a truly absurd number of chain restaurants. I spent years of my schooling as the only Asian person in my classes, enduring torment from my classmates. Kids pulled back their eyes and talked at me using vaguely Asian-sounding fake words. I didn’t know how to respond. Was that what I looked like to them? When I opened my mouth to speak, was that how they thought I sounded?

My identity became tarnished by others’ ignorance. Nobody seemed to understand or see the beauty of my culture. Eventually, I lost sight of it myself. By the time I entered high school, I began to reject everything Korean. I refused to eat Korean food. I closed my ears to the language. I did not want to be associated with Korean people. I grew resentful of my mother and grandmother for representing a nation I wanted nothing to do with. They were constant reminders of my least favorite thing about myself.

* * *

Finally able to see the beauty in its brilliance, I’m reaching for it again, facing back toward light, and hoping it will rise to meet me.

For years, I turned my back on my Korean heritage. It felt like a beating, bright light I couldn’t bear to look at. That whole time, I couldn’t see it was the sun—essential to my very being. Finally able to see the beauty in its brilliance, I’m reaching for it again, facing back toward light, and hoping it will rise to meet me.

Part of me thought learning Korean would come as fulfillment of some sort of divine right, the words of my mother tongue unfurling out of me like a confession, phrases and sentences eager and ready to be spoken. But there is no divinity in this learning process. There is only honest, hard work—and anguish. I tell myself that’s how I know it’s important.

When I was small, my mom, grandmother and I would watch Korean dramas together. I couldn’t understand a word the actors were saying. All I knew was that there was always a man and a woman and they were in love. Spitting at the television, we would argue about which characters were handsome and which were not. Conversation died down when it was time for lunch. They would both shovel food onto my plate, giving me the best of everything, often hot purple rice, fried fish cake, salty roasted seaweed, and some sort of fruit—oranges, or Fuji apples, or persimmons. With eyes glued to the screen, my grandma would peel the fruit in one spiraling ribbon, a wizard with a paring knife. We would shamelessly smack our lips together as we ate, not a word between us except for the occasional grunt of approval.

마시서요. Delicious.

As my grandmother got older, she forgot more and more of her English. By the end of her life, we could no longer communicate with words. I wish I had started learning Korean sooner. I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time rejecting an unavoidable, precious part of myself. My grandmother was Korea to me. I miss her. I miss the place she and my mother created for me, an ocean away from where they were born. I am trying to find the words to go back.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning I find myself wondering if my grandmother can hear me somehow as I sit, all the way down in the basement of Wright Hall, clumsily stumbling over the words,

미안해. Sorry.

사랑해요. I love you.

그렇지만 어려워요. But it’s hard.

저는시도해요. I am trying.

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Olivia Go is the fall 2023 publishing intern for Modern Memoirs, Inc.

Endsheets: A Distinguished look for your book

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Endsheets, also known as endpapers, are the first thing you see when you open a hardcover book. They are adhered to the hardcover board itself, and they help keep the cover and interior pages together. Typically they are a bit heavier or thicker than the rest of the text stock (paper). Nowadays, they are often the same color as the text stock (white, or natural), but this is largely out of convenience, not necessity. In fact, well-chosen endsheets can contribute as much to the unique design and feel of your book as its cover does.

If you want a distinctive touch to your book, we suggest endsheets that will complement or contrast the color of the outside cover. One popular modern option is a colorful repeating pattern, which harkens back to some of the earliest decorative endsheets, called marbled endsheets. The practice of using marbled endsheets possibly began in Iran in the 16th century. Paper would be dipped in baths of swirling paint mixed with ox gall (sourced from the bovine liver) to create dreamy, abstract patterns. European bookbinders observed and then adopted the practice. Look in any rare book library and you will likely find some marbled endsheets, proving that specialty endsheets will last, adding a classic and beautifying touch to your own book.

A solid color endsheet is also an option, in all manner of colors, even gold and silver. One of our clients who lived in France chose a red cover and blue endsheets—along with the white text stock, the combination hints at the French flag.

Another client chose to have a dark blue leather cover with Italian endsheets in all four volumes he wrote. These papers were special ordered from Florence.

For an even more personal touch, endsheets can come printed with text or images related to the content of the book. A genealogy book could highlight a family tree, for example, and a biography or memoir could include a map, company logo, or other image on the endsheets.

Endsheets can cost a bit more, but when you open the book they really stand out. They frame the pages as you read, a lovely enhancement. And they appear at the front and at the back, providing beautiful “bookends” for your masterpiece.

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If you're interested in learning more about endsheets and how to share this book-design element with young readers in your life, company president Megan St. Marie has written extensively about endsheets in two of her books. Reading Picture Books with Children: How to Shake Up Storytime and Get Kids Talking About What They See and Read It Again: 70 Whole Book Approach Plans to Help You Shake Up Storytime are available for sale in the Modern Memoirs shop, Memory Lane Books & Gifts.

Reflections from Modern Memoirs Client Kenneth Kaplan, M.D.

Kenneth Kaplan, M.D. published his book entitled The McGill Years: Je Me Souviens with Modern Memoirs in 2023. This Assisted Memoir took one year from the day he first contacted us to the day books arrived on his doorstep. We asked Kaplan to reflect on what the publication process was like for him, and what it has meant to share his book with others.

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1. Your book is a true memoir, focusing on a specific period of time in your life: the seven years that you lived in Montréal, Québec as an undergraduate and graduate student, before attending medical school in New York. Why did you choose to write a memoir, as opposed to telling the entire story of your life in a full autobiography? Who are your intended readers?

Kenneth Kaplan: I consider myself a scientist with limited artistic skills, so when I embarked on writing my first book, I really wanted to limit the scope of the subject in order to give myself the best chance to achieve my goal. In fact, I never considered writing an autobiography because of the grand scale of such an undertaking and the fact that I don’t consider my life to have such a unique or extraordinary quality to warrant an autobiography. Therefore, I stuck to a time in my life that is truly near and dear to me and encompasses experiences that energized, refined, and ultimately shaped my adult life going forward. My intended audience is very basic: family, friends, and anyone else who has a fond connection to McGill University and Montréal. In my case, the connection to McGill and Montréal includes my wife, my son, and my daughter-in-law.

2. Describe your writing process. Do you have journals from your McGill years? Or did you rely on memory and other sources?

Kenneth Kaplan: Well, I really didn’t have a structured writing process but rather a simple desire to accomplish the goal of writing a memoir so that I could share my experiences and talk about the people I love the most, my family. As I state in my dedication, the memoir evolves into a love story about my wife, Johanne, and me. I didn’t keep any journals during my McGill years, so I relied completely on my memory, which took a lot of intense recollection, reflection, and extraction of events from 40 years ago. Of course, on occasion I did resort to Google to ensure the accuracy of some of the historical facts and events in my recounted memories. But the thoughts, words, sentence structure, and organization are all my own, for better or worse.

3. What inspired you to write this book about your college years when you did, in early retirement at the age of 60?

Kenneth Kaplan: In the early 2000s I decided that I would write a memoir about my McGill years. In fact, I started a Word document in 2004 in which I typed the title and prologue. I saved it on every new PC that I purchased over the years, knowing that I would return to finish it when I had the time. That time finally came shortly after retiring in 2018 at age 60. I just had to keep all of those memories bottled up for 14 years before unleashing them! While my recollections may have been buried a little deeper over those 14 years, the ultimate telling of my story probably benefited from the deferment. With the perspective of time, I was better able to appreciate how setbacks ultimately served a purpose in shaping my life’s journey, in which I truly have no regrets.

4. You are an American who chose to study in another country, albeit one that borders the U.S. What have you learned about yourself—as a learner, a writer, an American—as a result of writing a memoir about your education in francophone Canada?

Kenneth Kaplan: I was the only student in my high-school graduating class to study outside the United States, and I was undoubtedly rewarded for making what seemed like a bold and unconventional decision at that time. While moving away from family and friends and the familiarity of American culture was at times difficult, it taught me that I was able to stand on my own and adapt to unfamiliar and challenging circumstances. Notably, my time in francophone Canada resulted in meeting my future wife, getting an unrivaled university education, having the chance to live in an incredible and beautiful multicultural city, and getting exposure to a culture and language that I would not have been able to experience anywhere else in North America.

5. Would you say that publication feels like the completion of something in your life, or the start of something new?

Kenneth Kaplan: The publication of my memoir definitely feels like the completion of a goal that I set for myself many years ago, and I could not be more pleased with the final product created by Modern Memoirs. While I don’t think it will lead to any additional publications, I won’t completely rule out the possibility. However, right now I’m just concentrating on enjoying life in retirement while keeping fit both mentally and physically.

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Liz Sonnenberg is genealogist for Modern Memoirs.

What’s in My Book of Delights? My Dad’s Knack for Joy

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My dad, Miguel Solis, and me at my graduation from Smith College, May 2023

 Soon after my graduation from Smith College in May 2023, I joined the online alumnae book club. The very first title selected for the group has turned out to be a book I know I will always cherish. The Book of Delights is a collection of lyrical essays by poet Ross Gay, though I strongly believe the project could be called a memoir. Gay wrote the book by observing and exploring the concept of delight through daily essays written over the course of a year, many of which weave in elements of his personal history. Reading this exuberant, provocative work is like a slap of fresh wind to the face as it defies a world that so often devalues and dilutes delight. It challenges us to nurture delight when we are constantly told that it is trivial. Inspired by Gay’s fierce declaration of this ethos of delight, I decided to start keeping a book of delights, too, for my own remembrance and enjoyment.

“sticking out like a lit match in a room of mild-mannered adults.”

My dad showing off his “Smith College Dad” T-shirt, October 30, 2019

My dad buckling in my sibling Rafael for a 5th grade class trip, May 17, 2017

I also drew inspiration from my father, Miguel Solis Jr., since he embodies Gay’s ethos of delight in his own way, as a Mexican American man from El Paso, Texas. He possesses an amazing ability to delight (there’s no better word for it) everyone around him while being nothing like them, sticking out like a lit match in a room of mild-mannered adults. Put another way, he’s always been comfortable with, or has even delighted in, being the odd one out. For example, despite coming from a culture of machismo, my dad never had any issues joining me in girly activities, or talking about being my stay-at-home parent for my first couple of years. I remember walking into a new Girl Scouts troop meeting as a little kid and finding I was the only one with a dad in tow instead of a mom. But soon my dad was wowing the crowd, milking his outsider status to provoke everyone’s raucous laughter, and finding camaraderie and solidarity with the moms. Any nervousness I’d felt about being the different kid melted away.

My dad has always followed wherever laughter led him, taking my siblings and me along for the ride. A few years after that Girl Scout meeting, he attended a “bike rodeo” event at school, at which he jumped on one of our small bikes and zipped up and down the asphalt, looking much like a gorilla on a tricycle (he said so himself). My teacher and classmates shrieked with laughter, and my siblings and I felt giddy with pride in our fearless, funny dad. Another time, in the humid hallway where kids crammed together waiting to get picked up after school, everyone had tuned out the urgent monotone of names called for dismissal over the loudspeaker. Then we snapped back to attention when we heard, “Mickey Mouse!” “Donald Duck!” “Spongebob Squarepants!” and I grinned with my friends as we realized that the call was for me.

My dad on a swingset in Austin, Texas, January 11, 2015

“I’ve come to see his knack for joy as a superpower of sorts. He lives with delight, no matter how persistently the larger world ignores or discourages it”

Perhaps the greatest power of delight is that it does much more than brighten up a slightly boring day; it helps us live, and it helps us connect. I was surprised to learn recently about the Latinx Paradox, which highlights that Latinx Americans generally live longer than non-Latinx white Americans, despite having higher health risks and lower incomes on average. One of the proposed explanations, which has been supported by small studies so far, is that Latinx people laugh on more occasions and live closer to family on average, leading to happier, healthier, longer lives. I can’t help but think about my dad and the rest of my Mexican American family in this context, boldly inserting themselves into the non-Latinx social fabrics of schools, jobs, and neighborhoods with joy and openness; but this paradox can remind everyone of the concrete power of delight. As people, we are meant for delight. Our physiology itself rewards it.

Through reading Gay’s book and thinking about my dad, I’ve come to see his knack for joy as a superpower of sorts. He lives with delight, no matter how persistently the larger world ignores or discourages it, and I am profoundly grateful for his example. And so, in his honor and inspired by Gay, I share my delight of the day, the one I’ve written on the first page of my own book of delights: the delight of laughing along with my dad and the rest of my family.

Now it’s your turn: What will be at the front of your own “Book of Delights”? A person? A place? A hobby? A memory? Write it down in the comments if you’d like. Then get a journal, or open a new document on your computer, and keep on writing—and delighting in doing so.

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Emma Solis is publishing associate for Modern Memoirs.

Seizing Joy at the Start of School with a Schultüte

A sampler stitched by Megan St. Marie’s mother hangs above a lamp in her Modern Memoirs office, 2023

This post is the eighth in a series-in-progress by company president Megan St. Marie about heirlooms and objects related to her family history that she keeps in her office to inform and inspire her work at Modern Memoirs. 

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Sampler closeup

Megan St. Marie’s son Jesse sits at his desk for remote kindergarten in her former Modern Memoirs office, with the sampler hanging over the coat hook, fall 2020.

Megan St. Marie holds a Schultüte that her neighbors gifted to her son Zachary to celebrate his first day of kindergarten, 2023

Schultüte closeup

Zachary opens his Schultüte, 2023.

Zachary follows big brother Jesse onto the school bus for his first day of kindergarten, 2023.

When I was a child, my mother was an avid cross-stitcher who made countless projects to decorate our home and give as gifts. One such item now hangs in my Modern Memoirs office, an alphabet from a pattern based on a sampler dating back to 1838. I’ve read that such pieces were often made by young girls as they learned to stitch and to read and write. When my now-eight-year-old son, Jesse, daily came to my Modern Memoirs office for remote kindergarten classes at the height of the pandemic, I hung my mother’s sampler by his little desk as a symbol of her encouragement and love, and as a handy visual reference while he learned his letters.

Remote schooling is thankfully a thing of the past, but the sampler still hangs in my office, a reminder of when children couldn’t go to learn and play in person with their classmates and teachers. Jesse, now in third grade, joyfully boards the school bus each morning, and this year, his little brother, Zachary, joined him as a brand-new kindergartener. While no part of me misses remote schooling, I had many big, mixed emotions in anticipation of the start of this school year as I prepared to send my “Last Baby” (as I affectionately refer to Zachary in our family of seven children) off to school. Then, an act of neighborly kindness helped me seize joy, even as I grieve the end of a precious chapter in my life as a mother.

“Growing up is not a tragedy; it’s a birthright.”

The afternoon before the first day of kindergarten, a friend in my neighborhood texted to ask if she and her family could drop off a gift for Zachary. No one was at our house at the time, so I told her I would stop by to pick up the present when I walked home from work. When I arrived on their doorstep, these incredibly kind, generous, fun neighbors presented me with a Schultüte, which is a festive paper cone filled with little treats, toys, and school supplies to celebrate a child’s first day of kindergarten. Isn’t that just wonderful? And guess what? They made one for all of the kindergarteners in our neighborhood!

As a person of Irish and Franco American heritage, I’d never heard of this German tradition before, but I am officially integrating it into my gift-giving life from this day forward. Beginnings are as important as endings, after all, with A just as necessary as Z in the sampler my mother stitched. So, like we mark high-school graduation with pomp and circumstance, a Schultüte heralds the start of elementary school as a milestone worth celebrating, too.

I admit, I burst into tears after the bus pulled away with Zachary ecstatically off to his first day of kindergarten; but remembering his huge smile as he waved to me through the window helped me recover pretty quickly. As I write in one of my Book Bonding essays, “Growing up is not a tragedy; it’s a birthright.”[i]

Zachary may be my last baby to start school, but thanks to my wonderful neighbors, I can look forward to celebrating all the future kindergarteners in my life with a Schultüte. Yes, in the A to Zs of life, beginnings are as important as endings, and I’m embracing this time in the middle as the heart of it all.

i Lambert, Megan Dowd. Book Bonding: Building Connections Through Family Reading. Imagine Publishing, 2023.

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Megan St. Marie is President of Modern Memoirs.

Reflections from David Gryboski, Son of Modern Memoirs Client Robert André Gryboski, MD

Left: My Autobiography (2022) and right: Me and Shakespeare: Personal Interpretations of Twelve Plays (2023), by Modern Memoirs client Robert André Gryboski, MD

Robert André Gryboski, MD published two books with Modern Memoirs. The first, entitled My Autobiography, came out in 2022. The second, entitled Me and Shakespeare: Personal Interpretations of Twelve Plays, came out in 2023. Robert’s Assisted Memoir took four months from the day he first contacted us to the day books arrived on his doorstep. His collection of essays took just three months. Sadly, Robert passed away in May 2023, shortly after approving the final draft of his essay collection and two months before it was printed. We asked Robert’s son David Gryboski to reflect on what the publication process was like for his father, and what it meant to Robert to share his books with others.

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1. In his autobiography, your father says his mother taught him “the joy of learning, of acquiring knowledge, and of intellectual pursuits.” His resulting well-roundedness is evidenced in the fact that he majored in English at Yale before entering the university’s medical school. How did he share a love of learning with you and your siblings?

David Gryboski: One of our father’s favorite sayings was “the ways in which people differ are far more important than the ways in which they are alike.” We learned that this was one of the principles upon which Theodate Pope Riddle founded and built Avon Old Farms School, the all-boys boarding and preparatory school our father attended and credited for shaping the rest of his life. Staying true to this principle, our father always encouraged us to explore different things. From an educational standpoint, he encouraged us to explore different topics, helped us cultivate a sense of curiosity and an open mind in all subject matters, and he made great personal sacrifices to provide us with the best education possible. He really recognized and nurtured each of our unique interests and talents. The result? All four of us do four very different things professionally, and we couldn’t be happier with the love and support our father provided each of us.

2. According to your father, it was “preordained” that he would write his autobiography eight decades ago, when he attended a friend’s birthday party and received a fortune card that said he would do so. What inspired him to fulfill that destiny when he did?

David Gryboski: Ha! I actually found that “fortune card” while going through his personal belongings after he passed. I feel as though many factors inspired my father to fulfill that destiny when he did. He had ALS, which I think helped prompt him to reflect on his life, his countless achievements, and also his regrets. He wanted to share these reflections with others, and what better way than writing them down? This process accomplished two things: 1) it allowed him to fulfill a long-held belief or premonition, which gave him a tremendous sense of personal fulfillment that was incredibly rewarding given that he could not do much physically; and 2) it provided him with a sense of purpose and closure.

3. Your father said he began spending most of his time reading in his later years, when ALS prevented him from engaging in physical activity. It was then that he returned to a study of Shakespeare’s plays that was launched during his undergraduate years. In the Afterword to his essay collection, you and your siblings write, “His interpretations were not merely academic amusement, but rather windows into his soul…” What of your father’s soul do you see in these essays? What moves them from academic amusement to achieve spiritual significance?

David Gryboski: My father’s interpretations are a reflection of his values and his inner emotions. My father wasn’t just dissecting the plays for intellectual satisfaction; each interpretation became a canvas, so-to-speak, on which he was able to project his own journey, struggles, aspirations, and so on. His interpretations offer a unique perspective—as unique as he was—and bridged the gap between literature and life.

4. What has it meant to your extended family that your father worked hard to complete both of these projects at the end of his life? What advice do you have for others who may be contemplating similar undertakings?

David Gryboski: Remember I said that my father credits Avon Old Farms for shaping the rest of his life? Well, the school motto was, and still is, “Aspirando et Perseverando,” Latin for “to aspire and to persevere.” My father would always say that the most important word in the simple three-word phrase is the conjunction “et” because one who aspires without persevering is a dreamer, and one who perseveres without aspiring is a fool. So you must do both—you must aspire and persevere. Completing these two projects at the end of his life, at a time when things couldn’t possibly get any harder for him, was a clear demonstration of his perseverance—his resilience, his determination, and his unwavering commitment to fulfill something he always aspired (or was “preordained”) to do. It was also a clear demonstration of his genuine love for sharing his experiences, his insights, and his knowledge with others. To us, these books will forever serve as lasting legacies that will allow us and our extended family to connect with him on a deeper level, even in his absence. And, lastly, they will inspire us to be the best version of our unique self that we can possibly be…just as he would have wanted.

For those considering embarking on similar undertakings, my advice is to remember the conjunction “et.” If you are considering it, you have already aspired to do it, and now you must persevere. And don’t wait! We all know life happens, life gets in the way, and, regretfully, life comes to an end. There is no doubt in my mind that your project, whatever it might be, will leave your family, your extended family, and future generations with a meaningful and lasting legacy.

5. Given your father’s health, we fast-tracked both of his writing projects. What can you share about your experience in helping your father with the publication process?

David Gryboski: Helping my father with the publication process of “My Autobiography” and “Me and Shakespeare” was an emotional and transformative journey. It truly was. It reinforced the power of collaboration (between Modern Memoirs and us), the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring impact of storytelling and sharing and connecting with others. My father’s legacy lives on through these books, and I am honored to have played a role. Our partnership with Modern Memoirs was instrumental in bringing my father’s vision to life. The staff’s willingness to fast-track the publication process demonstrated a profound understanding of the significance of these works to my father and to our family. The team at Modern Memoirs, with their expertise and sensitivity, helped shape the final versions of both books in ways that exceeded even my father’s expectations (which was hard to do!).

Robert André Gryboski, MD, and his son David Gryboski

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