250 Stories – Elaine Barlow

(0:00:00) Could you please share your name and occupation? My name is Marghru Elaine Barlow and my occupation, I would like to say is just creative. I do a lot of different things, writing and things like that, trying to be more creative in my old age.
(0:00:17) That’s awesome. That’s awesome. We had a chance to encounter the meet at a very important, important occasion. And the theme of that was, you know, I Googled my dad. Yes. You know, so as much as we can, I want to run. I want to loop back into that. OK. But what’s your earliest memory of a library, any library? Oh, I.
(0:00:47) My earliest memory of the library is going to be a library, one of our local libraries, the Whiton Memorial Library in Manchester. And I spent a lot of time there.
(0:01:05) One, because it was right next to the YWCA, and I spent a lot of time at the YWCA. My generation, our parents worked. We were the latchkey generation. We let ourselves in to our homes. We usually left school and came home from school, and our parents were still at work.
(0:01:27) Over the summers, I spent a lot of time at the YWCA and the library is right next to it. So waiting for my mother to pick me up from the Y, I would head over to the library. I loved it there. I was very much a nerd when it wasn’t popular to be that.
(0:01:49) I was a heavy reader. I loved film. So spending time in the library for me was very peaceful. It was a time for me to just get away from everything and do what I loved, which was sitting in a quiet place and reading.
(0:02:07) Were you ever distracted by the trains? No, never. I mean, once I got into a book or just into those stacks, I just felt like that was my place. I wanted to be a librarian. I worked at the Yukon Library for a long time. I just loved the quiet.
(0:02:29) and i loved having access to a lot of information any kind of information sometimes i would just pick a book and just just look at it just read it didn’t even know what it was or especially at a very young age i’m talking 10 11 12 years old that was that was my church i guess you could say was the library it was a very very huge part of my
(0:02:56) understanding my place and what really resonated with me, which was stories. I loved stories. I loved escaping into stories. I loved discovering new information.
(0:03:14) um my father was big about that as well um we always had an encyclopedia set at home which i don’t think people have anymore and i would just read through them just to learn things that was something i always enjoyed and i’m a child of the internet so i grew up with the internet and just having access to information started from just being in libraries i just i love them i still do
(0:03:42) That is awesome. That is awesome. If we were to fast forward a bit, how would you describe your interaction with the library throughout your adolescence and high school, college? In high school?
(0:03:57) I was more involved in the library in terms of jobs that I wanted to have, especially during the summers. My mom worked for the, is it the West Hartford branch of Yukon? East Hartford branch of Yukon. West Hartford. West Hartford branch. And she got me a job there working over the summers in the library. And I’m not gonna lie, that was the best job I ever had. It sounds silly now, but
(0:04:27) My job was just to convert the card catalogs
(0:04:33) into digital records. So I would pull out a drawer and type the information on the card into the computer. I did that all day long. And they just put me in a little corner. And I had my Walkman, you know, and I just listened to my music. And I was just doing data entry. And then on my breaks, I would just go around the library and look stuff up. So it was a great summer job. I mean, I didn’t have to do much. It got paid pretty well.
(0:05:03) and had a little spending money. But honestly, I just loved being there. And I kept saying to myself, I would love to work here. This is something I would love to be able to do, especially going into the digital at that time. It’s like there was a lot to do. There was a lot of conversion to do. So at that time in high school, going into college, it was more about the working relationship that I had with the library.
(0:05:32) at UConn where I attended college. The library was forever under construction when I was a freshman there. But I spent a lot of time there. I studied in the library. I met friends in the library. They had a video section upstairs where you could watch
(0:05:53) with headphones on up in the library. I spent a lot of time doing that, watching old BBC Shakespeare plays to help get through it in English courses. But again, it was just, it was quiet, it was peaceful. It was a place to find information, to just dive into anything that I thought was interesting in the moment. That was, I mean, obviously before the internet, if you wanted to know something,
(0:06:22) You either had to ask someone or look it up. Those were the only options. So that became how I learned almost everything I know was reading it or asking somebody. How would you describe your interaction with the library today?
(0:06:39) Today I want to say I want to have more of a connection to our libraries. I want to say it’s more nostalgic now. The libraries in Manchester are still open. I still have a library card. But I don’t go as much as I used to. I started sort of building my own personal library and home of physical books.
(0:07:05) and I still spend a lot of time with physical books. I only work with the library in terms of getting a lot of this historical information, especially now that I’m becoming more interested in previous events happening locally. I have to go to the local library to get that information on either microfiche or
(0:07:30) what have you, but I want to say it’s more nostalgic. I credit the library with a lot of my being of who I am now, and whenever I pass them, I’m always like, oh, I gotta go in there, you know? But at the same time,
(0:07:45) It’s very different. There’s more computers in there now. It’s a very different space the last time I was there. And it doesn’t feel the same. And I think that partly keeps me from enjoying it as much. So it’s more just the memory of how much I needed those spaces growing up and finding myself.
(0:08:08) That’s awesome. You described being a creator or a creative. Yes. How would you describe the role respect plays in your creativity? Where does it come up? That is an interesting question. Respect, you said. I think for me,
(0:08:37) Especially where I am now in my life. Growing up being creative was. I don’t want to say that it wasn’t as valued because that’s not entirely true. But I think that when I was younger.
(0:08:56) My parents, the adults around me, thought that my creative talents, especially writing, was cute. It was nice that I did that, you know. And I want to say that it wasn’t well respected. It wasn’t something that was taken seriously, except to say…
(0:09:19) You know, our daughter likes to write and isn’t that wonderful? You know, she’s not getting into trouble. You know, she likes to write. And I did. I was writing full blown novels in junior high because I was a nerd and I had a typewriter and I I I was very much a loner. But I can’t say that it was taken terribly seriously.
(0:09:42) I took it seriously. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to do creative things. But as I moved forward in life, especially when I got to college, the idea of me going to school to become a writer was ridiculous. It wasn’t smart.
(0:10:00) It wasn’t wise. I should choose something more grounded. And I was very discouraged. I was discouraged by my parents. I was discouraged by my professors. I wasn’t a very good writer. And my understanding of college was that you went to college to become a writer, to learn how to write. And I was grossly misinformed in that regard.
(0:10:31) So I gave it up and it felt like in order to gain the level of respect that I wanted, I needed to have a profession that was more respected. Wow. So I went into computers, which I don’t regret because that was the beginning of the internet, the beginning of everything. And I made a good living doing that. Hmm.
(0:11:00) But now I feel like it is most necessary for me to return to my roots as a writer, especially now. And I feel coming full circle, people who are truly creative,
(0:11:26) are more respected than they were when I was coming up. And while I don’t seek that kind of respect now, I don’t need it, I don’t require it. When I did need it, it would have been great, but…
(0:11:41) I found it in working in computers, which was automatically gave you a huge amount of respect. If you knew any kind of programming, especially in the early days, you were like a God. And that was wonderful. But it was, it was never truly where my heart was.
(0:12:00) And now it’s like, we’ve come full circle with AI destroying creativity with human creativity being pushed to the side. Now it’s like, oh, you write like without AI, you, you have a grasp of language you, you can draw or anything like that. Now that’s heavily respected. And I find that so fascinating. Um,
(0:12:28) so it makes me more want to get back to my roots and i think that not that it’s going to give me respect because i don’t i don’t need that now like i used to as a child but i think it’s necessary to keep
(0:12:48) human creativity at the forefront. It’s gonna become very niche-y. It’s gonna become very, perhaps like it was when I was a child, where it’s like, oh, you write? Oh, that’s interesting. You know? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love that full circle moment. It also just begs me to question, what would you tell your 18-year-old self in hindsight?
(0:13:23) That would have been the middle of my college career. Well, early, because I stayed in college as long as I could because I loved learning. I think about this a lot because I always think about where I went wrong with giving up writing and allowing people to discourage me, allowing mostly male, white professors to tell me that I had no writing skill. And I didn’t. How could I?
(0:13:53) I of course would have told myself not to listen to them.
(0:13:58) But I also know that I probably wouldn’t have made a very good living as a writer at that time. It took me a long time to find my voice, to find my writing style. And had I not gotten into computers, early web design, I wouldn’t be able to be here now having the time to write, having the freedom to write, having made a decent career and being able to say, I want to write now. I want to work on my novel now.
(0:14:29) So I would have told myself perhaps to just keep doing it on the side, to not let go of that, which I completely did. I replaced creative writing with programming, with web design, which was creative.
(0:14:44) At the time, people wanted really unique websites, right? Not cookie cutters like they are now. They wanted art. They wanted real writing of content. So I was still creative for other people, not for myself. Wow. So I would have told myself to…
(0:15:03) make smart decisions, you know, follow the computers, because I did love them. I was a nerd, of course I love computers, but I would have told myself to make the time to keep writing on the side, make it a priority, you know, keep your love for it, and not let it slip away, you know, and then have to claw back to it in your 40s, you know, which was hard, very hard.
(0:15:32) Can you share one of the most difficult lessons you had to learn as an adult? I think that… That’s a tough question. I think a valuable lesson…
(0:15:57) It was a hard lesson that I had to learn as an adult, but also I consider it now more valuable. Is that I always felt that if I was smarter than everyone in the room,
(0:16:12) It wouldn’t matter my appearance, my race, my gender, which was something that my parents grew up drilling into our heads was going to be the most important obstacle that we would have to focus on growing up. And as much as it was for them, it was not so much for my brother and I during that time in the 80s, 90s.
(0:16:42) But I always felt like, well, if I’m smart enough, if I have a thorough education, a full grasp of the English language, you know,
(0:16:55) if I can just walk into a room and present a version of myself that is respected and respectful, that none of that stuff would matter, that people would only see what I wanted them to see, hear how I spoke, and recognize me for all the work I put in, right, to become the person that I am. And it wasn’t true. Mm-hmm.
(0:17:25) If anything, it put me at odds with others who felt I was uppity or felt I was better than everyone. So my intelligence, my education, it caused me more problems. And I understood it at a base level.
(0:17:54) And my father used to say something to me that used to bother me so much and I didn’t understand it until I was an adult that’s related to that. He used to say, you know, maybe if you weren’t as smart, you would have had an easier life.
(0:18:13) And I used to take offense to that, almost like you’re advocating for your children to be dumb or to appear dumb. But I understood later what he meant by that. And I think that was the hardest lesson that all my intelligence and everything I pushed myself to be actually made my life harder because of everyone else. Wow.
(0:18:43) Very interesting. What do you, is there any other, is there any good advice that someone ever gave you in addition to what you just shared? Career advice, life advice, love advice that continues to guide you? That’s another interesting question.
(0:19:10) I wish I could say that I could think of a person who influenced me in a way that either changed the course of my life or they told me something or shared something with me that made me feel differently about my life. But the honest truth of it is
(0:19:38) I grew old very young, and partly thanks to the library, I discovered philosophy very early. I discovered Stoicism and Marcus Aurelius very early as a child. And that really shaped my perspective.
(0:20:00) more than other people I always found other people to be unapproachable and I didn’t understand my peers well you know we when I was growing up you know we didn’t have terms like neurodivergency we didn’t have ways of describing people who think differently and explore the world differently but I was certainly one of those people I couldn’t connect well with others adults were
(0:20:29) Frankly, intimidated by me, the things I would say and the truth I would speak. And so I never got advice from people that maybe I should have gotten advice from.
(0:20:48) people sort of, adults, I shouldn’t say people, but as a child, adults kind of, especially my generation, Gen X, we were very much left to our own devices. We weren’t given a lot of nurture. We were left outside to run around until the sun set and let ourselves into our own homes. And we didn’t get a lot of the
(0:21:14) let me show you how to get through life let me advise you we had to figure out so much on our own and i was lucky in that i already had a firm grasp of the world through books through film and i think i gave more advice than i got even as a young child when i was in elementary school the kids used to call me nicodemus from the secret of nim which was very popular at that time and
(0:21:45) like they just considered me this wise child that spoke in a way that probably i shouldn’t have at that age about things and so i guess i don’t remember anyone ever telling me anything that i didn’t already know but i do remember in college regina barecca who was i had the honor of
(0:22:12) Being in one of her classes at the time, she had written a few books and she was teaching English and she was the only female English teacher I had. And she actually told me at that time, write whatever you want. Don’t let someone tell you that what you’re writing isn’t good enough or isn’t professional enough.
(0:22:39) which I heard a lot of, that I should just write what I felt like writing. And that was amazing coming from her. And it was always in the back of my mind.
(0:22:57) But I never followed that advice. I never took it to heart, but it never left my mind. And she was right. I should have written whatever I wanted and just stuck with that. So I guess.
(0:23:14) I wish I had gotten more advice, more guidance. But at the same time, I think I learned from the great masters, I guess, from philosophy more than anyone else. And that definitely has guided my life more than the adults in my life. Gotcha.
(0:23:33) When I was a kid, we used to sing this song in church, This Little Light of Mine. I’m going to let it shine. When I was a teenager, Tupac Shakur had a song called Keep Your Head Up. Yes. Do you have a song, a film, a piece of art in your heart that inspires you or has pushed you forward during a difficult time?
(0:24:00) Media is a huge part of my life. It was growing up. I didn’t have a perfect childhood. It was very difficult. And I turned to film, radio, records at the time to get any kind of
(0:24:29) positive, uplifting feeling. I have aphantasia, which means that I don’t have the ability to imagine. I cannot create pictures in my mind. I can recall from memory fairly well, but if you ask me to imagine something that I’ve never seen or doesn’t exist, it’s just a blank space.
(0:24:56) which again we didn’t have language for this when I was growing up but that kept me from being able to enjoy books as much as my peers but I enjoyed film a great deal because it was visual because I could see it and feel it more than just words on a page and I
(0:25:27) I could tell you probably every film I ever saw left an impression on me, either a line from that film or the music, especially from that film pushed me in some direction. I was one of those people who could watch a movie and like my life would change for the next few months because it taught me something or gave me something profound. And there, there’s too many to mention. Um,
(0:25:58) I find even now that I wrote in, I had a journal that I wrote in, I journaled from age 10 to almost age 16.
(0:26:13) And I still go through those journals now and I see the things that inspired me that I may have forgotten about. And they’re all films. They’re all pieces of music, lyrics from songs that would strike me in a way that suddenly would make me feel like I need to do this thing. I need to change this or I need to write this. And that’s true still today.
(0:26:41) Almost everything. Media is so important to my life. I couldn’t imagine my life without music. Music is very powerful for me. Maybe because of the aphantasia.
(0:26:55) It evokes something that I can’t pull out naturally on my own like other people might be able to. But I feel music very deeply. And I think a lot of neurodivergence do. They feel it differently. So media is huge for me. It shapes my life in the same way that books used to. Inspires me every day. I mean…
(0:27:25) music can pull imagery into my mind, which is normally an empty space. And music is the only thing that can do that, can evoke imagery that I couldn’t create on my own, and that always fascinates me. I always wonder if anyone’s ever studied that about aphantasia, that we have a blank space, but it can be triggered.
(0:27:48) by music and other kinds of outside stimulus. So I rely on all kinds of music every day for inspiration and being moved. At a time in our country, in a space in our community where so many young people suffer from so much trauma. I mean, it’s heavy laden. Is there anything you’d like to share that happened to you that you came to realize happened for you? Hmm.
(0:28:24) And if not, you don’t have to. I’m thinking because I. Take your time. That was it. That was. That’s a. This is something that I discuss a lot. On social media.
(0:28:41) I believe very strongly in sharing trauma. I think that it’s important to discuss it. I think it’s important to share it with other people because we learn that we’re all in some kind of pain, that we all carry similar kinds of pain. And it brings you to an understanding that you’re not the only one, especially in this internet age.
(0:29:09) I think Gen X is a very lucky generation because we grew up in the analog. And in the analog days, as far as I was concerned, I was the only person in the world suffering in the way that I was. I was, you know, you only had your immediate community, the people you went to school with. There was no internet. There was nothing. If no one around you was like you, then as far as you knew, you were the only person in the whole world like that.
(0:29:40) The Internet changed that in a good way, and it helped people find each other. And as much as it has a terrible reputation, I think people sharing their traumas and their pain and their struggles, their chronic illnesses,
(0:30:00) and they’re all the things that they have to deal with it makes people realize that they’re not the only ones and I talk a lot about my traumas growing up
(0:30:20) The Gen X generation also probably have the most trauma. Our parents were not terribly aware of the trauma that they were inflicting. The neglect in some cases, physical abuse in other cases, especially and unfortunately in the black community, family community,
(0:30:45) I don’t think that they thought about anything other than doing what they thought was best. But if you are on social media and you look at the posts of Gen X talking about trauma, they all have exactly the same stories. And that’s so valuable. It’s sad and valuable.
(0:31:11) to know that you’re part of a generation that suffered a tremendous amount of trauma and neglect and pain. Not necessarily on purpose, but because our parents were just doing their best, they also had their own trauma that they never were able to deal with. Again, especially in the black community. And they passed it along.
(0:31:39) And I don’t know that we get a chance to resolve that for ourselves. You know, going no contact is a very popular thing now with a lot of the younger generations because they recognize the pain. The Gen X, I think we just consider ourselves more resilient. But I think that
(0:32:08) I don’t like to say that the painful experiences that I went through and the trauma that I experienced, the bullying and the abuse that I experienced was good. I don’t like to say that.
(0:32:26) There are people in my family who believe that any kind of pain is positive. That it aids in making you stronger. And I don’t think that I’m far off by saying I think that a lot of the global majority feel that way. I think that culturally there’s a lot of cultures that have that belief. I don’t like that belief. All I have ever seen
(0:32:55) is that it creates pain and it continues cycles of trauma. I think that there’s other ways to gain strength. And I think that it’s valuable that people recognize that there’s other ways to gain strength. I don’t think that you have to hit rock bottom to learn something. I know that people do.
(0:33:19) But there’s other ways and that includes reading, having some sort of support network, having someone that you trust who can give you that advice that you may need. I don’t believe pain needs to shape everyone’s growth. It shaped a lot of my growth for sure.
(0:33:43) But I also know that I had places to go, like the library. I had my own way of finding my way through. But I still see it every day, especially online. The spreading of trauma, the cycles that never stop. So I guess I would say to people that
(0:34:11) I don’t like to say that pain is good and pain is necessary. I think that that needs to change. I think that that’s a lesson that needs to go away. I don’t want to see that perpetuated any further, that belief. I think that that’s an unfortunate way that someone grows. I think that’s an unfortunate way that people find strength. Mm-hmm.
(0:34:37) And I want that to change. I want people to grow through wisdom, education, support, creative endeavors, not, not through pain, not through abuse. I want that to stop so badly. I can’t say that it’s ever going to, but
(0:35:03) I don’t want to say that everything that I experienced growing up made me stronger. It made me more determined to be the exact opposite of those things and to try to help as many people as possible. I don’t know if that’s a kind of strength or not. To me, that’s stoicism. To me, that’s Marcus Aurelius, right?
(0:35:32) You want to be better than what was done to you. Absolutely. Very well said. My final questions have to do with legacy.
(0:35:46) I got a chance to hear you speak a few weeks ago. And one thing you said after having listened to a number of people share about your dad and how he changed their lives. And then you went up and you said, you know, I googled my dad. And unfortunately, all the miraculous things we’ve heard today, I was not able to find. What?
(0:36:18) And I know that has fueled you to go and now document these things. But what is the lesson, what is the takeaway from your experience having Googled your dad? As I am a child of the internet, to my generation and every generation after me, the internet is everything.
(0:36:45) The internet is how you find all of your information. For many people, it’s how they find quote-unquote truth. If it’s not on the internet, it didn’t happen, right? If it’s not archived somewhere, it never happened. And I get that, especially being a child of the late 70s and 80s.
(0:37:14) I got my information from books, from encyclopedias. If it was in the encyclopedia, it happened. It was documented. So the few things that my father did share with us about the things that he did because he was so humble and taught to be humble, I think, not to speak about his accomplishments.
(0:37:43) they were never documented i mean perhaps a couple of newspaper articles um about him being appointed to board of trustees at the wadsworth there was like a little blurb in the hartford current and when i say blurb i mean two paragraphs that mentioned it um but it’s
(0:38:08) entirely possible, and I’m still trying to get confirmation of this, that my father was the first African-American appointed to the Board of Trustees at the Wadsworth. And if that’s true, that needs to be documented somewhere. It shouldn’t be these two little blurbs, Barlow appointed to Board of Trustees in the Hartford Courant back then. I mean…
(0:38:37) It’s partly the times we didn’t have the internet back then. The only time something was going to get written about was if a reporter reported on it. So I, I understand the non-existence of my father’s legacy. He was a background man. He helped so many people, but from the background. Hmm.
(0:39:05) A couple of people that I have already spoken to said about my father, you know, there wasn’t a decision that was made where you didn’t speak to Ed Barlow about it first. And I believe that. And I know that to be true.
(0:39:22) but that’s not the kind of thing that’s going to end up in the newspaper right so i understood where it just it didn’t exist he didn’t exist except in the memories of all of these people who considered him their mentor but as a child of the internet
(0:39:43) I feel like, you know, give me a Wikipedia page or something, you know, give me something to at least document his firsts as an African-American man in Connecticut doing these things.
(0:40:00) things it it it should be somewhere right and I guess that was my main thought and I thought that years ago years before he died I was thinking to myself not that I never believed him my father could spin some tails and I was like that’s wild you know
(0:40:27) And I’d love to be able to look that up or share it with people and say, oh, you know, my father was a part of this or my father was a part of that. And there’s no way I can.
(0:40:40) So it started really there, just like me wanting to share these things, being proud of the things he did and wanting to share them on social media, educating people about the kinds of things that my father was involved in that were a part of history. But I can’t. The information isn’t there to be able to educate people about. So I want to be able to provide that.
(0:41:08) I want to be able to provide that for people who, I guess, like me, look things up in a traditional way. So I can point to those things and say, oh, you want to learn about this? Here it is. Just like my father used to tell me, if you want to know, look it up in the encyclopedia. Go downstairs, look it up. Go to the library, check out a book, right? That’s awesome.
(0:41:31) So being able to share a URL about something my father did or it’s part of the education process. It’s part of sharing the legacy, but teaching the importance of. I’m not going to call them little things, but I guess the people that were in the background that significantly moved.
(0:41:56) change, significantly move the dial, right? But you never hear about them. Those people need to be seen and heard and documented, especially now with things getting erased. I want to create new content that showcases those things, those important people.
(0:42:18) I can’t think of a better place to wrap this. But is there anything you’d like to share about the library that we haven’t yet discussed? I guess only that when I was looking up information about this project and you were telling me about it and I thought about it and I’m like, it’s so interesting to me because
(0:42:50) Again, on social media, I share a lot about my past and my life and my traumas. And I talk about the library all the time. Anybody that follows me on social media already knows all my stories about being in the library and finding peace there.
(0:43:09) And I think that while libraries are still in existence, thank God, and I hope that they still will be for a time to come, I feel like people still use them as sanctuaries. And I think that that’s so incredibly valuable. And I understand what that’s like. And I also recognize the pain
(0:43:33) involved in needing a sanctuary, needing a place where you feel like you belong, where you can be in a quiet place where you’re not being judged, you’re not being bullied, you’re not being told you’re not good enough. And you can escape into books or movies or whatever it is. And libraries to me were church. I was not a church person.
(0:44:01) But the library was my church. Absolutely. I can say that without any kind of exaggeration. Walking into those spaces and into that silence and being among those stacks of books, sometimes I would just sit on the floor between the stacks and just zone out. Hmm.
(0:44:24) I like to think that the libraries will remain sanctuaries, not just places of learning and education, but places where people can feel safe and learn about themselves through the stories of other people.
(0:44:41) Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is awesome. This is awesome. Thank you. Speak so well. Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Very layered.