Danielle Chapman: How Do You Inherit a Legacy You Can't Defend?

**Lee C. Camp** (0:02)
I'm Lee C. Camp. This is No Small Endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.

**Danielle Chapman** (0:10)
My father was a marine who was stationed in Okinawa, and my mother and father were scuba diving. There was an earthquake, and it caused a small tsunami. They basically became trapped not too far out from the shore.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:29)
That's poet Danielle Chapman describing the opening chapter of her recent memoir entitled Holler, A Poet Among Patriots.

**Danielle Chapman** (0:38)
I remember it amazingly. I mean, I was less than three years old, but I was with a babysitter and watched from shore as they just repeatedly were pushed underwater and came back up.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:52)
Though Danielle has her own memories of the event all these years later, it's her mother's retelling that has become etched into her mind. At once a tragedy, a religious experience, an unfathomable loss, and a kind of origin myth rolled all into one.

**Danielle Chapman** (1:09)
When it first started, they realized something was wrong and they were holding hands, and they'd have to struggle to the top. When they got to the top together, he would say, just keep holding hands, just don't let go, just get back to the top and breathe.
And then at a certain point, his hand got ripped out of hers. And so she said at that point, she just kind of despaired and thought she wanted to die.

**Lee C. Camp** (1:37)
Danielle's mother had been raised in the church. By this point in her life, she had largely left her faith behind.
But here, a drift on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

**Danielle Chapman** (1:47)
She felt like she got buoyed up into the water and she started hearing the hymns from childhood come back to her. She described her limbs being kind of filled with light as she was lifted up on the water and that was what she credited with keeping her alive.

**Lee C. Camp** (2:07)
Danielle describes her mother's recitation of this story as a kind of christening in her ultimate vocation as a poet. That recitation seemed to search for a container that could somehow indicate the horrifying loss they shared, but one which they did not know how to grieve.

**Danielle Chapman** (2:25)
We have so much language now about trauma, but I don't think we really had that so much 40 some years ago when my mother was telling me this story. And I think on some level, what was being conveyed to me was just her life force, the absolute fact that she had lived.

**Lee C. Camp** (2:47)
Danielle's newly widowed mother, along with three-year-old Danielle, were retrieved from Okinawa by Danielle's paternal grandfather, a four-star general decorated veteran and a former commandant of the United States Marine Corps. They made their way to Alexandria, Virginia to live for a while with her grandfather, that decorated veteran and his wife, a former Birmingham debutante who was herself suffering with PTSD from the trauma she had endured during World War II and the hardships of her husband's long tenure that also included Vietnam. It was here in the bosom of a stoic military family that Danielle first became immersed in the complex folklore of the American South and fascinated with the stories that we tell ourselves and each other about a past that we cannot fully face or understand.
So begins Danielle's memoir, Holler, A Poet Among Patriots, A Fascinating Exploration of Trauma, Inheritance, and American History.

**Danielle Chapman** (3:51)
A Holler in the South is that place on the riverbank that you're not supposed to go. So on some place it's the tangled area that holds the darkness and holds the secrets. But of course it's also a primal yell.
Maybe it's what every writer feels when they're dealing with family sort of secrets or silences that it's better to leave it alone. You don't want to uncover something that you might not be able to handle.

**Lee C. Camp** (4:20)
Today, my conversation with Danielle Chapman.
Hey friends, Lee here. If you enjoy our conversations at the intersection of faith, purpose, and living well, then I have the perfect podcast recommendation for you, With and For, hosted by Dr. Pam King.
With and For's latest season brings together psychology and spiritual wisdom in a way that feels thoughtful, grounded, deeply human, and it's hosted by my friend Dr. Pam King, a developmental psychologist and ordained minister who offers practical guidance towards a life of thriving. I'd recommend starting with their episode featuring Parker J. Palmer, world-renowned writer, speaker, activist, Quaker elder, who focuses on issues in education, spirituality, and social change. A moving and instructive conversation, can't recommend it enough. Also, check out With and For's special summer series of wisdom practices, released each Monday. They're short exercises shared by guests that will become a toolkit for thriving. Consider them your experiment in becoming more fully alive. So go ahead, follow With and For, hosted by Dr. Pam King, wherever you're listening now.