TOW #10: "Vanishing: The Anxiety of Geography & Genetics" by Leslie Tucker

     Leslie Tucker ponders the structure of modern family life in her essay "Vanishing: The Anxiety of Geography & Genetics." Published on Hippocampus Magazine, an online creative non-fiction magazine, this essay is meant for aspiring creative non-fiction writers. Tucker begins her essay with the memories about Mother's Day in 1976. Three generations of her family celebrated that holiday together: her parents, her children, and she and her husband "sat outdoors around the dinner table and focused on each other's faces" (para. 41). Tucker also emphasizes the lack of technological distractions at that time, describing that Mother's Day as "A time when none of us clutched small devices to distract us from the momentary present, a time when we sat still and paid attention to what was said at the table, even if we were bored" (para. 41). Throughout the essay, Tucker also adds that thee introduction of technology not only removes the intimacy around the dinner table, but also the intimacy around general family relationships. She includes her own example of how her daughters live across the country from her and because of this distance, she feels that she cannot connect with her grandchildren. Although Tucker owns more digital pictures of her grandchildren than her father ever owned of her own children, she felt that it was not the same because "he witnessed the events portrayed in his photos, lived them in real time" (para. 18).
     Tucker, who has been published in many works, including The Baltimore Review and Shenandoah Magazine, effectively accomplishes her purpose of demonstrating the importance of close family life. She accomplishes this purpose through her use of personal anecdotes and imagery. In this essay, she includes stories about her grandson, Gus, and how she feels that she cannot ever get to know him fully because she lives so far away from him. Tucker's vivid imagery describes her setting, and how benign she once felt around her whole family. This benevolent image fully juxtaposes with the emptiness she feels as an adult, far away from her family. In her essay about the difference between old and modern family relationships, Leslie Tucker achieves her purpose of illustrating the importance of family life through her use of personal anecdotes and imagery.