Writing Class

Here's what I'm reading today at Writing Class -

Creating the Story

I remember the time, shortly after I had gotten my driver’s license, my parents gave me permission to drive to the town of 30,000 people, thirty five minutes away. My friend and I wanted to see a movie in the big theater; I think it had three screens. It was a big deal.

And I thought I was a big deal. In fact after purchasing our ticket we didn’t wait for our show to start; we unhooked the luxurious velvet rope, even though it was guarded by a young man no older than ourselves, and walked in to the theater where our film was just finishing. My friend and I were of the mind that our ticket would allow us to see the end, the entire and maybe an all day viewing with that one purchase price. No one stopped us, no one ran us out, as I’m sure they thought two little country bumpkins come to town, what harm can they do.

Then there was the time in high school and the item of fashion was a skort. It was a panel in front and back over shorts. They were the rage. On a field trip to West Branch, as we were in the restroom, my friend accidentally let the back panel drop in the toilet water. We screamed with shock, laughter, and overall mayhem. Our teacher, male, was helpless to stop the chaos from outside the door. To this day I don’t remember if she walked out with a wet back panel or if we were able to get it dry.

I tell these things not to prove my idiocy, even though it doesn’t leave much doubt, but to be examples of what we remember in our lives are not always the soft, touching moments. Oh, we do reminisce on the sweetness of our life, but those are often recalled as whole times, universal truths, unmarked recollections. It’s these moments of unabashed conduct that maintain significance in our history of self. These are the stories we frame into a comical tale more than once and with increasing embellishments.

It’s the foibles, the blemishes on what we want to be a perfect occasion that create the story. It’s not the idyllic.  Life is full of tarnishes on what is often projected as silver lining. Maybe this is why some people in the throes of bedlam, where everything seems to be going haywire, wanting perfection, but finding it desperately far from their grasp realize this: this moment is the memory.

And so with words, words that may flow or words that may get replaced with each telling, we cement this memory and it weaves a life’s history, a personality in the making, a human in being. Each of these moments shape a part that somehow jigsaws to a whole; whether idiotic or flawless and it creates the story.