I do hope to maintain a certain public presence with my writing and have something to share with the digital presence of my kindred spirits. Toward my goal of becoming a more aware and insightful author, I have invested in The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing.
Progress has been slow, but hopefully will remain steady. I love that this book reads like a self-help, laymen's terms guide but includes exercises to help spark intuitive thinking. My answers to such exercises I will try to include here. But I still very much recommend the book given what I've read so far!
1: I don't know why I remember...
I don't know why I remember an adventurous afternoon with a friend. This is not a tale about how I first met my lifelong bestie, or the fallout that made me lose faith in others. In fact, we have perhaps one of the most mundane sorts of friendships. Distance and time brought us together on the long bus ride to a magnet school, and by distance and time we were parted when I moved away. But I will always remember her whimsical and fiery spirit, unlike anything I had known or expected. As a quiet and reserved girl, raised in a complete and traditional family, I never broke the rules. I was born and raised with parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all within minutes. Yet here was this unbridled energy, hailing from across the ocean. It seemed she didn't know how to erase a smile from her freckled, Ukrainian face. She had a love that was intense, full of hugs and laughter at every turn. In my family, we hugged our parents for sure, but it was a thing more reserved for hellos and goodbyes, a public display of familial bonds. For her, it seemed to be a life source. No one was exempt.
She once had a hamster. The hamster also seemed to have a zest for life that was simply too much for its tiny body. It escaped from its cage and into a bowl of chocolates. No need to tell the rest of the hamster's tale. She grieved as a child would, but that was not a process to which I was privy. But even some time after the initial loss as we played and laughed at her home, she had the sudden notion to take a trip. I had been taught never to leave the house without supervision, but how could I deny a girl on a mission. I followed as we frolicked out the door, locked up, ran down the street, around a moat-like ditch and jumped the fence into a playground. I was nervous, looking over my shoulder as if my mother should pop out from behind a tree and send me home. I was excited, my breath quick from the sprinting and the cool autumn air. I wondered where we were going and how far. I didn't ask. My words would betray my mother in asking where to, or my own desires by asking to turn back. We ran past the playground, and jumped the opposite fence out. We slowed to a walk, following the length of the man-made ditch that lined the road. This I surely knew my mother would disapprove of, two girls walking near the road to no where.
We jumped a chain fence and crossed into a small cemetery. My curiosity was truly piqued at this
point. Why on Earth should we come here? I watched her pale figure slow to a purposeful walk and continue on, as if she were a ghost who had lived here all along. Her long blonde hair blew back as she knelt by a bush in the corner of the lot. We were not there for a person it seemed, but a much smaller grave. She had buried her hamster here under a cross made of twigs. She began speaking out loud, her voice nearly mimicking a sad lament and I wondered if that was as much as she was capable of, the fire and joy never more than a breath away. She was loud and theatric, her words for her lost friend overlaid with drama her new one. She ended with a quick, but heartfelt "I'll miss you, Goodbye." After which we frolicked back home just the same way we came.
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