Reflections on the Story

There has been a story trodding through my mind for years. I've tried to, here and there, capture thoughts and ideas, on slips of paper and notes in my iPhone, but I've always avoided sitting down to write it. When a friend (and colleague) told me about the Slice of Life challenge, I decided that now was the moment to do this. The story is a complex web in my head and 31 days of forced writing would help me untangle the web.

The first four days were invigorating. I was on a high and the words flowed. Now, on Day 5, I'm already stuck. I've started and restarted and thrown away so many drafts today. So instead of continuing the story, I'm taking Day 5 to reflect on some of what brought me to this story in the first place. For that I must go way back to my teenage days...

The Internet was relatively new, at least in rural Montana, so I must have been in 8th or 9th grade--13 or 14 years old. While other boys my age were searching for jpegs of boobs, I used my first moment of online privacy to search my own name. Well, not my name exactly. My father's name. We have the same name. Had. We had the same name. Before he died.

At 13, the Internet seemed immense and unfathomable. Anything and everything was out there. You just needed the right search words. With the correct combination of letters, anything could be discovered. The Internet was the answer. And if anything is possible, then it was possible that my dad was not really dead. And obviously, the Internet held the answer to this unsolved mystery.

Our dial-up connection loaded, pixel by painfully-slow-pixel, my father's death certificate from the state of Montana. The local newspaper had an archive to his obituary. With each bit of information scavenged from the Internet, I became more hopeful that he was still alive, wandering around, out there somewhere.

In retrospect, I see that I was mistaking the evidence that he had lived as evidence for his still being alive. But up until that point, my father, to me, had only been dead. He was gone before I turned four and I was unsure of the credibility of the few memories I held. To remember him alive was not something that I could reliably do, not something that happened in our home. To even imagine him alive had not happened until that first Internet search. Dead was his state of being. For me, dead was the only way he had been.

But that obituary was proof that he had been alive and for a 13 year old (and even a 36 year old on some days), it wasn't hard to make the leap--if he had been alive, he could be alive. So I searched and interpreted information to the contrary as evidence of his life, his living. There was never enough information to push beyond the realm of imagining...but what if there had been?

What if I had found real evidence, legitimate clues? Where might that have led? An adventure no doubt. How could chasing that false hope help me to grieve, to deal, to grow? I decided to compose a completely fictionalized version of this. To create a child who actually found the clues that I so desperately hoped for and follow her on that adventure. I'd give her a trusty (and sometimes nettlesome) sidekick who was searching for his father, in his own way, too. I'd place them in a setting that is beautiful and confusing and ripe with history, tradition, and wise characters.

For 31 days in March, I want to set them loose and see what will happen. Here's hoping that the adventure survives past Day 5!

Comments

  1. A touching and poignant reflection. I am inspired. Reflection is underestimated. Stepping back to step forward. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alex this is beautiful. Emotional and really shares some searching thoughts and feelings. Writing is wonderful in that way, it awakens our true being with words. I enjoyed this slice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I admire your determination to transform your experience and sorrow into a story. I hope that what you've written so far has helped to "untangle the web." As Rajikins said, this is a touching and poignant reflection.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am so impressed with your ability to untangle these webs and piece together this master story. I can only imagine how enthralling, scary, and energizing it must be - possibly all at the same time! I look forward to popping back in to see how your story emerges. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The assortment of details, funny and serious, in paragraph three are sticking with me. Your thoughts on the resonance of a shared name made me recall _The Other Wes Moore_, which I recommend if you haven't yet read it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Okay, I'm beginning to understand your process more and more now with this. I mean, how in the world could you possibly write such a tight plot on the spot without having pre-sketched it out for a looooooong time in your own head. This makes total sense to me now. I've done the same but never on this level of commitment. Write everyday, yes. Write the same story every day to see how it develops AND post it for others (outside of say a writing class) to read? That's bold. I have a good feeling it about it though.

    Sidenote - ever taken part in NaNoWriMo? That's exactly what you're doing here but without the daily posts which elicits instant (or belated, in my case) feedback. Sort of the honor code until you hit 50,000 words, then you post, but just a word count. Comes with perks as you develop your fiction writing muscle further. Just something to check out if you never have before.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's crazy that you mention NaNoWriMo because I former colleague (who has no idea that I'm trying to write) just mentioned it to me today! It must be the universe telling me something, right? I'd never heard of it before.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

to Mrs. McCurdie

to Redemption

to Wild Places