A writing exercise
I’ve been writing down some prose snippets recently, something I wrote on the train, something I wrote on the flight to Seattle, something I wrote while waiting for a Fringe show. Most of my little notebooks have been filled more with notes about the performances I’m seeing, than personal works, but there’s one I started that I’m enjoying incredibly- something unheimlich, something that recalls the lighthearted frivolity of childhood while exploring the darkness of adulthood. Something dark and hopeful, which is kind of where I am right now.
As my best friend once told me, there are storytellers and there are literary architects (I’m fairly sure she had a different term for the latter one- craftsmen, perhaps?), and I’m one of the latter. Stories don’t come smoothly or easily from me, but I build so much into the ones I do write- I think my experiences watching spoken word and trying to perform it myself are helping me understand the former characteristic of writing better. The best writers and performers have aspects of both in them.
The piece that I’m happily working on right now is still rolling along, so I’m going to bite my tongue on that one, but I’ll share a snippet of something else from my little notebook.
Lake Stairs (inspired by reading too much Paul Auster)
The stairs down to Lake Hiawatha are too long, and where stairs too shallow make a person terrified they will fall- toes or heels always protruding over the edge, a set of stairs too deep mean always stepping down with the same foot. A hale and whole person, a young woman who has never broken a leg or twisted an ankle, will find the limping gait of one leg forward, one leg down disconcerting, as if on her way to the lake, bathing suit and sunglasses, she has instead stepped straight into old age, a feeling the sand and sun quickly burn away.
I see this as the beginning of a piece about the failings of the body, which, I’d have a hard time writing as someone who hasn’t ever broken bones, gotten stitches, needed glasses, had wisdom teeth, needed braces, or had any significant illnesses (and subsequently, has avoided all doctors). Perhaps the failings are not so much in the body as in the “soul”. I’m pretty sure I’ve got plenty of those to draw on as inspiration.
