I'm just adding on the the memoir I began in class. Honestly, I don't even know if this is a memoir. It's just part of a blur that I remember so distinctly, I figured I'd write about it. Here goes nothing..
And we were sitting in his car, parked outside my house. His car smelled like him - like grass and laundry detergent and that faint new car smell. Our song was playing softly on the radio, but it wasn't our song yet. He mumbled something about having a good time and I smiled, fumbling trying to find the handle on the car door. I knew that when I would get out of the car I would be able to see my breath, and suddenly my front door seemed so far away. I brushed my lips against his right cheek and whispered, "Thanks." I pulled back quickly, fumbling with the door (again) when he pressed his warm, boyish lips against mine. I pulled away, shook my head and said "Brian." The name of his best friend. And mine. And the person who would be most upset by the past minute and a half we had shared. I threw open the door and ran up the front steps as he called after me, "Kristina. Stop. We need to talk about this.. what just happened." A lump formed in my throat as I slammed my front door shut. I couldn't talk. My lips had made enough mistakes for one night.
PS. Are we supposed to write a different memoir from the one we started in class? Should I bring a different one to class on Monday?
The (very summarized and not overly complicated) memoir of Martha Lee Anne:
I was born on Valentine’s day, 1988. I was named Martha Lee Anne after my Grannie. I grew up in Monroeville, Alabama with two older brothers, and a mom and dad who loved each other. I grew up going to church. I grew up eating friend chicken, and cornbread, and pink eye purple hull peas. I grew up wondering what super power I would have in middle school. I had my heart broken, like everyone else growing up, and not necessarily because of a boy. I grew up wanting to be a writer. I grew up. The End.
I don’t even know where I would begin to write a memoir. It’s easy for me to read the memoirs of others and think, wow that was inspiring, amazing, brilliant! But when it comes to exchanging details of my life, I feel like they are quite average and unremarkable things. My family finds everything I do remarkable, but that’s because I belong to them; to the rest of the world, I’m just Martha, or better yet, I’m just a nameless number in a United States population count.
I remember a time I was riding in the car with my dad, I can’t remember where we were going or why we were in my car, but we were having one of our talks, and he said, “Martha, when people we love die or when something goes wrong in our lives, the world doesn’t hiccup.” I found that shattering.
I was born on Valentine’s day, 1988 (and the world didn’t hiccup). I had my heart broken, not necessarily by a boy (and the world didn’t hiccup). I grew up (and the world didn’t hiccup).
The world didn’t save my tears in glass bottles, or flap its arms with me when I attempted to fly off of my front porch when I was seven, but at the time, I really thought it did. When Bigdaddy died, I really believed that everyone knew it, but I realized sooner than later that when Bigdaddy died, someone else was having a birthday, and they were laughing, and opening presents, and popping balloons shaped like dogs; and someone just had a baby, laughing at their little fingers and toes; and someone was dying, and they’re loved ones were too consumed by grief to even consider the person’s birthday, the person’s newborn baby, and my Bigdaddy’s death.
This may all seem trivial, but a memoir seems to me like one of those small moments that- though remarkable to some- are lost in the hiccup of the world. And I guess my question is, how can I, the little number that I am, write something that people will read, and not just read, but want to read? Because I find that we’re so concerned with our day-to-day lives, that we aren’t all that aware of the memoirs taking place around us, unless, somehow, their memoirs is our memoir. I think this is how I would write my memoir if I were to write one. In “Red Sky at Morning,” the writer didn’t just tell her story, she told her story through someone else’s story. Her memoir was the memoir of someone else. The writer talked about writing to people’s hearts, to people’s hearts not at people’s hearts. People want to feel real things, and see real things, and hear real things. There are plenty of real things that connect us all to one another: A broken heart, the loss of a loved one, the crush down the street, the back stab, the childhood dream. And if these things were in a memoir, I think people wouldn’t just read them, they would embrace them, because they know them. Does that make sense at all, or have I gone over the deep end?
I don’t think writing a memoir is supposed to be about us: I don’t think it’s about when we were born, when we graduated, or what church we went to growing up. I think writing a memoir is about taking the most human, painful, happiest, and secret parts of our lives, and sharing them with others, but in a way that our story could be their story, and because it could be their story, they understand. I think the most beautiful stories, the most memorable stories, are the ones that we all connect to, and if I could write a memoir that reached into other people’s lives, maybe then, they wouldn’t hiccup.
She couldn't find the words to say. The innocent one had been said to be suspect. People knew the truth but it was her fight. The dragon thrashed about to cut into her. Tears streamed down her face, letting out this foreign emotion. Fright. The innocent one.
I am not sure I can call this a memoir because it's too recent. Have you ever had everything you ever wanted? Not worldly things, but rather, emotional things? I had him, I had it, and I had the greatest thing...happiness. I see my life finally falling into place but with one swift moment it could all come tumbling down. The threat is there, and it's a wait in progress.
Having everything we ever wanted and having happiness, and then watching it all tumble down seems like a weekly if not daily ritual. It's all the stuff that goes into memoirs and blogs and journals, and the stuff we build from or change from, the things we resent and the stuff we yearn for.
An interesting philosophy on everything in our lives comes from one of my favorite books, "The Noticer", by Andy Andrews. Basically an old drifter comes through the town and teaches everyone that your life/situation is all dependent upon your 'perspective' of your life/situation. One of my favorite moments in the book is when the old man is talking with a homeless college-aged young man who is living under a beach pier, and the old man shares a "feast" of vienna sausages and sardines with the kid and says that they're eating surf and turf with an ocean view.
Having the right perspective on our life completely defines who we are and what we do and who we become. So obtaining happiness and everything we ever wanted can all be achieved by having the right perspective on our place in life.
I'm not shelling out an astronomical amount of cash in out-of-state tuition to Auburn University. I'm making an investment in myself, to learn and do the things I want to do, at the place I love to live in.
I don’t know about everyone else but I love the raw truth that comes out of reading someone memoirs. I love to hear people’s stories and find ways to relate. I think reading others memoirs and stories are a way that we as humans connect to each other. We lay down our most precious possessions unprotected for the public to see, and yet these are some of the stories that captivate and inspire the most. Why? I believe because it is one human being relating to another and somehow this connection becomes something much too precious to just disregard. One thing I loved about the stories that we read was that they were so bare and the plane truth. I feel that many times this memories cause us to use our own senses and so in this they become too real and vibrant.
I related to “Red Sky Morning” because I feel that I too look at people and notice their interactions. It is so funny to me that some of the people I have never even spoke to have become the inspiration for much in my life. For example I remember sitting in an airport terminal waiting a board a plane to Europe where I would be spending a month of my summer vacation. I had just finished my freshmen year of college and was dealing with the changes that lay ahead of me. I remember just getting off the phone with my then boyfriend realizing that it was probably the last time that I would talk to him for a month. I knew that when I came home things would be so different between us. I knew at that point that what we had was hanging on by a very fragile thread that seemed to be getting thinner everyday and I was just holding my breath waiting for it to break. After hanging up the phone with him I remember thinking back on our old relationship and wishing that it would somehow go back to the way it was but knowing it would not. I was snapped out of my day dream by the sound of a man voice on his cell phone. I couldn’t help but over hear is conversation. He was talking to someone telling them about his plan to fly to Paris and surprise his girlfriend and ask her to marry him. He talked about where he would ask her how he had gotten the ring and how he couldn’t wait for the plane to take off so he could be there. Sitting there in my seat I remember thinking how lucky she was. Her relationship was moving to a new exciting place. Isn’t so funny we can remember such important details about people we have never met and how they impact us.
Concert. Friday night, Little Texas, AL. Starry, cold, moonlit night. 8 Friends, some old, some new. One blanket to sit on. 2 bands.
Maybe I can stitch these together.
I come back to music and art over and over again. I realized Friday night that my favorite music is played by people that I know. This isn't because of the quality of the music they play (although many of my friends amaze me with their talent), rather, it's because I have a deep connection to their work. I have memories built into the words they glue together with sound.
I had been excited about this concert for months. I thought it was because of how much I loved the music that was being made, but Friday I realized this was wrong. Fact is, I spent a month around the musicians who were playing the opening act. The stories behind their songs are ingrained in my memories. The sound they produce is the soundtrack to a month of my life.
It was the longest I had been away from home. I left the day after graduating high school, and I rode up to North Carolina with a guy who was a senior in college who I met as I was getting in his car. 5 weeks of camp. I realized my independence. I worked 6 days a week as a server in a dining hall and I didn't get paid a dollar to do it. I learned to give and to serve.
That month changed so much about my perspective on the world around me. When I came home, nothing had changed, but I had. I couldn't share everything about that month with other people, because sometimes the stories don't capture the experience. I've tried again and again to share that month, but I always fail.
Friday I had a chance to relive it in an hour. The music brought back through that experience. Through that month. That concert on a starry, cold, moonlit Friday night in Little Texas, AL was great for me to share with 8 friends, some old, and some new. Sharing the blanket and the music was about as close to actually sharing that month with someone as I've ever been, but they don't even know it; because they don't know that I was living 5 years ago on Friday night.
I don’t necessarily believe happiness comes from our perspective. There are things that happen to people that perspective cannot change (death, rape, disease…). I also don’t necessarily believe we gain everything and lose it all on a daily basis. No doubt there are moments when we may lose everything, but it’s so painful because we’ve spent a lifetime acquiring it. It’s almost magical how we can read these memoirs and feel the author’s conviction as they reflect on their experiences, and how we can think back to an almost a parallel moment in our own lives. No matter how mad we get with Balcita about the dumplings, we understand why she did it. Just skimming Red Sky at Morning I can’t help but think of all the stories I could tell, and why they never look as good on paper when I just write the story. When an author begins with, “Years ago, in another life…” you know their life and experience has led up to there, and now they know, and now they can share it with you in a way that you will know too. What’s so beautiful about a memoir is the different perspectives we can appreciate. It also makes me think about that moment when you are telling a story to someone, and suddenly halfway through you realize it really isn’t that great of a story and you wonder why you began telling it to begin with. That’s usually when I mumble something like, “I guess you had to be there,” and try and change the subject. Memoirs though, at least in the good ones, I do feel like I’m there. Maybe it has something to do with the freedom and honesty the author is allowed, the simple account of something that happened and all with the necessary background and reflection.
I was in a dream, some would call it a nightmare, I would call it an experience of a lifetime. I was in one of those deep sleeps where almost nothing could wake you up. However, I remembered that I had a little too much water with dinner and a few too many glasses of milk with my cookies. They were damn good cookies though.
I woke up and sprinted to the bathroom like a gazelle. When you really have to go, it might possibly be one of the best feelings in the world when you actually get your opportunity. I had mine and I went for it and it was joyous. I started, but I quickly realized, this doesn't look like my bathroom... I was still in bed and my sprint to the bathroom was all part of the dream. For some reason when you pee the bed, it always turns out to be the most liquid you have ever seen in one place before. Most people would take the sheets directly to the washing machine, but no, I threw them in the shower and was busted instantly.
I was 13 years old, in the 8th grade, and I peed the bed and I am not ashamed to spread the word.
My sister and I sat in the back of the powder blue truck, holding on to the rail. “Dixieland Delight” was coming out of the cab when my grandpa at each of the two lights in Hanceville, Alabama. It was the summer of 1998, and I was ten years old, my sister was eight. The back of the truck was our mode of transportation or the week we stayed at my grandparents’ house. At the time I did not really want to be there and hated the fact that all there was to do was be outside, fish and ride four wheelers.
Now I would give anything to go back to those days – no worries, just roaming the hills and gathering freckles on our noses until the sun set, when we would come in to a home-cooked meal and chocolate pie. I learned so much during that time without even knowing I was learning. I learnt through living. And it was only after writing about those memories, after sitting and articulating those lessons that I started to realize how much those experiences had taught me.
Writing a memoir is a selfish thing to do. The memoirist gets the opportunity to reflect on his/her individual experiences and relate it back to the scope of his/her life. For me, it was those muggy, hot summer days where I learned about love, family and the importance of bug spray. Catching lightning bugs every night just to watch them for hours light up the mason jars. Picking apples and sitting under the tree for hours, reading, hidden in the canopy of heavy-laden branches. Praying frantically that we would not fly out of the bed of the truck as my grandpa swerved on the curvy county roads- all these experiences make me who I am- and the memoir is the vessel I can use to explore how they did so.
See... I really love all of the posts above me, and for so many different reasons. And I think I'll talk about that instead, since we've got free reign over this particular blog entry.
Plus, that's what memoirs are about, right? Taking our own experiences-- our triumphs and failures, such as they are-- and trying to make them matter to other people. Trying to get others to relate, somehow, to that time you were accidentally left at the restaurant by your parents on vacation. As people we are desperate to connect our threads to others’; we want someone to pull at our seams just so we have an excuse for our own unraveling. I love that. I think it’s beautiful.
The thing is that we live in a society where it’s all about the “I.” Things are only good or useful so far as they are fortuitous to us individually. We’re obsessed with ourselves—hence, memoirs. This isn’t passing judgment; I only know it’s true because I’m the one who does it. I’m reading all these lovely blog posts, beautiful in their own right, and thinking about what I can say to them. I’m thinking about what they have to do with me, but it’s infinitely more delightful to think about what they have to do with you—what this story tells me (the reader, both personal and impersonal) about the kind of person you are, about the risks you’re willing to take and the things you find important, about the loves and losses you’ve suffered. There is beauty to your story because it’s yours. Not all of my life needs to be about me…and that’s kind of a relief, ‘cause ya’ll have a lot more to teach me than I could hope to learn on my own.
"You know someone loves you by the way they say your name. Your name feels safe in their mouth." ~anonymous small child I kind of feel the same way about my memories. They are my most precious possession; they make me who I am and influence who I will become. Why would I share them with someone whose mouths and hearts I don't know they would be safe in? How would I ever make someone who I don't share a love bond with see the beauty of that field of daffodils, or feel the chill as my friends and I climbed out of the lake that star-strewn night and struggled to get a fire going from pine needles and bark? How would they ever understand the heartaches and joys of my existence? How would I ever forgive them for super-imposing their own story over mine? No, I could tell you stories, but I won't do that to my memories. They are mine, and I shan't abandon them to the harsh, unforgiving internet. They shall stay with me and those who I love. Sorry!
Damn, I got nothin'. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't have any good stories, or at least not any that are worth telling. All of my memories are either entirely too private to tell, or too mundane to bear. Getting drunk couldn't even get anything good out of me. Was worth a shot, though.
"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students." Thoreau
I think someone told me that the sun pulls energy stuff into its core before exploding it back to the surface. I think they said that that’s where the heat comes from—the pulling in and exploding out. I hope that’s accurate because it works out well as a type of illustration, or rhetorical tool, or literary something to do with how my memoir would flow. If told chronologically, or if fragmented into relevant occurrences, the theme would appear to be the same: The outside being pulled in, causing splitting or combining which explodes from the surface. The sun’s identity, which I consider to mean, “what the sun is perceived to be by others”, is a source of light and heat. Obviously there are thousands of deeper understandings of this yellow circle, spiritual types of identities assigned to its qualities, but universally the heat and light thing seems a pretty safe assumption. I realize that the couple of you, the brave ones, who still read my posts, may be scrunching your faces or asking yourselves if I really intended to compare myself to the provider of such necessities as heat and light. Well you should un-scrunch. I did intend, but perhaps the following self-depreciation will suffice as compensation:
It’s impossible for me to separate my “identity” from my memoir. I don’t believe in integrity. I don’t think anything that goes unnoticed “counts” for anything. Obviously I understand why it’s said that “the measure a man is how he behaves when he isn’t being observed”, but isn’t there an obvious flaw with such a standard? If he is unseen, then there is not detriment or benefit to or for others. And if there is neither of those, then there is no existence…because existence is proved only by those other that the exist-er. If Tom Hanks were born on that island, somehow without a mother, and died before anyone witnessed his living, then I say he did not exist—prove to me otherwise? And if you say foot-prints, or a volleyball which may be found, I say that you proved an existence, but not Tom’s. (I find it critical to point out that Tom Hanks may be of virgin birth, and that the reference to “Wilson”, by Wilson, is very clever) The point of all the existence stuff is that I’m obsessed with existence stuff. I thrash about, swiping and clawing, yelling and farting, hoping that someone will notice anything—even my stench. I know I wrote that last sentence, but I’m not sure I totally agree with it. I think my conscious wants to be Gandhi, but my sub-conscious would settle for Nero. I walk about, thinking I’m loving and saving, but there’s a hell of a lot of angry people in the rear-view. And in many of their cases it appears as though I was intentionally horrible. This is where everything comes together; the cold red wine, the sun, and the rambling. I take what I think I look like on the outside into my soul. There’s a cluster-fuck in my soul. Then the evil and good is spewed everywhere. I’ve written too much to expound, and I’m enraged at this responses failure. I’m deeply interested in myself. Not just because I think I have good skin-tone, but because I think that there is something universal in my humanity. I think that the key to your safety, or possibly even your betterment is in my belly—and so I madly scrutinize my vomit and bile—hoping my shit has finally redeemed itself.
It’s impossible for me to separate my “identity” from my memoir. I don’t believe in integrity. I don’t think anything that goes unnoticed “counts” for anything. Obviously I understand why it’s said that “the measure a man is how he behaves when he isn’t being observed”, but isn’t there an obvious flaw with such a standard? If he is unseen, then there is not detriment or benefit to or for others. And if there is neither of those, then there is no existence…because existence is proved only by those other that the exist-er. If Tom Hanks were born on that island, somehow without a mother, and died before anyone witnessed his living, then I say he did not exist—prove to me otherwise? And if you say foot-prints, or a volleyball which may be found, I say that you proved an existence, but not Tom’s. (I find it critical to point out that Tom Hanks may be of virgin birth, and that the reference to “Wilson”, by Wilson, is very clever)
The point of all the existence stuff is that I’m obsessed with existence stuff. I thrash about, swiping and clawing, yelling and farting, hoping that someone will notice anything—even my stench. I know I wrote that last sentence, but I’m not sure I totally agree with it. I think my conscious wants to be Gandhi, but my sub-conscious would settle for Nero. I walk about, thinking I’m loving and saving, but there’s a hell of a lot of angry people in the rear-view. And in many of their cases it appears as though I was intentionally horrible. This is where everything comes together; the cold red wine, the sun, and the rambling. I take what I think I look like on the outside into my soul. There’s a cluster-fuck in my soul. Then the evil and good is spewed everywhere. I’ve written too much to expound, and I’m enraged at this responses failure. I’m deeply interested in myself. Not just because I think I have good skin-tone, but because I think that there is something universal in my humanity. I think that the key to your safety, or possibly even your betterment is in my belly—and so I madly scrutinize my vomit and bile—hoping my shit has finally redeemed itself.
Let us talk about language. After all, it's how we communicate. It's what I'm using now. It's what you're using. Even as we talk or write, whatever it is we are writing or talking about, we live in this world of representation. Language is only a substitute for the "true"; by using language, we remove ourselves from the experience. There is a good and a bad side to this. I will, for the sake of a long and rambling lecture that includes enough Derrida to make you vomit, skip to the good. I think Kristeva says it better than I ever could. She asks, "Why literature? Is it because, faced with social norms, literature reveals a certain knowledge and soemtimes the truth itself about an otherwise repressed, nocturnal, secret, and unconscious universe? ... And because it makes a game, a space of fantasy and pleasure, out of the abstract and frustrating order of social signs, the words of everyday communication?" Literature, the memoir, writing is a utopia, a place through which we access free discourse. It is a resevoir in which we stash and pocket the miserable wretchedness quintessential to human existence. Through writing, in this case the memoir, we are able to remove ourselves, control, and make sense of the horrors of function in an exclusionary system. I will say this again. I am not the O/other in literature or in writing. 'I' am.
“Whatever you do, don’t let Karie know that I am having a party.” I still cannot believe that my 13 year-old self was saying these words. I had been picked on my entire middle school career and I had the chance to be the bigger person, only I didn’t take it. There were six girls that were my age in West Hampton and we all lived just around the corner from each other. In elementary school this was every kid’s dream: all of your best friends living in walking distance. We all would meet at the corner and spend the entire day playing outside, just happy to be together. Once we hit 6th grade, everything changed. For some reason middle school changes girls. Suddenly it’s less about real friends and having a good time and more about make-up, boys, and being popular. I have unfortunately never been considered “cool”, so I was abandoned by several of these girls in their quest to scale the echelons of the Lost Mountain Middle School social ladder. I joined the band. The six of us who were once friends were split into two groups: the haves and the have-nots. What did they have? The cool factor. The bus was divided into halves, dirty looks were exchanged in the hallways, and certain sides of the neighborhood pool were designated “cool” areas. It seems silly now, but back then it was our apartheid. By 8th grade, I just accepted the fact that I never would be “cool”, so I fell in with the band geeks and the two neighborhood girls who remained true and felt pretty good about myself. Then it came time for my 13th birthday party; the official start of my teenage years. I decided to invite everyone that I knew for an evening of fun in my basement playroom. So far things seemed to be going well, even one of the popular girls, Maurielle, said she would come! She had one condition: I couldn’t invite Karie Gottwald. Easy enough, we had never really been friends. The night of the party arrived and everyone, even Maurielle, showed up. We split into teams of two for our neighborhood scavenger hunt. Once you had a partner you were given a list of random items, such as a robin’s egg blue crayon or a green paper clip, and you went around the block ringing on people’s door bells asking them if they had any of these items. The team with the most items won. Maurielle said she would be my partner, and I thought for sure this would put me on the cool map. We attacked the list with precision and determination, scoring 7 out of the 20 items at the first house. We were walking up the street when Maurielle suggested that we stop by the Gottwald’s house. It felt wrong. I didn’t invite her. It would be rude to stop by her house and say that I was having a party. But I didn’t say anything. We rang the doorbell and Karie answered the door. “Happy Birthday, Aly,” she said with her head down, “A couple other people already stopped by. Come on in.” A birthday cake sized lump lodged itself in my throat. How could I have done this to her? Even if we weren’t friends, I should have invited her anyways. Everyone else was invited. She must have felt so left out; just like I had felt so many times before. We collected our items and turned to leave. On our way down the walkway, Mrs. Gottwald called out after us, “You know it isn’t very nice to not invite someone to your party and then show up to their house during it.” We kept walking. I tried to forget about it and have a fun time the rest of the night, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach. The next day after all the guests left, my mom sat me down and told me that Mrs. Gottwald called and that she was so disappointed in me for behaving the way I did. She thought I was different. I had to call Karie and apologize, but things were never quite the same between us again. I had the chance to do the right thing, to involve someone. I knew how much it hurt to not be included. But I became just like the other girls. In my efforts to be “cool”, I became extremely uncool.
I remember this one time, when I was really little, I had this pet billy goat. And I named him William Tell. And William Tell was the best pet billy goat ever. He would run around in the yard and I would chase him. He would eat grass in the summer so I wouldn't ever have to pull out the push-mower. And I would say, "Hey, William! Tell me something good!" And he would bleat really loud like he was talking to me. It was a glorious time in my life.
But then, one day, a man knocked on our door. He said, "I'm so sorry to interrupt you people, but I've afraid I've just run over your pet goat, William Tell." And tears immediately began to fill my eyes. But the man said, "In order to make amends, I would like help you out by replacing your pet goat." And I looked up at him through my tears, wiped my face a little bit, and asked, "Well, sir, first of all, how are you going to do that, and second of all, what are you going to do with the body?" He replied, "I can't tell, but I'll send you the Bill." -Memoir.
I'm not so great as memoiring, but I think it's mainly because I only tell what needs to be told. This is the best I've got, and possibly the only experience in my life that I remember well enough to share over and over again.
I didn't want to call my mother. I didn't know what to say, really. Jon, my boyfriend, thought we should tell her in person, but I decided to email her instead. Less controversial, you know? Or cowardly. Whatever. These were my words:
yesterday i opened the sliding door to my room and forgot to put the piece of wood back to secure it. this morning at 4:00am a guy came into my room through that door. i woke up and heard him talking to me and he was slurring pretty bad. i told him to get out of my room and he asked me something. i got up and told him again to leave. he asked if i would call the cops. i said i will if you do not leave. then he pushed me really hard and i started screaming at the top of my lungs for siobhan. then he pushed my face into my futon. then he tried to strangle me with his arms. it was really scary and i was just thinking, "there is no way i can get away." i started telling God that i trusted him and i needed him and then for no reason at all, the guy let go. he knocked something over and ran back out the open sliding door. i put the wood back in place and went to the front door to make sure it was locked and called jon. while he was on his way Emily, my roommate, sent me a text message asking if i was ok. i went in to check on her. she called 911 and the police got there when jon did, about 5 minutes later. then an investigator, and another cop got a formal statement. they took a bunch of information and got fingerprints and went looking for the guy. they left about 5:45am.
i am totally ok, just was very scared. my throat hurts a little, my voice is scratchy, my chest and back are very sore, and my elbow has a mysterious bruise and soreness. one other scratch on my chest, but other than that i am perfectly ok. jon prayed for me this morning a lot, and i know i will be ok. i am calling the apartment complex this morning to get them to fix my lock, and check the whole complex. it was broken when we moved in, as you might recall.
i hope you will not worry. god is protecting us still.
Today I still pray that God alone will find this person. The pain I felt is a reminder to pray for this lost brother. I doubt I would have survived the nights that followed without my boyfriend's supernatural sensitivity. He even accommodated my most critical period just after it all happened by shielding me from some silly tv show (that was by no means legitimately frightening). At first it seemed I would never be able to sleep in peace again. I forgave the guy immediately, and clinging to that forgiveness and love over retribution and hate, I eventually slept again (with the lights on). I am so thankful for what happened that day – that it happened so that I could learn to deal with fear rational or not, that it happened to me and not my roommates, and that God heard my cry. He really does love us.
I have never been one to cultivate sadness from people...it is not my style. However, when I thought about any memory that has changed my life to the entent that it changed my identity as well...only one came to mind.
It was raining. There was a group of us driving towards the neighboring town. I was wearing polkadot rainboots. It was Sunday. I tried to remain hopeful. I tried to tell myself we were going to look for Bobby...not Bobby's body. But the statistics were burning my mind. He was on a motorcycle...he was last seen two nights ago...no one had heard from him. Things didn't sound good.
We got to the place where the search party was meeting. I remember how it felt to see my friends and the looks on their faces. I could tell everyone wanted to be hopeful...no one really wanted to say what they were thinking. So, everyone was silent. Tears were flowing, but they weren't audible. It was like a bad film that you wanted to turn the sound off of. Until Bobby's twin got there. James wasn't quiet at all. His words were painful to hear and every sob felt like a hand squeezing my chest.
We seperated and searched on the sides of every road. Everytime we got back in the truck I got hopeful. We didn't find him. That was good right? I remember the way the air smelled...wet and pine like. I remember all of us calling and checking in. My phone rang...it was my friend Will. He asked where we were. I started rambling. "We just looked here...then we're gonna look there and maybe..and yeah..." He interrupted me. "Courtney...they found him." "Oh...ok." That's where the memory ends. I can't remember how I got home, how many people said "I'm sorry" or how many hugs I numbly accepted. I can't remember anything until the funeral three days later.
I lost my best friend Bobby. It changed me because now cliches like "Live everyday like it's your last" or "It could happen to anyone" were permanenly instilled in me.
I think about him literally every day and how I want to live like him. Would people send a search party for me? Would my funeral have people standing all the out past the front lobby? I couldn't confidently say "yes." That sorta thing makes you want to make a few changes in yourself you know? Needless to say...the world knew a different version of me and I was never the same.
I'm just adding on the the memoir I began in class. Honestly, I don't even know if this is a memoir. It's just part of a blur that I remember so distinctly, I figured I'd write about it. Here goes nothing..
ReplyDeleteAnd we were sitting in his car, parked outside my house. His car smelled like him - like grass and laundry detergent and that faint new car smell. Our song was playing softly on the radio, but it wasn't our song yet. He mumbled something about having a good time and I smiled, fumbling trying to find the handle on the car door. I knew that when I would get out of the car I would be able to see my breath, and suddenly my front door seemed so far away. I brushed my lips against his right cheek and whispered, "Thanks." I pulled back quickly, fumbling with the door (again) when he pressed his warm, boyish lips against mine. I pulled away, shook my head and said "Brian." The name of his best friend. And mine. And the person who would be most upset by the past minute and a half we had shared. I threw open the door and ran up the front steps as he called after me, "Kristina. Stop. We need to talk about this.. what just happened." A lump formed in my throat as I slammed my front door shut. I couldn't talk. My lips had made enough mistakes for one night.
PS. Are we supposed to write a different memoir from the one we started in class? Should I bring a different one to class on Monday?
The (very summarized and not overly complicated) memoir of Martha Lee Anne:
ReplyDeleteI was born on Valentine’s day, 1988.
I was named Martha Lee Anne after my Grannie.
I grew up in Monroeville, Alabama with two older brothers, and a mom and dad who loved each other.
I grew up going to church.
I grew up eating friend chicken, and cornbread, and pink eye purple hull peas.
I grew up wondering what super power I would have in middle school.
I had my heart broken, like everyone else growing up, and not necessarily because of a boy.
I grew up wanting to be a writer.
I grew up. The End.
I don’t even know where I would begin to write a memoir. It’s easy for me to read the memoirs of others and think, wow that was inspiring, amazing, brilliant! But when it comes to exchanging details of my life, I feel like they are quite average and unremarkable things. My family finds everything I do remarkable, but that’s because I belong to them; to the rest of the world, I’m just Martha, or better yet, I’m just a nameless number in a United States population count.
I remember a time I was riding in the car with my dad, I can’t remember where we were going or why we were in my car, but we were having one of our talks, and he said, “Martha, when people we love die or when something goes wrong in our lives, the world doesn’t hiccup.”
I found that shattering.
I was born on Valentine’s day, 1988 (and the world didn’t hiccup).
I had my heart broken, not necessarily by a boy (and the world didn’t hiccup).
I grew up (and the world didn’t hiccup).
The world didn’t save my tears in glass bottles, or flap its arms with me when I attempted to fly off of my front porch when I was seven, but at the time, I really thought it did. When Bigdaddy died, I really believed that everyone knew it, but I realized sooner than later that when Bigdaddy died, someone else was having a birthday, and they were laughing, and opening presents, and popping balloons shaped like dogs; and someone just had a baby, laughing at their little fingers and toes; and someone was dying, and they’re loved ones were too consumed by grief to even consider the person’s birthday, the person’s newborn baby, and my Bigdaddy’s death.
This may all seem trivial, but a memoir seems to me like one of those small moments that- though remarkable to some- are lost in the hiccup of the world. And I guess my question is, how can I, the little number that I am, write something that people will read, and not just read, but want to read? Because I find that we’re so concerned with our day-to-day lives, that we aren’t all that aware of the memoirs taking place around us, unless, somehow, their memoirs is our memoir.
I think this is how I would write my memoir if I were to write one. In “Red Sky at Morning,” the writer didn’t just tell her story, she told her story through someone else’s story. Her memoir was the memoir of someone else. The writer talked about writing to people’s hearts, to people’s hearts not at people’s hearts. People want to feel real things, and see real things, and hear real things. There are plenty of real things that connect us all to one another: A broken heart, the loss of a loved one, the crush down the street, the back stab, the childhood dream. And if these things were in a memoir, I think people wouldn’t just read them, they would embrace them, because they know them. Does that make sense at all, or have I gone over the deep end?
I don’t think writing a memoir is supposed to be about us: I don’t think it’s about when we were born, when we graduated, or what church we went to growing up. I think writing a memoir is about taking the most human, painful, happiest, and secret parts of our lives, and sharing them with others, but in a way that our story could be their story, and because it could be their story, they understand. I think the most beautiful stories, the most memorable stories, are the ones that we all connect to, and if I could write a memoir that reached into other people’s lives, maybe then, they wouldn’t hiccup.
She couldn't find the words to say.
ReplyDeleteThe innocent one had been said to be suspect.
People knew the truth but it was her fight.
The dragon thrashed about to cut into her.
Tears streamed down her face, letting out this foreign emotion. Fright.
The innocent one.
I am not sure I can call this a memoir because it's too recent. Have you ever had everything you ever wanted? Not worldly things, but rather, emotional things? I had him, I had it, and I had the greatest thing...happiness. I see my life finally falling into place but with one swift moment it could all come tumbling down. The threat is there, and it's a wait in progress.
Having everything we ever wanted and having happiness, and then watching it all tumble down seems like a weekly if not daily ritual. It's all the stuff that goes into memoirs and blogs and journals, and the stuff we build from or change from, the things we resent and the stuff we yearn for.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting philosophy on everything in our lives comes from one of my favorite books, "The Noticer", by Andy Andrews. Basically an old drifter comes through the town and teaches everyone that your life/situation is all dependent upon your 'perspective' of your life/situation. One of my favorite moments in the book is when the old man is talking with a homeless college-aged young man who is living under a beach pier, and the old man shares a "feast" of vienna sausages and sardines with the kid and says that they're eating surf and turf with an ocean view.
Having the right perspective on our life completely defines who we are and what we do and who we become. So obtaining happiness and everything we ever wanted can all be achieved by having the right perspective on our place in life.
I'm not shelling out an astronomical amount of cash in out-of-state tuition to Auburn University. I'm making an investment in myself, to learn and do the things I want to do, at the place I love to live in.
I don’t know about everyone else but I love the raw truth that comes out of reading someone memoirs. I love to hear people’s stories and find ways to relate. I think reading others memoirs and stories are a way that we as humans connect to each other. We lay down our most precious possessions unprotected for the public to see, and yet these are some of the stories that captivate and inspire the most. Why? I believe because it is one human being relating to another and somehow this connection becomes something much too precious to just disregard. One thing I loved about the stories that we read was that they were so bare and the plane truth. I feel that many times this memories cause us to use our own senses and so in this they become too real and vibrant.
ReplyDeleteI related to “Red Sky Morning” because I feel that I too look at people and notice their interactions. It is so funny to me that some of the people I have never even spoke to have become the inspiration for much in my life. For example I remember sitting in an airport terminal waiting a board a plane to Europe where I would be spending a month of my summer vacation. I had just finished my freshmen year of college and was dealing with the changes that lay ahead of me. I remember just getting off the phone with my then boyfriend realizing that it was probably the last time that I would talk to him for a month. I knew that when I came home things would be so different between us. I knew at that point that what we had was hanging on by a very fragile thread that seemed to be getting thinner everyday and I was just holding my breath waiting for it to break. After hanging up the phone with him I remember thinking back on our old relationship and wishing that it would somehow go back to the way it was but knowing it would not. I was snapped out of my day dream by the sound of a man voice on his cell phone. I couldn’t help but over hear is conversation. He was talking to someone telling them about his plan to fly to Paris and surprise his girlfriend and ask her to marry him. He talked about where he would ask her how he had gotten the ring and how he couldn’t wait for the plane to take off so he could be there. Sitting there in my seat I remember thinking how lucky she was. Her relationship was moving to a new exciting place. Isn’t so funny we can remember such important details about people we have never met and how they impact us.
Concert. Friday night, Little Texas, AL. Starry, cold, moonlit night. 8 Friends, some old, some new. One blanket to sit on. 2 bands.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I can stitch these together.
I come back to music and art over and over again. I realized Friday night that my favorite music is played by people that I know. This isn't because of the quality of the music they play (although many of my friends amaze me with their talent), rather, it's because I have a deep connection to their work. I have memories built into the words they glue together with sound.
I had been excited about this concert for months. I thought it was because of how much I loved the music that was being made, but Friday I realized this was wrong. Fact is, I spent a month around the musicians who were playing the opening act. The stories behind their songs are ingrained in my memories. The sound they produce is the soundtrack to a month of my life.
It was the longest I had been away from home. I left the day after graduating high school, and I rode up to North Carolina with a guy who was a senior in college who I met as I was getting in his car. 5 weeks of camp. I realized my independence. I worked 6 days a week as a server in a dining hall and I didn't get paid a dollar to do it. I learned to give and to serve.
That month changed so much about my perspective on the world around me. When I came home, nothing had changed, but I had. I couldn't share everything about that month with other people, because sometimes the stories don't capture the experience. I've tried again and again to share that month, but I always fail.
Friday I had a chance to relive it in an hour. The music brought back through that experience. Through that month. That concert on a starry, cold, moonlit Friday night in Little Texas, AL was great for me to share with 8 friends, some old, and some new. Sharing the blanket and the music was about as close to actually sharing that month with someone as I've ever been, but they don't even know it; because they don't know that I was living 5 years ago on Friday night.
I don’t necessarily believe happiness comes from our perspective. There are things that happen to people that perspective cannot change (death, rape, disease…). I also don’t necessarily believe we gain everything and lose it all on a daily basis. No doubt there are moments when we may lose everything, but it’s so painful because we’ve spent a lifetime acquiring it. It’s almost magical how we can read these memoirs and feel the author’s conviction as they reflect on their experiences, and how we can think back to an almost a parallel moment in our own lives. No matter how mad we get with Balcita about the dumplings, we understand why she did it. Just skimming Red Sky at Morning I can’t help but think of all the stories I could tell, and why they never look as good on paper when I just write the story. When an author begins with, “Years ago, in another life…” you know their life and experience has led up to there, and now they know, and now they can share it with you in a way that you will know too. What’s so beautiful about a memoir is the different perspectives we can appreciate.
ReplyDeleteIt also makes me think about that moment when you are telling a story to someone, and suddenly halfway through you realize it really isn’t that great of a story and you wonder why you began telling it to begin with. That’s usually when I mumble something like, “I guess you had to be there,” and try and change the subject. Memoirs though, at least in the good ones, I do feel like I’m there. Maybe it has something to do with the freedom and honesty the author is allowed, the simple account of something that happened and all with the necessary background and reflection.
I was in a dream, some would call it a nightmare, I would call it an experience of a lifetime. I was in one of those deep sleeps where almost nothing could wake you up. However, I remembered that I had a little too much water with dinner and a few too many glasses of milk with my cookies. They were damn good cookies though.
ReplyDeleteI woke up and sprinted to the bathroom like a gazelle. When you really have to go, it might possibly be one of the best feelings in the world when you actually get your opportunity. I had mine and I went for it and it was joyous. I started, but I quickly realized, this doesn't look like my bathroom... I was still in bed and my sprint to the bathroom was all part of the dream. For some reason when you pee the bed, it always turns out to be the most liquid you have ever seen in one place before. Most people would take the sheets directly to the washing machine, but no, I threw them in the shower and was busted instantly.
I was 13 years old, in the 8th grade, and I peed the bed and I am not ashamed to spread the word.
My sister and I sat in the back of the powder blue truck, holding on to the rail. “Dixieland Delight” was coming out of the cab when my grandpa at each of the two lights in Hanceville, Alabama. It was the summer of 1998, and I was ten years old, my sister was eight. The back of the truck was our mode of transportation or the week we stayed at my grandparents’ house. At the time I did not really want to be there and hated the fact that all there was to do was be outside, fish and ride four wheelers.
ReplyDeleteNow I would give anything to go back to those days – no worries, just roaming the hills and gathering freckles on our noses until the sun set, when we would come in to a home-cooked meal and chocolate pie. I learned so much during that time without even knowing I was learning. I learnt through living. And it was only after writing about those memories, after sitting and articulating those lessons that I started to realize how much those experiences had taught me.
Writing a memoir is a selfish thing to do. The memoirist gets the opportunity to reflect on his/her individual experiences and relate it back to the scope of his/her life. For me, it was those muggy, hot summer days where I learned about love, family and the importance of bug spray. Catching lightning bugs every night just to watch them for hours light up the mason jars. Picking apples and sitting under the tree for hours, reading, hidden in the canopy of heavy-laden branches. Praying frantically that we would not fly out of the bed of the truck as my grandpa swerved on the curvy county roads- all these experiences make me who I am- and the memoir is the vessel I can use to explore how they did so.
See... I really love all of the posts above me, and for so many different reasons. And I think I'll talk about that instead, since we've got free reign over this particular blog entry.
ReplyDeletePlus, that's what memoirs are about, right? Taking our own experiences-- our triumphs and failures, such as they are-- and trying to make them matter to other people. Trying to get others to relate, somehow, to that time you were accidentally left at the restaurant by your parents on vacation. As people we are desperate to connect our threads to others’; we want someone to pull at our seams just so we have an excuse for our own unraveling. I love that. I think it’s beautiful.
The thing is that we live in a society where it’s all about the “I.” Things are only good or useful so far as they are fortuitous to us individually. We’re obsessed with ourselves—hence, memoirs. This isn’t passing judgment; I only know it’s true because I’m the one who does it. I’m reading all these lovely blog posts, beautiful in their own right, and thinking about what I can say to them. I’m thinking about what they have to do with me, but it’s infinitely more delightful to think about what they have to do with you—what this story tells me (the reader, both personal and impersonal) about the kind of person you are, about the risks you’re willing to take and the things you find important, about the loves and losses you’ve suffered. There is beauty to your story because it’s yours. Not all of my life needs to be about me…and that’s kind of a relief, ‘cause ya’ll have a lot more to teach me than I could hope to learn on my own.
"You know someone loves you by the way they say your name. Your name feels safe in their mouth." ~anonymous small child
ReplyDeleteI kind of feel the same way about my memories. They are my most precious possession; they make me who I am and influence who I will become. Why would I share them with someone whose mouths and hearts I don't know they would be safe in? How would I ever make someone who I don't share a love bond with see the beauty of that field of daffodils, or feel the chill as my friends and I climbed out of the lake that star-strewn night and struggled to get a fire going from pine needles and bark? How would they ever understand the heartaches and joys of my existence? How would I ever forgive them for super-imposing their own story over mine? No, I could tell you stories, but I won't do that to my memories. They are mine, and I shan't abandon them to the harsh, unforgiving internet. They shall stay with me and those who I love. Sorry!
Damn, I got nothin'. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't have any good stories, or at least not any that are worth telling. All of my memories are either entirely too private to tell, or too mundane to bear. Getting drunk couldn't even get anything good out of me. Was worth a shot, though.
ReplyDelete"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students." Thoreau
ReplyDeleteI think someone told me that the sun pulls energy stuff into its core before exploding it back to the surface. I think they said that that’s where the heat comes from—the pulling in and exploding out. I hope that’s accurate because it works out well as a type of illustration, or rhetorical tool, or literary something to do with how my memoir would flow. If told chronologically, or if fragmented into relevant occurrences, the theme would appear to be the same: The outside being pulled in, causing splitting or combining which explodes from the surface. The sun’s identity, which I consider to mean, “what the sun is perceived to be by others”, is a source of light and heat. Obviously there are thousands of deeper understandings of this yellow circle, spiritual types of identities assigned to its qualities, but universally the heat and light thing seems a pretty safe assumption.
ReplyDeleteI realize that the couple of you, the brave ones, who still read my posts, may be scrunching your faces or asking yourselves if I really intended to compare myself to the provider of such necessities as heat and light. Well you should un-scrunch. I did intend, but perhaps the following self-depreciation will suffice as compensation:
It’s impossible for me to separate my “identity” from my memoir. I don’t believe in integrity. I don’t think anything that goes unnoticed “counts” for anything. Obviously I understand why it’s said that “the measure a man is how he behaves when he isn’t being observed”, but isn’t there an obvious flaw with such a standard? If he is unseen, then there is not detriment or benefit to or for others. And if there is neither of those, then there is no existence…because existence is proved only by those other that the exist-er. If Tom Hanks were born on that island, somehow without a mother, and died before anyone witnessed his living, then I say he did not exist—prove to me otherwise? And if you say foot-prints, or a volleyball which may be found, I say that you proved an existence, but not Tom’s. (I find it critical to point out that Tom Hanks may be of virgin birth, and that the reference to “Wilson”, by Wilson, is very clever)
ReplyDeleteThe point of all the existence stuff is that I’m obsessed with existence stuff. I thrash about, swiping and clawing, yelling and farting, hoping that someone will notice anything—even my stench.
I know I wrote that last sentence, but I’m not sure I totally agree with it. I think my conscious wants to be Gandhi, but my sub-conscious would settle for Nero. I walk about, thinking I’m loving and saving, but there’s a hell of a lot of angry people in the rear-view. And in many of their cases it appears as though I was intentionally horrible. This is where everything comes together; the cold red wine, the sun, and the rambling. I take what I think I look like on the outside into my soul. There’s a cluster-fuck in my soul. Then the evil and good is spewed everywhere. I’ve written too much to expound, and I’m enraged at this responses failure. I’m deeply interested in myself. Not just because I think I have good skin-tone, but because I think that there is something universal in my humanity. I think that the key to your safety, or possibly even your betterment is in my belly—and so I madly scrutinize my vomit and bile—hoping my shit has finally redeemed itself.
It’s impossible for me to separate my “identity” from my memoir. I don’t believe in integrity. I don’t think anything that goes unnoticed “counts” for anything. Obviously I understand why it’s said that “the measure a man is how he behaves when he isn’t being observed”, but isn’t there an obvious flaw with such a standard? If he is unseen, then there is not detriment or benefit to or for others. And if there is neither of those, then there is no existence…because existence is proved only by those other that the exist-er. If Tom Hanks were born on that island, somehow without a mother, and died before anyone witnessed his living, then I say he did not exist—prove to me otherwise? And if you say foot-prints, or a volleyball which may be found, I say that you proved an existence, but not Tom’s. (I find it critical to point out that Tom Hanks may be of virgin birth, and that the reference to “Wilson”, by Wilson, is very clever)
ReplyDeleteThe point of all the existence stuff is that I’m obsessed with existence stuff. I thrash about, swiping and clawing, yelling and farting, hoping that someone will notice anything—even my stench.
ReplyDeleteI know I wrote that last sentence, but I’m not sure I totally agree with it. I think my conscious wants to be Gandhi, but my sub-conscious would settle for Nero. I walk about, thinking I’m loving and saving, but there’s a hell of a lot of angry people in the rear-view. And in many of their cases it appears as though I was intentionally horrible. This is where everything comes together; the cold red wine, the sun, and the rambling. I take what I think I look like on the outside into my soul. There’s a cluster-fuck in my soul. Then the evil and good is spewed everywhere. I’ve written too much to expound, and I’m enraged at this responses failure. I’m deeply interested in myself. Not just because I think I have good skin-tone, but because I think that there is something universal in my humanity. I think that the key to your safety, or possibly even your betterment is in my belly—and so I madly scrutinize my vomit and bile—hoping my shit has finally redeemed itself.
That's right--6 posts.
ReplyDeleteI had another glass/cigarette
It's actually 3:48. Not sure why it says 1:48, but you should be impressed when im in class tomorrow
Let us talk about language. After all, it's how we communicate. It's what I'm using now. It's what you're using. Even as we talk or write, whatever it is we are writing or talking about, we live in this world of representation. Language is only a substitute for the "true"; by using language, we remove ourselves from the experience. There is a good and a bad side to this. I will, for the sake of a long and rambling lecture that includes enough Derrida to make you vomit, skip to the good. I think Kristeva says it better than I ever could. She asks, "Why literature? Is it because, faced with social norms, literature reveals a certain knowledge and soemtimes the truth itself about an otherwise repressed, nocturnal, secret, and unconscious universe? ... And because it makes a game, a space of fantasy and pleasure, out of the abstract and frustrating order of social signs, the words of everyday communication?" Literature, the memoir, writing is a utopia, a place through which we access free discourse. It is a resevoir in which we stash and pocket the miserable wretchedness quintessential to human existence. Through writing, in this case the memoir, we are able to remove ourselves, control, and make sense of the horrors of function in an exclusionary system. I will say this again. I am not the O/other in literature or in writing. 'I' am.
ReplyDelete“Whatever you do, don’t let Karie know that I am having a party.” I still cannot believe that my 13 year-old self was saying these words. I had been picked on my entire middle school career and I had the chance to be the bigger person, only I didn’t take it.
ReplyDeleteThere were six girls that were my age in West Hampton and we all lived just around the corner from each other. In elementary school this was every kid’s dream: all of your best friends living in walking distance. We all would meet at the corner and spend the entire day playing outside, just happy to be together. Once we hit 6th grade, everything changed. For some reason middle school changes girls. Suddenly it’s less about real friends and having a good time and more about make-up, boys, and being popular. I have unfortunately never been considered “cool”, so I was abandoned by several of these girls in their quest to scale the echelons of the Lost Mountain Middle School social ladder. I joined the band.
The six of us who were once friends were split into two groups: the haves and the have-nots. What did they have? The cool factor. The bus was divided into halves, dirty looks were exchanged in the hallways, and certain sides of the neighborhood pool were designated “cool” areas. It seems silly now, but back then it was our apartheid. By 8th grade, I just accepted the fact that I never would be “cool”, so I fell in with the band geeks and the two neighborhood girls who remained true and felt pretty good about myself. Then it came time for my 13th birthday party; the official start of my teenage years. I decided to invite everyone that I knew for an evening of fun in my basement playroom. So far things seemed to be going well, even one of the popular girls, Maurielle, said she would come! She had one condition: I couldn’t invite Karie Gottwald. Easy enough, we had never really been friends.
The night of the party arrived and everyone, even Maurielle, showed up. We split into teams of two for our neighborhood scavenger hunt. Once you had a partner you were given a list of random items, such as a robin’s egg blue crayon or a green paper clip, and you went around the block ringing on people’s door bells asking them if they had any of these items. The team with the most items won. Maurielle said she would be my partner, and I thought for sure this would put me on the cool map. We attacked the list with precision and determination, scoring 7 out of the 20 items at the first house. We were walking up the street when Maurielle suggested that we stop by the Gottwald’s house. It felt wrong. I didn’t invite her. It would be rude to stop by her house and say that I was having a party. But I didn’t say anything. We rang the doorbell and Karie answered the door. “Happy Birthday, Aly,” she said with her head down, “A couple other people already stopped by. Come on in.” A birthday cake sized lump lodged itself in my throat. How could I have done this to her? Even if we weren’t friends, I should have invited her anyways. Everyone else was invited. She must have felt so left out; just like I had felt so many times before. We collected our items and turned to leave. On our way down the walkway, Mrs. Gottwald called out after us, “You know it isn’t very nice to not invite someone to your party and then show up to their house during it.” We kept walking.
I tried to forget about it and have a fun time the rest of the night, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach. The next day after all the guests left, my mom sat me down and told me that Mrs. Gottwald called and that she was so disappointed in me for behaving the way I did. She thought I was different. I had to call Karie and apologize, but things were never quite the same between us again.
I had the chance to do the right thing, to involve someone. I knew how much it hurt to not be included. But I became just like the other girls. In my efforts to be “cool”, I became extremely uncool.
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ReplyDeleteI remember this one time, when I was really little, I had this pet billy goat. And I named him William Tell. And William Tell was the best pet billy goat ever. He would run around in the yard and I would chase him. He would eat grass in the summer so I wouldn't ever have to pull out the push-mower. And I would say, "Hey, William! Tell me something good!" And he would bleat really loud like he was talking to me. It was a glorious time in my life.
ReplyDeleteBut then, one day, a man knocked on our door. He said, "I'm so sorry to interrupt you people, but I've afraid I've just run over your pet goat, William Tell." And tears immediately began to fill my eyes. But the man said, "In order to make amends, I would like help you out by replacing your pet goat." And I looked up at him through my tears, wiped my face a little bit, and asked, "Well, sir, first of all, how are you going to do that, and second of all, what are you going to do with the body?"
He replied, "I can't tell, but I'll send you the Bill."
-Memoir.
I'm not so great as memoiring, but I think it's mainly because I only tell what needs to be told. This is the best I've got, and possibly the only experience in my life that I remember well enough to share over and over again.
ReplyDeleteI didn't want to call my mother. I didn't know what to say, really. Jon, my boyfriend, thought we should tell her in person, but I decided to email her instead. Less controversial, you know? Or cowardly. Whatever. These were my words:
yesterday i opened the sliding door to my room and forgot to put the piece of wood back to secure it. this morning at 4:00am a guy came into my room through that door. i woke up and heard him talking to me and he was slurring pretty bad. i told him to get out of my room and he asked me something. i got up and told him again to leave. he asked if i would call the cops. i said i will if you do not leave. then he pushed me really hard and i started screaming at the top of my lungs for siobhan. then he pushed my face into my futon. then he tried to strangle me with his arms. it was really scary and i was just thinking, "there is no way i can get away." i started telling God that i trusted him and i needed him and then for no reason at all, the guy let go. he knocked something over and ran back out the open sliding door. i put the wood back in place and went to the front door to make sure it was locked and called jon. while he was on his way Emily, my roommate, sent me a text message asking if i was ok. i went in to check on her. she called 911 and the police got there when jon did, about 5 minutes later. then an investigator, and another cop got a formal statement. they took a bunch of information and got fingerprints and went looking for the guy. they left about 5:45am.
i am totally ok, just was very scared. my throat hurts a little, my voice is scratchy, my chest and back are very sore, and my elbow has a mysterious bruise and soreness. one other scratch on my chest, but other than that i am perfectly ok. jon prayed for me this morning a lot, and i know i will be ok. i am calling the apartment complex this morning to get them to fix my lock, and check the whole complex. it was broken when we moved in, as you might recall.
i hope you will not worry. god is protecting us still.
Today I still pray that God alone will find this person. The pain I felt is a reminder to pray for this lost brother. I doubt I would have survived the nights that followed without my boyfriend's supernatural sensitivity. He even accommodated my most critical period just after it all happened by shielding me from some silly tv show (that was by no means legitimately frightening). At first it seemed I would never be able to sleep in peace again. I forgave the guy immediately, and clinging to that forgiveness and love over retribution and hate, I eventually slept again (with the lights on). I am so thankful for what happened that day – that it happened so that I could learn to deal with fear rational or not, that it happened to me and not my roommates, and that God heard my cry. He really does love us.
I have never been one to cultivate sadness from people...it is not my style. However, when I thought about any memory that has changed my life to the entent that it changed my identity as well...only one came to mind.
ReplyDeleteIt was raining. There was a group of us driving towards the neighboring town. I was wearing polkadot rainboots. It was Sunday. I tried to remain hopeful. I tried to tell myself we were going to look for Bobby...not Bobby's body. But the statistics were burning my mind. He was on a motorcycle...he was last seen two nights ago...no one had heard from him. Things didn't sound good.
We got to the place where the search party was meeting. I remember how it felt to see my friends and the looks on their faces. I could tell everyone wanted to be hopeful...no one really wanted to say what they were thinking. So, everyone was silent. Tears were flowing, but they weren't audible. It was like a bad film that you wanted to turn the sound off of. Until Bobby's twin got there. James wasn't quiet at all. His words were painful to hear and every sob felt like a hand squeezing my chest.
We seperated and searched on the sides of every road. Everytime we got back in the truck I got hopeful. We didn't find him. That was good right? I remember the way the air smelled...wet and pine like. I remember all of us calling and checking in. My phone rang...it was my friend Will. He asked where we were. I started rambling. "We just looked here...then we're gonna look there and maybe..and yeah..." He interrupted me. "Courtney...they found him." "Oh...ok." That's where the memory ends. I can't remember how I got home, how many people said "I'm sorry" or how many hugs I numbly accepted. I can't remember anything until the funeral three days later.
I lost my best friend Bobby. It changed me because now cliches like "Live everyday like it's your last" or "It could happen to anyone" were permanenly instilled in me.
I think about him literally every day and how I want to live like him. Would people send a search party for me? Would my funeral have people standing all the out past the front lobby? I couldn't confidently say "yes." That sorta thing makes you want to make a few changes in yourself you know? Needless to say...the world knew a different version of me and I was never the same.