Blog RSS FeedThe ones that got away.
How strong does a gust of wind have to be to knock over a metal chair with mesh seats? Thankfully, not strong enough to push said chair through our sliding glass doors — just strong enough to knock it into them and give us a nice midnight scare.
I’ve never experienced anything like this wind. Certainly not last year, when we first moved into the house. It’s a strange, lonely kind of wind. It cuts right through what you might have assumed were warm clothes and knocks the neighbor’s wicker reindeer all atumble. I don’t like it.
In writing news, as the internet access is out again at home, I’m blogging from the office. Which is a great opportunity to depart from the Relics series and write about things I don’t have anymore.
Two things, in particular:
First, yesterday’s idea.
I’m not a big writer-downer. I tend to think that if an idea is worth writing about, it’ll stick with me. I have one “what-if” scenario that’s been bopping around my head for a few months. It’s just the faintest germ of an idea, and it might not be the kind of thing I could write, but to my knowledge, it’s a new take on a current issue. And that one has stuck. But yesterday’s new idea, which, when I thought it up, seemed equally as sticky AND new AND worthwhile… Well, that’s one’s gone. And I’m trying to give myself the chance to get it back — gently but persistently suggesting possibilities, which so far have all been rejected.
So wish me luck. I’m going to keep poking around for it. If I can’t find it, I’ll just chalk it up as a bad idea.
Second, going back to the idea of relics —
I was in fifth grade when my father’s mother died of lung cancer. The wake took place during a school trip to Sea Camp, or whatever they called it. My parents determined that I should go to Sea Camp and not to the wake. One of our assignments at Sea Camp was to keep a journal of our time there.
Let’s get one thing straight: I am not an adventurous person. I don’t WANT to swim with sharks — even nurse sharks (or “nursing sharks” as Chris accidentally said last night, which is gross and hilarious). I don’t WANT to play tag in the swamp (although I had a good time). I did enjoy the thing where we started with a piece of coral that looked like a plain old piece of coral and ended up finding bazillions of awesome sea creatures on it. That was cool.
But overall, it’s not my kind of thing. Add to that the fact that the kids from my school actually started a full-on, boy vs. girl RIOT, complete with brooms in the air and rocks being thrown, etc., and it was an interesting weekend.
I’m sure I documented all of that just fine in my green journal, which I turned in as instructed.
My teacher’s note, after reviewing it, was some dour observation that I didn’t seem to have a very good time at Sea Camp. Looking back now, I don’t know if it was an actual criticism (knowing this teacher, it was) or just an impression. This is the teacher who marked down my Pioneer Game journal a few points because I named the pioneers’ donkey “Jonny” and “that’s not the correct spelling of Johnny”, and also because one of the character’s brothers went back to Ireland to care for their dying mother and “people didn’t go BACK to Europe.”
Flash forward to 6th grade, safety patrol trip to Washington, DC. Another journal is assigned. This time, I am determined to please the teacher. So despite all of the actual, real emotions and spats and drama and boredom, etc., I experience, I make sure my journal is jam-packed with sunshine and roses. The whole thing is a sham, which I know as I write it. It’s full of vapid praise for Our Nation’s Capital and whitewashed accounts of sharing a room with three other girls, who fought the entire time. It’s a lie.
The teacher loved it, and was so glad I enjoyed this trip more than Sea Camp.
The green journal is gone. I’m sure I destroyed it, feeling ashamed of my honest accounts of a trip I didn’t want to take taken two days after the death of my grandmother. Probably the first really true-to-myself thing I ever wrote — struggling to fit in, struggling to live up to expectations under which I struggle to this day — tossed away because a teacher told me it was too honest.
I kept the Washington DC journal, but I didn’t pack it up and bring it to California. I didn’t even crack it open and read it.
Why should I? It’s just a big fat lie, and I even knew it when I was 11 years old.
Related posts:January 5th, 2007 Katie Alender
