What do we learn about life - our life - by reading stories?
EVERYTHING!
How to fight dragons. How to survive in the wilderness. How to be still. How to wait. How to love. How to be sad. How to dance. How to kiss. How to cheer. How to "boo" and "hiss". How to cry. How to give. How to take. How to create. How to apologize. How to hide. How to destroy. How to ride a horse. How to destroy a species. How to classify and subjugate. How to lie. How to steal. How to tune a piano. How to feed a cat. How to feel. How to see. How to hear. How to know.
How to honor ourselves.
How to honor another.
How to be a hero or heroine.
How to allow someone else their turn.
How to tell and be the truth.
The story? It is enough.
"Remember that writing things down makes them real; that it is nearly impossible to hate anyone whose story you know; and, most of all, that even in our post-postmodern era, writing has a moral purpose."
Andrew Solomon, The New Yorker
I am fascinated by this quote.
*It is all right there in my journals. Thirty years of them. My life. The things that happened to me. The things that did not. Words - a feedback loop. The dreams that gave me direction. All of those words, those shapes created by dark lines and white spaces - they prove I am real.
*I can honestly say that "hate" is not something I feel often or easily. How can I? Before me stands an enemy, but their story is utterly fascinating. Either I have never experienced their plot or I have - and I get it. I understand them too well. To hate someone is to eschew curiosity or to hate myself.
*Words are still the medium of Truth. Technology has increased our distance from intimacy but also given us connection through words to the most private thoughts and feelings of strangers. Words still express meaning in a ever-widening world of apathy.
The story is enough: to show what is real, what is True, and the power of becoming.
Read the story here in The New Yorker.
First line: "It was 1972 and Sid Baumwell was hungry."
Last line: "The word for this was luck."
Growing up is neither neat nor tidy. The teen years are full of juxtapositions between truth and reality. Sid Baumwell questions and judges what he experiences in his life, but admits he is too passive to move, to respond to his hunger, to become his own.
I was concerned about stereotypical character-types when I first read the story. But it became clear that Sid sees his world in a limited way. He sees those around him as if they are as immobile and unchanging as he.
What emerges from this "flaw" is beautiful and honest imagery. The details take this story far above cliches. Sid's mother's fingernails on his neck. The name of the grocery store. His father having two rolls at dinner. Bill's grooming. The grocery list. Marley, disembodied. The largesse of the lasagne. The delivery man's movements. Sid's feelings of pity and gratitude in the same moment. Bill's car and cuff links and candy cane. Kids on swings. Adam's apple. Loony Lou. What Sid owns - a trophy "for participation", a sea shell, a box of unopened Topps cards. The garbage. Aluminum foil. The cat. The hobby horse.
The details are accurate and give this story truth. It could be any boy's story, but the details make it wholly Sid's. They anchor him while he explores the reality of luck. Luck, in the form of Bill Baxter, encourages him to consider a new world.
And for the passive, like Sid, luck can bring about change.
