“I write few tortuous stories,” he shared as they walked along city street. “ I write few twists and fewer turns—plots upended or changed of an unexpected…Mostly, they are attention to a present, or simple plot, foreshadowed, linear and parallel of lives that never cross.”
“Why is that? Doesn’t it get boring, writing the same thing again and again?”
He remembered a quote, one of his favorites and, as a writer, he believed.
“’Mostly we authors repeat ourselves—that’s the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives—experiences so great and so moving that it doesn’t seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.
Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories—each time in a new disguise—maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen…’[i]
Maybe that’s my story—plain and linear and isolated, its beauty in the details—and I don’t know how to write it different. Not ‘God Forbid’ but ‘God—what to do’ should something actually happen?’
Road construction on the street, they were forced from path of straight and lined squares of corners and crossings to east where city park opened and trail wound through open of lawn and shade of trees just breaking with the spring; some bare, some white, others in pale green leaves, and the maples with growing helicopter seeds.
“Maybe you need a new story,” she spoke. “If the others—one or two or however many there are to you—are already written, worn, and told.”
They moved from the path to the open lawn, and shadow of sunlight’s western cast stretched forth in reach from wall of sycamore stand. Path of their movement crossed into shadow and form of his own blended into tree’s.
“What would you do if you could do anything you wanted without a fear or worry?”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that story yet.”
“Maybe thinking is the hindrance. Maybe don’t overthink it.” She looked to her wrist in pause of words, back to him, then to western light. “Maybe just trust your gut…Write it, or live it—and see.”
She smiled. Stepped outward from shadow of the sycamore trees, sun lit clean and bright upon her face, glowing her flesh and drawing in white light contours of her cheek and nose and top arc of ear exposed from hair combed and drawn and held in ordered-neat behind.
“’God—what to do’ should something actually happen?’” Her smile widened and sun caught on thin of her widened and curled upper line of lip, pinked contrast to cream of skin’s surround, white of her teeth and show of her gums. She walked on, paying no mind to trail but walking as she pleased across open lawn, drawn to the sycamore stand before and thoughts of country home and away, walks in timber beside creek’s bed, trails’ bends and turns and earthen meander of way as woods, water, and wilds’ travel shaped in its living wear of way.
“Maybe you could write a different story—be rid of the parallels—and imagine what could happen should two souls actually meet instead of living lines that never cross.”
She changed in course, into shadow of the trees again, brown of her sweater, like deer in woods, breaking and hiding shape of her form in light and color’s blend.
He thought of country home and farm, trailed walk beside creek in trees, following guide and lead of lived path.
[i] F. Scott Fitzgerald, “One Hundred False Starts.” Saturday Evening Post, 4 March 1933.