The End of the Road: the Beginning of My Writing Life II

And listen I did. My dear grandfather spoke very little due to a severe stroke that he endured when I was only four years old, but I “listened” to his mannerisms, his body language, and his few labored efforts at speech; I could hear his love clearly and voluminously. My grandmother, though, had no problems communicating vocally. I was always eager to finish chores, because then we could just sit and talk. Many times we were visiting in the summer, and my grandparents' house had no air conditioning in the sweltering, humid, wet-towel atmosphere punctuated with the dust swirling around from the nearby cotton and bean fields and the Frisco and Katy railroad lines that rumbled close by. It didn’t seem to rain there often, and since the paved road ended right at the corner where my grandparents lived—literally, the end of the road—the dust from the gravel roads going in three directions from there added to the tenor of a worn out house in a wearing out town; however, it was full of life to me—just like my grandmother’s wonderful stories. Stories of ghosts and dreams and omens—all those for another work I will do, especially since I told those stories once a year to my classes on Halloween for all the years that I taught. I must get back to the effect this had on me as a writer. 

The dusty, oppressive physical atmosphere was tamed by my grandmother’s frozen bottles of Coca Cola taken straight from her diminutive 1940-something Frigidaire refrigerator—all of four feet tall—right next to the white and red Hoosier cabinet, always closed and always spotless so that the ants couldn’t even find a crumb or smudge to climb on. How my grandmother detested ants and flies! By the time we were ready to go out, the front of the house was in the shade, and we would take those Cokes to the small porch—concrete edged in bricks rising about two feet or so above the ground with two brick pillars on either corner topped by concrete squares—big enough for me to sit on—rough, porous concrete that always had that distinct masonry smell. The porch was bordered by my grandmother’s petunias and marigolds—glorious, luscious petunia fragrance. All of this added up to a magical setting. I learned how important it is to have that special context of setting for a story, and I even channel that and my grandmother’s spirit when I tell the the stories that I heard there. She had truly funny stories, tales of mystery that were full of fear, and family anecdotes, some of the funniest about my mom Virginia and my aunt Violet: my mom stuffing beans up her nose and announcing that the baby was smothering, my aunt pulling my diminutive mother around the house in a shoe box, my aunt so angry at a girl that she grabbed the girl by her pigtails and swung her in a circle. These oral stories are just as real, valid, and meaningful to me as the oral accounts of Beowulf, The Iliad, and The Odyssey. They have been the roots not only of some family history but also of my writing, even though I have never truly written about them before.  

Have you reflected on the concept of story from your personal experiences? Do you value your family history? Have you learned to frame your experiences as story, whether in oral or in written form? Have you spoken to your heart about the value of your family roots? Being able to stor-ify your life can help make you an interesting and fun person. Under the auspices of your heart’s passion and purpose, it can help make your life significant. I know it has mine as a person and a writer.

​More to come!