One Image. Many Stories. (2) More work from my MG/YA class

Again, I shared with my beautiful class an image that my husband had created.

Five minutes, I said. Write the story.

Here are some of the stories.

What is the story to you?

I see the people walking in front of me, their eyes downcast, arms interlinked.  My mother urges me to move along, to catch up.  We don’t want to be left behind, she tells me.  I’m not so sure I agree with her. I drag my feet along the uneven path, my shoelace becoming undone in the process.  It’s already lost most of its original whiteness from the dozens of times it’s dragged through the dirt.  I idly wonder if, when we get to our destination, I will be able to get a new pair of sneakers.

Lexi

I was quite unsure of where my mama was taking me. We had walked downtown in all black clothes; she slicked my hair back with her frail hands every few blocks. Eventually, I saw faces that I recognized. They were all wearing black clothes... Just like me. Just like mama. I recognized a tall woman with long black hair— my aunt. Her face was more puffy than normal and her eyes were pricked with red. I wondered why she was crying. I wondered why we were here, standing around, wearing black, saying ‘sorry.’

Ania

We avoid it. The void of light. No one should want to be found. To be found is to be known and to be known is to be judged. And punishment is the inevitable nature of judgment’s tight lips, loose gown, and stone grip of opinion.

Gene

"We're almost there. Just keep going." The tall girl bent to whisper in my ear. her hand rubbing "comforting" circles into my shoulder. Easy for her to say; her long legs carried her closer to the promised land while my short, stubby knees wobbled to catch up. There's nothing left in me, no energy to keep going, no will to survive. "20 more miles." she whispers, seeing me struggle to keep from stumbling.
I just want her to stop talking. 

Precious

In the darkness we crossed the lake, praying its frozen crust wouldn't give way under our feet. It had been a warm few days, and the ice groaned under our weight. However, a frigid death in the lake would be better than what we left behind.

John

He kicked a rock down the sidewalk, his boot making loud, angry impact with the curb. It hit the back of his sister's shoe, and she twisted to throw a vicious look at him, but she didn't say anything. His mother placed a quelling hand on his shoulder. Whenever something like this happened, his father made his whole family go on one of these walks. Whenever something like this happened, the silence was complete.

Charlotte

His mother’s hand rests lightly upon his shoulder, neither pushing him forward nor backwards. But holding him in place. He does not want to go. He watches in trepidation as the other children are herded towards the empty class full of possibility and brimming with uncertainty. He remembers the stories his older sister tells him of friends and colored squares and story-time, but all he really wants is to sit on his mother’s lap, her arm clutched around him with the other balancing a book, mouth spewing wonderful stories of dragons and knights. He never wants her to let go.

Erin L.

A first funeral - at six, the idea is beyond digestion, an aerial view from her mother's shoulders of the devastation below. She has no emotional ties or any age, truly, to know what she is seeing: a collage of photos of a happy man fishing, a photo with his wife. A scene before her, in human form, a mother's hand on her crying son's shoulder. All he can feel is the vastness of the room, its vacancy of color, the darkness of black ties and tights and tight-lipped apologies for loss.

Erin F.

My fingers have gone through my hair so many nervous times that I can feel it messy and spiky on my forehead. I don’t have anything else left to grab on to. So I reach up, straining my elbow to hold my wrist backwards, and take my sister’s hand. I don’t want it sitting on my shoulder, guiding me like a pet dog with a leash. I need to hold it, to touch reassurance, to grasp some of the resolve with which she looks straight ahead, and walks.

Catherine

I see the people walking in front of me, their eyes downcast, arms interlinked.  My mother urges me to move along, to catch up.  We don’t want to be left behind, she tells me.  I’m not so sure I agree with her. I drag my feet along the uneven path, my shoelace becoming undone in the process.  It’s already lost most of its original whiteness from the dozens of times it’s dragged through the dirt.  I idly wonder if, when we get to our destination, I will be able to get a new pair of sneakers.

Lexi

The icy wind slapped Jacob in the face, but the sting of the cold was nothing compared to the relentless burn of hunger.  Three days, they had been walking now.  Three days with barely any food, only what a resourceful few had thought to carry.  His mother rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “Just a bit further,” she said softly.  “We’re almost there now.”  Jacob wanted to believe her, but how could he when his legs felt like lead and his shoes were torn and he could still hear the screams they had left behind every time it got too quiet?

Becca

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They led the children up the mountain. Eyes lowered, shoulders sagging. The rain was a cruel and infuriating thing. It trickled in regular, ruthless rhythms down their backs, blurred out the temple standing frowning at the summit. Even the High Priest's uncanny vision couldn't help them glimpse the structure.  

Esther

A few more steps and we will make it.
Hush, we have no choice but to leave.
Her daughter fears for her newborn kitten she left behind.
Will it survive, will it be warm?
Listen to your mother, she whispers, we must keep moving.

Serena

Pa said he would send money, he promised we would always be safe. Everything he said was a lie. He never came back, never sent help. Ashamed and humiliated my mom and I join the wanderers. Where will we go? What will we do? The future remains unclear. — Isabella

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Am I a Narcissist?

I'll be headed to London in a few days for a very quick trip and so, in typical Beth style, I am trying to complete every single task on every single list before I get on that plane.  Stupid, I know.

That means that the last few days have been consumed with the writing of the second draft of a commemorative book for a client, the back-and-forthing with an insurance agent, the prepping for a school visit at the Eighth Grade Center @ Springford, the watching of a documentary about graffiti, the blogging about Ismet Prcic's debut novel Shards, the writing of stories for a client news magazine, the neglect of a few emails I still have to write, the repolishing of my nails, the development of a plan to put my William novel into the world, the forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning, the thinking through of my spring Penn course, the preparation for the upcoming Jill Lepore lecture at Villanova University (wait, how does one prepare?), the reading of the first two chapters of The Art of Fielding because it is about time, the cooking of a dinner that could have been better, the reading of a friend's forthcoming novel, the writing of verse for our holiday card, the realization that the roof is leaking again, and the completion of an adult novel that has been in the works for years.  I also purchased a few early holiday gifts and made the decision—an emphatic one—that I do not like shopping.  No, I do not.

{For those, who, understandably, plan to read no further, please note (see below) that this tongue-in-cheekish list was produced to make a larger point.}

In the midst of all of this, I paged through (lightning speed) the December 5 issue of Newsweek.  (Frankly, I still have a lot of questions about this new iteration of Newsweek, but those questions are for another day.)  I stopped at page 61, the Omnivore page, where Diablo Cody and Charlize Theron look out upon the reader.  The story is called "The Narcissist Decade," and it's an essay Cody has penned in anticipation of the December 9 release of her film "Young Adult."

"Young Adult," as it turns out, is about a not-very-nice seeming young adult author.  Cody tells us:  "Mavis's humble peers possess something that eludes her more each year:  growth.  They've matured into seasoned adults with perspective and humility, while Mavis continues to flail in a self-created hell of reality TV, fashion magazines, blind dates, and booze."

(I sincerely hope that Mavis is not meant as a stand-in for all YA authors.  I sincerely hope that.  I do.)

In any case, later on in the essay, Cody, whose husband has told her that she shares a number of traits with Mavis (an assertion Cody at first denies), goes on to suggest that perhaps we are all narcissists.

Before you get as offended as I did, allow me to explain.  Sure, we're not all deranged homewreckers in pursuit of past glory.  But if the era of Facebook and Twitter has fed any monsters, it's those of vanity, self-obsession, and immaturity.  Who among us hasn't Googled an ex, or measured our own online social circle against that of a perceived rival, or snapped multiple "profile photos" in an attempt to find the best angle?  Who hasn't caught herself watching an episode of "Jersey Shore" and thought, "I'm a grown-up. Why am I concerned with these people and their sex lives?

I haven't actually ever done any of those things (helped in part by the fact that I never had an ex and that I'm too uncool to know what channel "Jersey Shore" is on).  But I suspect that anyone could look upon a blogger who enumerates her week's activities as a narcissist (for the record, I was just trying to make a point up there).  Any memoirist (and heck, I've written five and am halfway through a sixth) could also be called one of those—you know—those.  Any Facebooker who has ever logged a single status update could also get slammed with the term.

But here's what I'm going to suggest, a modest proposal:

It's how we live our whole life (lives?) that counts.

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