Thursday, April 26, 2012

Revision: Caricature Love

Audience: Modern Love

“Twinkies are made of whale blubber” were some of the words Matt shared with me during our first encounter freshman year. That and, “I went to The Avery Coonley School. We’re the seahorses because we only travel onward and upward—never backward.” Anxious to learn more about my first high school crush, I Googled The Avery Coonley School after class, and sure enough the site’s masthead read, “Guiding Gifted Children Onward and Upward.” Seahorse silhouettes and seahorse watermark paraded the page. It was a well-known suburban grammar school for kid geniuses, but Matt didn’t want many people to know he attended, or that he got a 36 on his ACT two years later. I liked Matt’s quirks, his playful personality and his obliviousness to the dos and don’ts of making a good first impression. So I took his word for it that the cream filling of the Twinkie was made with the blubber of a whale.

I spilled the details of my infatuation to my older girl cousins not long after. We inspected his Facebook at the next family party.

“He looks like a girl.”
“His nose is funny.”
“Does he always make that face?”
“He’s…cute, Emmy.”

We were dating by the end of freshman year. It was an anticipated pairing, in the works since I joined the rowing team that winter as much for Matt as for my innocent desire to find my niche at school.

Matt joked that his lips were bigger than Bubba Blue’s from the movie Forrest Gump, and that his stubby nose, which matched his stubby fingers, was not a nose but a Yukon Gold potato. He acknowledged the short and awkward distance between his eyes and an ass that forced him to shop at specialty clothing stores for husky boys. He looked and walked like his dad, a strong man of average height with a short stride.

He needed only his backpack to announce himself in the hallways; this highly discussed neon green and yellow North Face item was his favorite high school purchase. “He would buy that,” said my annoyed older sister. For a while I was as embarrassed to be around him with his backpack on as when he mimicked the crying babies in the movie theatre on date nights. (Voice imitation was one of his many unusual talents.) I was mortified by his indifference to the people staring at him. His silliness embarrassed me for a long time. But sometime into our second year of dating, I gave him my first gaze of real adoration at his freeness toward most things in life. I released my inhibitions right back.

Matt excelled in drawing. He aspired to be an architect but identified as a caricaturist. Hidden in my closet is a shoebox of letters, cards and ripped notebook pages coated with Matt’s hyperbolic sketches of our wacky senior-year religion teacher Mr. Thompson, of our friends, and of him and me. Also in that shoebox are the letters he wrote me from camp every high school summer we dated, one every day for three years. And the Valentine’s Day card he gave me freshman year that reads, “Roses are red, violets are blue, gee it’d be cool, if I could have you!” Matt kept his tangible memories not in a box but in a drawer next to his bed. It overflowed with the handmade holiday and birthday cards I would make him, ticket stubs of movies we watched, playbills from the shows we treated each other to, and the letters I wrote in response to his. Two framed photos of us rest on top, next to a large stack of non-required reading that alternated every month. He selected Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to lend me first. I finished it eager for his next suggestion—a book of short stories I pretended to read. Suspecting I fibbed, he playfully interrogated me one day during free period.

Matt forgave me most everything, and he was patient with me. I learned that when I didn’t return his first “I love you” just fourth months into our relationship. On the phone later that night he admitted “it sucked”, but that I should wait until I’m really sure. And then again the winter of our junior year when I told him I still liked my first boyfriend, Kevin, a neighborhood bad boy whose hard-to-get games Matt didn’t care to play with girls. I had just returned from a parish retreat that Kevin and I attend twice a year—Matt’s two least favorite weekends. It was nothing more than a physical attraction, but my relationship with Matt lacked the spontaneity that came naturally to Kevin. Matt knew this, and knew my feelings lingered for this bad boy since grade school. We were at a birthday party when I told him I needed to talk.

“I just feel like I can’t be with you when I have feelings for Kevin.”

The breakup didn’t last long, maybe a week. The truth was that Matt and I could not assimilate high school as individuals. Worse, we couldn’t assimilate a private life that didn’t intersect with the other’s. He came to my extended family gatherings, and I ate homemade dinners with him and his parents on the weekends. His mom showed me how to make her cherry scones and her pasta with vodka sauce, two of her best recipes. If weather conditions were bad, his mom insisted I sleep over and drive home the next morning. I cried when his dog died and tried to convince his parents to get another. His dad addressed me by the nickname he created, “Memily”. In the summers, they invited my family to their log cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin. My grandma, an unobtrusive woman, questioned whenever Matt wasn’t at Easter brunch or didn’t make an appearance at Thanksgiving.

I felt like we were one of Matt’s caricatures, comical in its exaggeration of a high school romance and grotesque in its display of two humans consumed.

We lasted past graduation and into our first year of college, where we split ways for the first time. He was in Indiana and I was in Michigan. I can’t help thinking that we chose to stay together to validate our four-year absorption in each other. So we tried, but we broke up in January of freshman year, just a few days before my birthday.

I’m not proud of what happened between that January and my last encounter with Matt two summers later. For three years I took advantage of Matt and his innocence and his patience. “I’m too good to you,” he would joke. He loved walking me to class when it was out of his way, and planning how he would ask me to school dances. But too often it was an unrequited love; he loved me more than I loved him. I can only assume he woke up one morning after our January break up and realized that because he didn’t fight for me again. And he assimilated into college without me. I responded with a hysterical jealousy and neediness that pushed him away in the following months.

By the beginning of sophomore year, we cut off most communication. It took many months to step out of the role of the unrequited lover. And I thought I had, until I saw Matt again the summer before junior year. We hadn’t spoken in several months but were both leaving to study abroad in the fall so we wanted to see each other.

I walked into his house intoxicated by the promise of the night. We went to eat at a dumpy Chinese joint, Matt’s selection, then back to his house. He was distracted by his iPhone, which buzzed every few minutes, and he grinned at each new received text. I wanted to know who was sending them. I had tucked my phone into my purse, which I purposefully left upstairs out of reach. We talked about school and our families, and then Matt asked me if I still had that boyfriend at school. I didn’t. I dated him to temper the sting of Matt’s absence, but only for a couple of months then we ended things amicably. He was the last person on my mind. But then I had to ask him the same, to put my obsessive conscience to rest. Was he dating anyone?

Throughout high school, Matt garnered the attention of the cutesy and eccentric theatre girls at our high school, and the girls who were still “growing into their faces,” as parents say. Then there was Maria, the self-described guidette, clinging to Matt’s side that day I met him in the school cafeteria. Even when Matt began to mature in high school (eventually my girl cousins admitted he was good looking), he still attracted the odd types. So when Matt told me he was “sort of seeing” our 27 year-old ex rowing coach, Jenn, I was disturbed; Jenn was seven years older than him, bubbly and free spirited, and training for a dangerous rowing excursion across the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 2012. She was quirky in an attractive way.

I covered my mouth in shock and disgust. My thoughts raced back to weekend regattas: Matt, an awkward 14 year-old kid and Jenn, already a college graduate from Michigan State University. At first I thought it was a cool coincidence that her family is from the same town I attend college; now I hated the thought of her living so close to me. I hated her cool job at Groupon, her super impressive upcoming rowing adventure, and her awesome social life. I followed her on Facebook, so I knew these things. I tried to look surprised in a “good for you, Matt” way. After all, we hadn’t communicated much in almost a year so my jealousy wasn’t justified. But still my mouth trembled. I thought maybe at the end of the night he would walk me to my car and kiss me goodnight, even though he gave me no reason to hope for it. I stayed to listen to him explain why he liked Jenn, why she and their relationship was “different.” My hands trembled before my legs joined and the tears came. In the middle of Matt’s next sentence, I stood up, walked up the stairs, and marched out the door. I didn’t close it behind me. I didn’t stop. I got into my car and drove away. Matt didn’t call after me, and I didn’t want him to. I wanted to drive alone far away from him.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Profile Story Pitch

The National Museum of Mexican Art, located in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, isn't like other museums. It's a safe haven for ex-gang members, local high school students, and kids of working class moms and dads. It's more a gathering place than an institution of art. The community needs it, and not just because its local economic impact is huge. When I drive through the streets of Pilsen, I stop and stare at the murals. I know I'm in Pilsen when I see store fronts and apartment walls on 19th street covered in paint. The murals are the collaborative efforts of local latino artists commissioned by the NMMA and neighborhood kids. They create relationships that last. The NMMA takes art to the public, beautifying the city, and it gives young kids especially something to aspire to.

I want to profile this place because I believe in what they've done and what they do, and I want to share that with people outside of Chicago, and outside of Pilsen.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Reading Response: Week 4

In this reading of Telling True Stories, I began to see the advantages of compiling a book of many author's writing insights instead of one single author. As a beginning narrative journalist, I appreciate reading about their similar and contrasting writing processes and opinions of their field. For example, in the section "To Tape or Not to Tape", one writer swears against taping while another says the profession was much harder before it came along. Later, Malcolm Gladwell says he doesn't write profiles of people because he doesn't think we're truly capable of describing a person's core; that he prefers to write profiles about ideas rather than the person. After reading a whole chapter on the beauty of discovering and accurately representing a person, that came as a shock. It was a good shock though, because now I have this idea in my head that I should be looking at how a person is a gateway to larger issues in society, like Gladwell says. Isabel Wilkerson agrees, stating that "It is important to honor the people who allow themselves to be representatives of something larger in our society" (33).

Then Mark Kramer argues that access is everything to a narrative. Our goal is what he describes as felt life; we must take the right steps to reach that level of informal comprehension of the subject. That means sometimes living as the subject does, following them around, keeping tabs on worthwhile events in their schedule. Imagine sending yourself to prison as a corrections officer for ten months like Ted Conover. But Louise Kiernan warns us to know when not to be around, when not to push for intimate access. Sometimes packing off has its rewards later on.

The other areas that stood out to me in this reading had to do with the perspective that writers enter situations with, and how narratives can take a creative turn depending on the angle the writer chooses to write from. Tomas Tizon explains how in 2004 Vanity Fair profiled activist Tomothy Treadwell who was killed by a bear, but the magazine writes part of the story from the point of view of the bear. I would probably never consider something like that. On a (I think) similar note, Victor Merina warns that journalists reporting across cultures, especially their own culture, must learn enough about that place, but understand that even if you're reporting your own culture and believe you know the history, other perspectives and views may emerge that alter that course of the piece. He calls this "unlearning" the culture, which paves the way for other, unthought-of topics to surface.

Week 4 CYOA responses

Cam and Amanda: "Wonder Town" by Sasha Frere-Jones

I'm always a little anxious to read music reviews or any kind of music journalism because I'm not well-versed in the music-specific language. But Frere-Jones's piece, "Wonder Town", was relatable. He uses creative and easy-to-understand descriptions about their style of music, their albums, and his experience watching them at CBGB in 1986; their notes are "intricate fractions" that don't come from the "world of easy round numbers", and they are "crammed with information." He talks about the sound of the music, that "every guitar was strangely tuned, moaning and howling instead of crunching in satisfying consonance." And in terms of explaining the kind of instruments they were playing: "a serious guitar and an okay one." I like his lack of technicality. Maybe I didn't understand the part where he mentions the guitar chords, but that didn't intrude upon the reading experience.

Frere-Jones admits, in describing the performance at CBGB, that he had no idea what kind of music it was. I didn't read that and think, "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about." He talks about it in a way that anybody could understand. His language throughout the piece reflects this, like when he says, "The feeling was a little like being held hostage in a room with someone who refuses to turn on the lights." The way he describes the musicians themselves speak to this as well, I think. He writes that Kim Gorden was "like the lead in a movie who refuses to read from the script"; a less-seasoned musician on stage. I understood the music better through his descriptions of the bandmates.

Frere-Jones complements talk of Sonic Youth's current album with details of and comparisons to their 30-year history. He weaves in information in a subtle way that doesn't disorientate the reader. He says that much of their style has changed since the 80s, giving him the opportunity to delve into the past. He integrates song lyrics from then and now, and lets a band member's anecdote from the 90s speak to the "lengthy, experimental stuff" that characterized that time.

Ellen and Jordan: "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell

I think what most strikes me about this piece is Orwell's voice and the suspense he builds, and how that weaves into the theme of imperialism. He clearly sympathizes with the Burmese and disdains the British imperialists (and himself a little by extension because of the role he plays in the Burmese society), but he also regards the Burmese with contempt for mistreating him. There's a complexity to the author that he develops paragraph by paragraph, and that culminate at the end of the story with the shooting of the elephant. In Orwell's voice I sensed an innocence and a cowardliness, which is especially interesting in this piece because of his (seemingly) imperialistic role. I liked that tension between his inner thoughts and his facade.

And did Orwell actually shoot the elephant--is it not obvious?! Maybe I'm missing something here. He said he shot the elephant. I believe him. Why shouldn't I? But that brings up an interesting discussion about trust and credibility (like Ellen posted on her blog) in narrative journalism. Orwell says he shot the elephant, and I automatically believed him. In writing narrative pieces, we all have to keep in mind that what we write, the readers will take as fact. There's no room for error, really. If Orwell didn't actually shoot the elephant, why should I ever trust his word again?

Franklin outline

After talking through some things with Marin last week, I decided to change the topic of my personal journalism assignment from my relationship with Matt in high school, to my relationship with my dad. Here's the outline I came up with, as concise as I could make it:

Complication: Emily battles time
Development:
1) Worry consumes Emily
2) Emily neglects herself
3) Emily values time
Resolution: Emily accepts impermanence

My essay is going to focus on how I fear the time I don't, and someday won't, have with my dad.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Writing for Story

Franklin says it is best to read his book cover to cover, and I have a theory as to why; it's a book that deals you a blow with insight after insight, rules, don'ts and suggestions--and reading that, all at once, whipped me into gear, shot at me a rush of adrenaline, and made me think hard about my writing and the writing process. I reacted strongest to the bits where Franklin flat out told me what not to do--don't start at the beginning when writing a story, don't use to be verbs, don't use flashback unless you want to sound like an amateur, don't tell sad stories (at least know that positive ones garner longer-lasting attention). I liked being told what not to do, yet I recognize that my willingness to obey him implies that I take him as an authority; he has experience and knowledge in this field (what he deems "the Secret" of writing), and that I lack.

I finished the book feeling enlightened, motivated, overwhelmed, a little naive, and surprised that just now I'm learning the rules of structure, outline, polishing and craftsmanship. It's always a little disheartening when you think yourself a great unique writer who can whip out a good story without much effort, only to have a man you've never heard of before tell you your approach is all wrong, and your story could use some more dynamism. Or that, if you've been struggling on a piece you're really passionate about, you might have the story choice all wrong or you have to cut out everything you love.

The most humbling part of this book for me was toward the end, as Franklin contemplates the rejection of one of his novels, when Franklin says, "My book wasn't working because I had avoided looking directly at what my characters were feeling. Why had I avoided it? Because I had built my whole psychic apparatus, my whole world view, on the premise that I was somehow different (which is to say better) than the people I wrote about. To look at them was to realize that I was no different, and that what was happening to them could as well happen to me. I was, in short, nothing special" (209). Franklin invites us to consider unpleasant truths of rejection, to consider ourselves as writers in relation to our characters, how we do or don't relate to certain ones, and how those differences or similarities sometimes manifest themselves as prejudices. This part of the book stood out to me.

Discussion Questions:

1) In chapter seven, "Structuring the Rough", Franklin writes, "...it does not make sense to begin at the beginning. The story doesn't pivot on the beginning , it pivots on the ending--so write that first. That way you know exactly what it is that you need to foreshadow" (158). What is your writing process like? How does it compare or contrast with Franklin's suggestions?

2) In the last chapter, Franklin admits that the rejection of his novel on accident medicine had to do with his inability to really relate to his characters. He says, "My book wasn't working because I had avoided looking directly at what my characters were feeling. Why had I avoided it? Because I had built my whole psychic apparatus, my whole world view, on the premise that I was somehow different (which is to say better) than the people I wrote about. To look at them was to realize that I was no different, and that what was happening to them could as well happen to me. I was, in short, nothing special" (209). Have you ever come into a similar conflict when creating your characters on the page? Do you ever "attempt to apply prejudice where only insight will do" (211)?

3) What do you as a writer see as your biggest responsibilities to the reader after reading this book?

Monday, April 2, 2012

Writing About A Boy

I didn't want this piece to be about my high school sweetheart. I wanted to be able to say that my most significant personal transformation came from some event less superficial than a high school relationship, like study abroad, or my Dad's illness, or my family. I had a problem admitting that Matt still plays a big role in my life as a catalyst for change. It was an insecurity of mine; I felt embarrassed that an ex-boyfriend defines so much of me. But I didn't feel that way once I finished the essay. I felt proud and empowered, and I can't be ashamed of my past.

Now let me take a step back: Once I told myself that it was okay to write about my high school boyfriend, I still needed to think hard about myself and figure out if that was as deep as I could go. I thought about how I've changed, how I manifest those changes, who I am, how I live my life differently now versus before. I know I am a much different person than I was in high school, than I was before I left for Ecuador last August, than I was even a week ago at the start of spring quarter. But to actually transform those reflections into a tangible thing like a personal essay and find words that don't sound preachy and cliche, was both frustrating and liberating. I never had that conversation with myself before. And I found that right now was the best time to do it--as I'm coming back from study abroad, trying to reignite an excitement for school, and cutting myself off from a year-long fling. All of these recent changes are forcing me to question everything I once sought and believed in, and how I got to be the person I am at my core.

So I chose to accept Matt as the most critical part of my personal journey thus far, with reluctance though. I found myself belittling every moment of that relationship. I wrote, deleted, wrote and again deleted sentences like, "It was an immature relationship," or, "It was just puppy love." Which is why, reading my piece once it was finished, I don't feel like I was being true to what really happened those high school years and beyond. I was criticizing young love when I am still the first person to say that age doesn't matter when you meet the right person. What we had was young and innocent love, and it didn't work out but that shouldn't negate the rest.

In terms of content, I have some gaps to fill. When I know the story so well, I take for granted certain details. I don't think the audience gets to know Matt as well as they need to to understand why he was so hard to say goodbye to. Or certain events that would better explain the relationship dynamic. I also worry that certain parts are too fragmented, and certain ideas not drawn out enough. So I'm really looking forward to workshop this week!

Thick Skin

Audience: Modern Love

“Twinkies are made of whale blubber” were some of the words Matt shared with me during our first encounter. That and, “I went to The Avery Coonley School. We’re the seahorses because we only travel onward and upward—never backward.” Anxious to learn more about my first high school crush, I Googled The Avery Coonley School after class, and sure enough the site’s masthead read, “Guiding Gifted Children Onward and Upward.” Seahorse silhouettes and seahorse watermark paraded the page. It was a well-known suburban grammar school for kid geniuses, but Matt didn’t want people to know he attended, or that he got a 36 on his ACT three years later. I liked Matt’s quirks, his playful personality and his obliviousness to the dos and don’ts of making a good first impression. So I took his word for it that the cream filling of the Twinkie was made with the blubber of a whale, for the next four high school years.

Each academic year had its defining moment; freshman year I joined the rowing team for two reasons: I hoped to find my niche in sports, since my older sister had found hers on the volleyball team at that age, and Matt was on the team. We traveled to out-of-state regattas nearly every weekend and carpooled to 5:10am practices Monday through Friday, but even outside our rowing bubble we were best friends. The last regatta of the spring season fell on Mother’s Day, so Matt absconded with a white rose from his mom’s bouquet and gave it and an invitation to be his girlfriend to me. The natural blush of my cheeks made my face doubly pink, as I had already coated it with a layer of makeup to look my best for the race. I said yes, we dated for two weeks, and I broke it off for the neighborhood bad boy, Kevin, who I had been crushing on since our First Holy Communion in the second grade. Matt’s Facebook status that night read, “Well this blows. Tryin’ again next year!”

So he tried like a toddler on a two-wheeler. But after a year of wanting to have my cake and eat it too, of rejected dance invitations and unreciprocated romantic gestures on my part, Matt decided he’d had enough. But I liked him, and he was, in the words of my girlfriends, perfect. So I asked him to be my boyfriend. But first, to show the seriousness of my request, I purchased every last Twinkie from the local grocery store to equip his locker, so that later, his face would shine as bright as the golden sponge cakes cascading to his feet. He accepted, and as the story goes, we fell in and out of young love in what seemed like a blink of an eye.

Those are transformative years, say my parents, the years we begin to discover our individual selves. And it happened that my hip was glued to his during that transformational time. I walked and he followed. I was one half to a whole. So two years into my glorious teens, I became all about a boy. And I was all about that boy for the many months following a painful breakup at the start our sophomore year of college, the adversary of all high school sweethearts like Matt and me who go to separate schools and can’t make it work.

Until July of the following summer, a year into my half trying to be its own whole, when Matt told me he was dating our 20-something-year-old high school rowing coach. Jenn was seven years older than him, bubbly and free spirited, training for a dangerous rowing excursion across the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 2012, and she was awesome. I would date her too, but still, the news hit me like a meteor flogging the cement, and I stormed out in tears like a fourteen year-old high school me. But she would feel justified, and I felt foolish.

That happened one month before I boarded a plane to study in Quito, Ecuador for six months. With the excitement of that change in setting, of breathing in another language, traveling and living independently of my family, fast came an instinctive and effortless desire that everything I do, I ultimately do for myself. So in twos, I was a one, and in a group, I didn’t worry about losing the sense of myself. I thought about Matt often, longed for him at first, then after a few more months in Ecuador, I didn’t feel anything for him. I couldn’t disregard, however, that he was the reason I sought and worked at that change in the first place.

My dad wanted only to be a bystander in the six years this boy overwhelmed my life, while my mom organized book club meetings with Matt’s mom and trips to their summer cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin. He foresaw the ramifications of a high school couple consuming themselves in each other before they leave for college, but he only ever told me, “You have to be selfish, mija.”

He didn’t mean a vindictive selfishness that eats away the good in people, but one that leads to resilience instead of weakness when a plan backfires, or when a boy breaks my heart. A selfishness that's left me satisfied inside.