Writing Prompt: Write about a time you retreated
There's a fine line between telling my own story and telling the story
of my mother. In some moments I feel like I own her story, after all,
didn't it create the conditions of my life? Therefore, don't I have a
right to it? On the other hand, many years ago my partner became
impatient with the way I seemed to romanticize her past and
asked me to stop asking her so many questions or retelling what was hers
to tell.
So, I vacillate between what I want to say, what I think I should
say and what shouldn't be said. It's a fine line, a tiny bit less
awkward given the fact that I don't yet have an agent. But that will
change soon. I am destined to be a storyteller and writer, and then
surely it will all come out.
Honestly, there's so much that will come out that I can clearly
never run for political office. I could do a stint as a rock star, no
doubt, because their lives are nothing without secrets revealed. But is
ones background and growing up time their own to share or does the
story start with the first time on stage, or on the road?
Did you ever see the movie Almost Famous? I resonated with those
characters - the eager journalist, the beautiful groupie, the
egotistical rock god. Or how about Laurel Canyon? I loved that
tough/loose mother and music producer played by Frances McDormand. I
cried wanting to be there, in the hot wind of an LA enclave.
I grew up between worlds, between states, between parents and
siblings. I grew up on the edges of extreme wealth and hippie poverty.
My childhood smelled like patchouli and grass in the summers and hot
stifling normativity during the school year. My worlds conflicted, as
did my allegiances and no one knew the whole me except me.
When my mom moved to the guru's commune, my story became more colorful, at
least in tones of a red orange sunset. Only it wasn't me who lived
there. I was, as I had always been, on the outside looking in, sometimes
with envy, sometimes with curiosity, usually feeling left out.
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