"The truth about stories is, that's all we are." -Thomas King, The Truth About Stories
The year was 1994
My So-Called Life came out, Friends premiered, Kurt Cobain died, and I, age 13, found out we were moving to Spain for a year.
There are some events in one’s young life that just change the course of all that comes after. My parents’ divorce when I was two-years-old, our move from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Central Illinois, and the year I missed my freshman year of High School because my mom & step-dad brought me to Spain for a year (they were both Spanish Lit professors) and put me into public school despite me not knowing the language all that well.
I had a rocky grade school experience full of mean girls, but by 8th grade, I finally felt like I had found my “cool self” in Jr High. I rocked thrifted corduroy grandpa pants 3 sizes too big for me and giant concert T’s. I had friends and we went to movies together and hung out in each other’s basements. I played the violin and was good at art. I wasn’t cheerleader cool, but I had a place in the social hierarchy.
1995
Clueless, the OJ Simpson trial, the Oklahoma bombing, Gangsta’s Paradise - I was living in an apartment on Calle Viriato in Madrid, eating Palmeras, and wishing I’d paid more attention in Spanish class.
Spain was…a whole post unto itself, but needless to say, I learned a lot about how it feels to be out of place, out of context, and largely alone. Without a shared language, I was incredibly grateful for music - the one place where I could connect with my peers with relative ease. I joined a string quartet and in that one place, I didn’t feel like an idiot.
1996 - the summer of Ska
When I came back to the states I was… out of touch with the American youths (Schmidt voice please). Ska had become this huge thing while I was gone, and I was still listening to The Smashing Pumpkins and Hole. I remember so distinctly the way it felt to leave the US in this Greenday/early Radiohead place and arrive back in a world filled with Cherry Poppin’ Daddies.
Going into my Sophomore year of High School, I knew I had missed a lot, but I didn’t realize I would feel somewhat out of step with my class for the remainder of my time there. Friend groups had been established, and no matter how hard to tried, I never really slipped back into the time stream I’d stepped out of.
What I gained though, was an ability to “see” my own culture in a new way. I got out of the water I had been swimming in, and when I got back in, I was given the ability to choose what to do with it.
And this is the advantage to using the past for our writing - we are no longer in that context. Even if we never moved out of our hometowns, the past is a foreign country we can write about with a lot of detail, emotion, and knowledge.
Some prompts for your own writing!
Activity for the week
Make a playlist of music you've loved over the years
Start with the first album you ever bought and go from there.
Let the music bring you back in time,
take notes on your thoughts, memories, feelings,
connections, locations, relationships, etc.
Journaling prompt
Teenage self inquiry
Who were you at 14? 17? 19?
What did you love to do?
What were your concerns?
What did you wear?
What did you listen to?
Did you make anything?
Who were your friends?
What was friendship like for you?
Ask your teenage self what they need from you -
Are there any pieces of them you can bring forward?
The themes this week are about memory, culture, family, and drawing on the past for your writing. Here are some words you could play with
childhood, neighborhood, memory, nostalgia, music, high school, first love, first kiss, first friends, moving, fitting in, culture, holidays, traditions, rituals, generation, decades, fashion, milestones, pain points
10 Poetry Prompts
(set a timer for 5-10 mins, pick a prompt, and go!)
in the photo…
we lined up…
she never…
my first love was…
I grew up in…
I'm from…
when we left…
my childhood landscape…
I never looked back…
I am made of…
I’d love to hear any insights, memories, stories, or poems you write based on these prompts! Post em in the comments or tag me!! <3 <3
If you’re enjoying this series of prompts, consider subscribing - there will be more!
Loving hearing more about your journey (wow to living in Spain!) and appreciate the prompts at the end. I especially loved the 1997 poem - the opening about crows asking a question decades too early (genius) and the vivid descriptions were lovely.
"the past is a foreign country we can write about with a lot of detail, emotion, and knowledge."
Couldn't agree more. It also seems to me that there's an ideal time to lay out the past in our writing—after enough time has passed so that some clarity presents itself, but not so long that the details have been forgotten. (Unfortunately, though, I often feel like I miss the deadline.)