Turning Memory into Material

writing our origin stories (Letter Two: Spring Dreaming}

"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 middle school. 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.

Origin Stories

What we’re really doing, when we return to these moments, is writing our origin stories. Our becomings as artists and writers are often full of disruption, awkwardness, misalignment, and unexpected turns that didn’t make sense at the time.

These turning points are the places where something essential was formed.

And from where I’m standing now, I can see it more clearly: that year in Spain taught me how to step outside of a life and look at it with fresh eyes. It showed me that identity isn’t fixed, that culture is something you can change you, and that belonging is more fluid than I had imagined.

And this is also 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.

Creative Prompts

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. 

Writing Prompts

Self-inquiry

• Who were you at 14? 22? 39? 55?

• What did you love to do?

• What were your concerns?

• What did you wear?  

Choose a year or a few years that feel particularly relevant to your formation as a creative, and tell your origin story from that time.

Write a poem about a turning point in your life; let the poem remind you who you are.

Find an old photograph and write about it as a documentarian might.

Me and Erin, Oberlin 1999

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!

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