My Summer Vacation, Part III: Making Meaning
Indian summer painting by Hank Feeley
By Anne-Marie Oomen
Sun contributor
The third of three pieces on how to capture your best Leelanau moments in words.
In the first section of this series, I suggested that if we use sensory language to describe some of your best summer moments, that kind of language stimulates the brain and keeps your potentially boring “summer vacation” more interesting. In the second part of the series, I proposed we try writing our summer moments using strong verbs, especially action verbs, because those help keep our memories locked in place. Yes, turns out we humans remember action better than stillness. But sometimes all this feels very technical, and perhaps it is. Most of us, once it’s pointed out, can implement these two practices as we write, and those of us who get hooked on journal or letter writing (even emails) do this on every page. Even text messages improve from these practices. But there comes a time when almost every writer (and reader) asks why they should spend time on this, why yet another story about climbing the Dune Climb or about your nutty Uncle Jack running screaming out of the freezing lake. Sure, it’s funny and all, but too many of those and you find yourself thinking “Yeah, yeah, I know that. Sooo?” This question centers on what writers sometime call the “so what” factor. When writers get to the end of the story, we want some kind of pay-off, some idea that helps us see the bigger picture in all this fuss. And if writers are feeling that, you can bet you Bic that readers are thinking that too.
The “so-what” question comes when even if we use lots of sensory language and develop strong verbs, and even if we go further and really work on our style, we may still come to the end of our tale and think it feels flat. Often, it’s a so-what problem. The so-what solution is to ask exactly what you are thinking: why this is important? Or to say here’s why you should think about this story. Or here’s why this has meaning. It doesn’t have to be one of those big, hit-you-over-the-head-with-a bean-pot moments. And it certainly doesn’t have to be preachy—you are NOT writing a sermon. It may not be a BIG lesson, but rather something more unexpected than that, a small and quietly inferred realization. What most of us want is for the writing to mean something personal to us, to touch us or move us, and perhaps to have a little insight into the human situation. We want to know that what we do and what we say to the world has meaning because, just maybe, we are more like each other than unlike—despite our differences. We want connection, and it’s not just in reading sensory language and lively action, it’s also in the compassion that is created when you say, Oh yeah, I know what that means; I’ve been there.
What you are seeking, whether you are the reader or the writer, is a little bit of reflection. The word fits. I call it the “What I understand now” phenomenon. It happens when you stay inside the experience for a sentence or two longer, and maybe you end with one thing you understand now. So when Uncle Jack comes grumbling into the Friendly, almost hypothermic from his cold and unexpected dip into the lake, and everyone laughs, you might end up noticing the following: Then Aunt Clara rose from her chair, scolding like squirrel, and wrapped her arms around his neck from behind, and she never said one kind word to him, and I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t holler back, but then I saw how she just kept rubbing his arms hard and telling him over and over, but softer and softer what an idiot he was and to drink up that hot coffee right this instant. After a while I understood this is how he would be warmed, not by kind words, but by scolding and rough touch. This last bit is what memoirists call reflection. It is a moment of insight or discovery that reflects on the action. It works best when it is unexpected or subtle, and we feel the speaker discover it in the moment.
Sometimes a writer can take this practice even further. A reflection on calm Lake Michigan water shows us the same picture, but upside down—it’s like that. So let’s look again at our young girl trying to climb the dune climb for the first time. Her brothers have already reached the top, and even the dog barks down at her, and now her shoes, full of sand, weigh what seems like a ton, and she does not think she will every make it. Here’s how she might write it: I put one foot in front of the other, and trudge up the dune, and with every step I slip back almost all the way. I stop to breathe hard and I think the sun will set before I get even half way there, but I keep trekking up the dune, almost crying. Then I hear my brothers from way above me, shouting. Are those brats laughing at me? They would do that. But they are not. They are saying something like…I can’t understand but then my oldest brother stands on one leg and pretends like he’s taking off his shoe. Oh, take off your shoes…. Take off my shoes? I think about this for ten more painful steps before I sit down and take off my tennis shoes and my socks. I wiggle my feet in the sand, and it feels good, and I feel light when I stand up, and then I try again, and I still slip but it’s ok, I don’t have to work so hard, so I leave my shoes right there on the sand. And then I can see my brothers are way up there on top, and they are waving me up, and I start to run, pushing hard and harder, and the dog barks at me to hurry, hurry. Then I’m close and closer, and I see they really are cheering, and then I’m up and falling over and laughing. I turn around and see the Glens, little and big, spread out like blue wings, and everyone wows the view. And then they say, run, run, run. And so we do, we runrunrun down and I feel how the sand is almost like a trampoline, and you can spring into or even fall, but I never do. I run all the way down, so happy I could cry.
When it was over, I understood, I would go up that dune even more times than my brothers ever dreamed. Now that I knew how, I could do it even faster than my brothers. What I didn’t understand, what I had to think about for a long time is why they waited for me. I didn’t know the answer to that, but when I thought about it for a long time, it made me smile.
In this piece, the end has to lead to the so-what factor, so she gives it to us with her list of two things she understands. The dune climb teaches her these things and we feel them too. But she goes even one better, turning to a thought she doesn’t understand, the upside down reflection. She says she doesn’t really understand why her brothers waited for her—but in some more subtle part of her being, she does understand, though she won’t say. And this inner knowledge, which we readers can deduce, is part of our engagement, so we also get to enjoy by realizing with her—which she has subtly inferred she knows but won’t tell us.
So as you write your summer moments, think about how you might address the so-what factor. The what I understand now sentence helps you to find meaning, and it helps your reader identify with your experience. And then you can extend that with what you don’t understand. It is, in a way, and act of compassion to share this more internal reflection. After you get practice, you might not write that sentence so directly; you’ll find even more subtle ways to offer the human connection, the making of meaning.
Anne-Marie Oomen is a writer from Empire. Her fifth book, Love Sex and 4-H will be published in the spring of 2015 by Wayne State University Press. Visit her website at Anne-MarieOomen.com.