Wednesday Blog Post: The Struggle With Memory

Having written the first draft of a creative nonfiction book and a handful of short stories in the genre, I'll be the first to admit, writing the truth is hard. The stories you don't want to remember but you just can't forget are often the ones that need to be written, no matter how hard it is to put the words on paper. My biggest problem I run into is that I think I remember everything perfectly - until I sit down to write.

I noticed this especially while drafting my thesis, American Studies. I had been sharing stories about the AS crew - Derek, Dave, Barton, et. al. - all through college, so of course I knew what the stories were. When I sat down to start outlining and selecting scenes, I realized how much I had forgotten, and how much wasn't applicable to the plot I had in my head. Yes, the sock joke, a line I knew from start to finish, was hilarious, but it was just an anecdote; it didn't represent what and who this class was about. It was the intangible moments in between I was trying to capture.

I did have a few resources to fall back on: the diary I kept that year and a handful of papers and assignments from the class. One of our projects had been to keep a daily journal, so I have consecutive entries for most of November and all of December 2001. I have the entries from Sept. 11th and my reactions, its impact on my classmates and I. I have the 100 word essays Mrs. Sihvonen decorated with red pen and a rewrite stamp, the current event assignments dotted with Mrs. Kowal's opinion.

Some of it made me giggle. Some of it, especially the Sept. 11th entries, make me reflect on everything that tragedy set into motion, how our world changed. And when I read about Tonya, our classmate who died because of a car accident, I remembered. I was back in Mrs. Kowal's room again, Barton's foot tapping and his hands folded against his chin, stone-faced, jaw clenched. Kristin was crying softly and I was dabbing at my eyes with a school tissue; I might as well have scraped my eyes with sandpaper.

Do I remember the exact words said? No; I don't have a tape of the event, and 16-year-old me didn't write it down. But I remember Mrs. Kowal asking us if we wanted to have class, and someone - I'm pretty sure it was Dave - spoke for all of us, saying we wanted to continue. Rereading all the material I kept jogged my memory, brought me back to the people and the feelings I wanted, needed to capture in words. Writing this now still brings it back, every worry and fear and laugh and bit of happines..

The key here is to stay true to who these people are and convey their personalities onto the page. Even if the dialogue isn't exact, it probably won't be, it should still sound like something they would have said. Cross reference what you can and remember, you can always talk to other people who were there. This is one step I didn't take with the first draft of American Studies, though I probably will for the second draft, whenever I decide to start it.

Bicky was the only one who knew I was writing it. "Are you going to use our real names?" he asked. "Because I think that you should."

I did. And I hope that, when the project is complete, it is an accurate reflection of not only my memories, but of the people who made those days mean so much to me.