Based on a true story

I've had a piece of creative nonfiction published this week, at the ever-fabulous flash purveyor Ellipsis Zine, and it feels a bit weird. In a good way. I think.

The first exercise on the Fast Flash workshop I did last month was about the power of recall. Events with strong emotional content are stronger in our memories, said Kathy Fish, and she asked us to dredge up some strong memories, no matter how slight the incident, throw in as much sensory imagery as we could, and write something vivid. The second memory I made a note of was learning to tie a bow in around 1981:

Lying in the dark car, head on Nana's lap, her face striped by moving orange from the streetlamps, and me reaching up to tie and untie the bow at the neck of her dark dress (black or dark brown, with orange squares or diamonds?). It felt rough, like the skin on her fingers.

If you read The Lesson (as the piece was eventually named at Kathy's suggestion) you'll see the essence of the whole thing was right there in that first flood of memory.

As I write this blog post on Monday afternoon, The Lesson has been getting a lot of love on Twitter already, and it's great to know it's touching so many people. It's a big leap from sharing it with a dozen fellow participants on a writing course, who are also sharing (in some cases unbearably sad) memories, to sharing it with anyone in the world who cares to read it. I've written a lot of fiction with real cores, but nobody generally knows which bits are real and which bits I made up. Then again, there's nothing wrong with admitting to loving your grandmother, and if I could look up at her now I think I'd see that smile.