Up through high school, I used to do a lot of creative writing. My elementary school years were spent writing a lot of stories and plays, which I continued to a certain degree in middle school, and then in high school I mostly wrote poetry.
I wrote very little in college, only a poem or two, and thinking back I really stopped writing after my brother died. I did journal to a certain extent, and then I picked up blogging after college, but I don't think I've written like I use to for pretty much 15 years.
Back up to last year, when I did a Facetime with my mom during which she filmed various papers I had left behind in my childhood bedroom because I was searching for proof of employment from my pre-France life, and I caught a glance of my file folder "Writing". I hadn't thought of it in a long time, so I asked my mom to bring it to my grandmother's funeral last August. My mom forgot, and only mailed it to me about 2 weeks ago. I remembered a few things, but was actually a tiny bit anxious about re-reading things I'd written in middle and high school.
But yesterday I took the plunge.
I chuckled at the thinly veiled "names have been changed to protect the innoncent" retellings of middle and high school dramas. I realized I used to start my stories almost identically. I smiled at the story torn out of a spiral bound notebook about a mute girl raised by her deaf mother who learned she and her mother didn't have any money left and was thus forced to leave her beloved woods to work in a shop (the story didn't go much further). I accepted that just about none of my poetry has stood the test of time (even back then I didn't have illusions of grandeur and mostly wrote it because I found the process cathartic). I was impressed by a story I wrote as a homework assignment in 6th grade and by the clarity of my thoughts in a number of AOL emails I saved from a soul baring correspondence I had with a boy in 11th grade.
But only one story (or the one page of three-hole punched notebook paper) made me immediately curious for the rest. Judging by the handwriting, I would say it's early high school, maybe the summer between 8th and 9th.
So here it is (please excuse the overly flowery style; it's an affliction of all 15 year olds. Also, I apparently only started sentences with participle phrases):
The yellow rays of the sun started to sink behind the hill. Fragmented beams only reached the chair where Marriane [sic] sat, reading her book. She placed her book mark inside, and layed [sic] the novel beside her. Standing up to stretch, a purple cloud caught her eye. With quick steps she ascended to the balconey [sic] atop the house. The blazing sun was no longer visible, only the burnt sky. Marriane remained atop the house until the stars just began to appear. Someone across the lake had turned on their radio and the music reached her faintly. Marriane stepped down slowly, mouthing the words to the song. Unwrapping her towel, Marriane prepared to take a dip. The music became slightly louder and lights began to shine around the lake. Marriane plunged into the cool lake off of the small dock her uncle had erected. The water felt good on her tanned body. Striving to touch the bottom, Marriane strained her lungs. The moon cast soft rays to the sandy bottom. A glint of gold unlike flakes of pyrite shined brightly. Marriane had to return to the surface for air, but after wiping her hair from her face, she dove down again. Clawing at the chain that appeared after a wave of water, Marriane grasped a locket. Swimming viciously for the surface for the air that her lungs craved, Marriane's hand squeezed around the locket. Shooting through the surface she gasped loudly. Marriane swam to the dock and pulled herself up. A heart shaped imprint turned red as she removed the locket from her left hand. Gingerly tugging at the front, Marriane pried open the locket. A few grains of sand fell from within and Marrianne brushed at the pictures inside with her forefinger. A man's face was on the left, with a woman's face was placed in the right side of the locket. Turning the locket over, Marriane read the inscription.
"To Victoria, my love, from your dearest Jesse."
A few tears slid down Marriane's face as she clutched the locket to her chest. Marriane stood up and held her hands over the water. The locket started to slip out of her hands and she let it go. Catching a current and floating towards the center of the lake, Marriane watched the moon light bounce off of the golden chain. She wiped the tears away and ran back to the house, stopping only to pick up her book and towel.
2 comments:
Nice bit of writing there. I have a drawer full of old hand written stories and poetry as well. Most of it is the kind of poorly written stuff you would expect from a young teenage boy. A young peasant boy becomes a hero and falls in love with the beautiful princess. Some long post apocalyptic story from after I watched the movie Mad Max. 98% is completely horrible but occasionally I read a sentence or a paragraph and think, "This isn't really that bad."
This writing is good, I want to read more! I have also been surprised when I read my high school writing by how introspective/perceptive one can be at that age. A good reminder for when we deal with teenagers.
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