by Dana Guthrie Martin
Is the following essay about me true or false?
I love the way hand puppets warm my hand. I enjoy talking to them and through them. Before I know it, my hand is moving on its own, and the puppet truly seems to be inhabited by something — dare I call it a spirit?
Why not ascribe a spirit to a hand puppet. Isn’t the act of playing with one merely a way of projecting one’s own self, and who says self — or spirit — must reside inside one’s physical body? Much the way the mind is comprised of both what is within and outside us, can’t the spirit be both interior and exterior?
I have at times been so moved by my hand puppets that I have teared up when considering their unpredictable, circumscribed, tragic lives (for I often write them into the saddest circumstances during my play time with them). I have clutched many a puppet to my chest, overcome by compassion and concern.
Is the following essay about me true or false?
I once dreamed I had six toes on one foot and seven on the other. This made walking in sand difficult, so many toes into the impressionable surface. But I had no choice. The sock monkeys had wandered into the sea.
It took days to move from one corner of the shore’s loose-knit lip to the other, my toes leaving odd but regular tracks behind me. Children cried monster and squealed, either from delight or fear, when I passed. (It was hard to tell which cry was which, or which cry I deserved. To be feared for no reason is one thing, for extra toes quite another.)
When my work was done, I washed my feet in Downy fabric softener and hummed the song my father used to sing to me every night through his Marlboro-stained lungs: Oh pony, oh pony, how much for your hooves? They’ll grow back, they’ll grow back, I promised they would.
His voice was much like the whistles that pass through sock monkeys when they have taken on so much saltwater their lungs can no longer hold air.
As I hummed and scrubbed, the extra toes came loose in my hands. I rolled them like pumice stones over each heel.
I’m not going to tell you which of my above essays was true and which was false (although you are welcome to guess), because that’s not the point. I am simply using them to (successfully or not) illustrate the essence of this installment of Games Poets Play, which is to not write poetry but instead write essays.
Why essays? Because we sometimes forget this fact: In terms of growing and learning as poets, we don’t always have to stick with writing poems. After all, “to essay” does mean “to try,” and we’re trying to get at something this week.
The point of our truths and lies essay-writing is threefold:
- to write an essay that is incredibly convincing even if it’s a lie
- to find, through the essay, the undercurrent of truth that resides inside our lies
- to excavate our strangest truths and document them so successfully they seem like they simply must be lies
Toward that end, we are asking you to write out, develop and explore as many truths and lies as you can, then post one truth essay and one lie essay in the comments section for this post. Other members can guess whether each item you post is a truth or a lie and can talk about what elements seemed to make each submission seem like one or the other.
Remember, the goal with Games Poets Play is to practice writing, not to try to write a completed piece. Just give yourself over to this exercise and see where it takes you. What you post in the comments section does not have to be a completed work by any means.
Dana Guthrie Martin is the founder of Read Write Poem. In 2010, she is taking a break from completing poems so she can study their component parts, while at the same time learning a new musical instrument, most likely the oboe.
I once discovered that losing weight makes walking feet less prone to tripping, however gaining weight improves the standing stability. Even ballanced on one foot, a sturdy woman withstands the buffetting of life. I assumed it was my trifocals that made the world seem out of focus, but losing weight changed my perspective for a while. I suspect too many cookies and chocolate stout bread puddings may be behind my recent fall.
I bought a hand mirror at the Goodwill where the drug store used to be at Main and Eastland. It was small and fit inside a plastic sleeve, like something someone had a product or service name on as a giveaway. When I pulled it out to clean, I blew on the mirror, the way you do before wiping your glasses, and in the fog, this appeared:
smile.
angie werren replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
1)truth
2)lies
[...] Truth and Lies 2009 November 24 by barbara_y Dana, at rwp has posted a different sort of challenge. She suggests a little exercise in prose. An essay, or rather two. One truth, the other [...]
Super duper, Dana! This entry contains several things I have considered including how many lies we tell-deliberately or not-in any of our writing.
You also touch upon the nature of author versus narrator. Readers often can’t seem to distinguish between the two.
I try to write using a variety of genres. Each genre helps me improve writing the other. I learn how to use words and images in ways I might not have thought about when I stick to poetry. The practice makes for proficiency, and writing daily makes for fluency.
That said, I often don’t edit when I am in blogging mode–so you wouldn’t think genre switching has done me any good!
I’m baaaaack! Didn’t mean to be gone so long – very happy to be back. The first week of school turned into the first quarter before I could see my way clear to do much besides course preparation and papers. Oh, and some of my former students began writing novels as part of National Novel writing Month, and so I did, too. Tonight I submitted 52,678 words – and it was more fun than I ever imagined it would be. But I have lots of revision ahead.
Oops, sorry – been gone too long. That was meant as a general remark, not as a response to Dana’s Games Poets Play.
All right, since I contributed irrelevant comments inadvertantly, and so messed up the order of things, I’ll now comment properly as restitution, and because it’s fun.
First Essay
When I was seven years old I lived in a fifth floor apartment in Queens. My mother went off to work every morning, leaving me with a live-in nanny. Before Mommy left, she would come in my room, adjust my blankets, touch my hair, and leave me a few coins to spend any way I wanted that day. I always pretended to be asleep, and so learned to identify how much money she was leaving me by the sounds of the coins dropping on the table beside my bed.
Usually it was just pennies – enough for penny candy. But sometimes, it would be a dime – a whole dime. And if it was, I’d take Daddy’s binoculars and look down into the shop window far below to see if any of my favorite comics had new issues in the window display.
I had Marvel Comics, and Batman, and the brand new one called Superman, and of course, all of Walt Disney Productions.
Second Essay
When I was seven years old I lived in a small rural town in upper New York state. There were apple orchards, with rugged trees to climb, branches pulled low by the weight of apples, and a great meadow of wild flowers and bees. To this day, the image of that vibrant flower-filled meadow, is smells and motions, is one of my most pleasant memories.
My favorite place in all the world was a tree house at the edge of that meadow, near the orchard, but not an apple tree – much taller. It wasn’t my tree house, I was not allowed to go there because I was a girl.
But when my brother and his pals were not there, I would creep up the ladder made of planks nailed into the trunk, and hoist myself onto the plaform, and be king of the meadow, king of the world up there where the leaves sung in the wind.
angie werren replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
1) lies 2) truth
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
What makes you lean that way for each essay, Angie?
angie werren replied:
November 26th, 2009 at 8:54 am
it’s mostly just a gut feeling, but I don’t think *she* looked through binoculars at comic books. the 2nd one has more realistic-sounding images, like the weight of the apples and the rugged trees.
barbara_y replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I like the first better, but think the second is the truth.
Wanda McCollar replied:
December 1st, 2009 at 10:57 am
I cannot reply where the comments were made – this then is reply to the unanimous votes that my first essay was a lie, my second true. Actually – my first essay is true in every detail as I remember it, the second essay was a lie. I’ve never been in a tree house although I thought that would have been a nice experience. I was a city child, lived in the Queens, and bought comic books. My mother threw out my comic book collection (many first editons) when I went to college, thinking I was too old, new interests, to want them anymore!
OK, here are my two responses to this game:
Somewhere in a busy market there is a scramble to escape a sudden fire. There’s no limit to national interests. An IV tube gets stuck to the PICC Line cap. Pliers will loosen the point of insertion. Every word swells and shatters against the one beside it. “Fleet” becomes “purchase” becomes “pet” — remarkable and annoying at the same time. The acquisition of language goes both ways — each has hands around the other’s throat.
* * *
Someone looks at a pay stub and thinks “the price of existence is suffering.” Someone hides a photograph in a book. Someone spills coffee — it pools in their navel. Someone craves judgment. A weak leg buckles. Knot-tying can only be communicated through models. Someone shops with stolen credit. Someone is confronted with proof. Someone in the audience loses a tooth during the third act. Someone says “welcome” and lies.
angie werren replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
1)truth 2)lies
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Both are indeterminate. They are functions of language, perspective and perception, all of which are faulty. We can’t rely on this narrator any more than we can rely on ourselves.
We should put these in the Untelling Stories issue we’re curating. It’s better than my idea about the poem about receiving poetry rejections on Thanksgiving Eve.
barbara_y replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
All of the things in the second are true, the first is more symbolic, and it is possible that it is meant to be true.
neither is a lie
rallentanda replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 2:15 am
Nathan,the second one is a very good poem.The second one is the truth.
Whoops! I didn’t realize we were supposed to respond with a truth and a lie. Sorry!
After reading Dana’s wonderful post, I was very afraid to attempt this..but I always MAKE myself do things I am afraid of, so here goes…
Essay 1
From as far back as I can remember, I used to think, dream, feel, and at times even see a man. He was short, slight, with a hooked nose and deep-set eyes under dark lids. He always had a sad and yet nervous look. I was sure I knew him. He was so familiar. I knew he liked a certain tilt to his brown fedora, suffered from ulcers, and was a chain-smoker. Pall Mall. Sometimes while in a drowsy state I could actually feel one of those cigarettes resting between my first two fingers, the ash coming closer and closer, , heating my skin. Recently while at a bookstore I began thumbing through a large “coffee table” book about Intelligence officers during World War II, and I came upon a picture. In the picture was a group of seven men, each leaning over a large table, studying a map. This man, the man who had haunted me throughout my life, was in that group, third man from the left. Left nameless, but wearing the fedora.
Essay 2
I have a pond. It is large, deep and ringed by waterlilies. There is a soothing waterfall that wends gently through large boulders before dropping softly into the water below. Everyone that comes to our home remarks on the wonderful oasis in the desert. But the best part of all is the Koi. Several dozen large fish with magical colorations glide within those waters, each one more beautiful than the one before. These fish know me. They see me through a liquid gaze and one by one they come to the surface, where I am allowed to gently touch their slick bodies in a loving caress, and where they eat watermelon from my hand.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I am inclined to say #1 is a lie because you have more detail in it. I noticed when I was writing my pieces that I put more detail into my lie — my lie became a more real “place” as I was writing. So I think you did the same thing. Although you might be a huge trickster who did the exact opposite: Fleshing out your true essay and putting less detail into the lie.
barbara_y replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
I think #2 is true, but really like #1.
I begin to see a pattern
angie werren replied:
November 26th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I would say #1 is true just because it has a dreamy strangeness to it that truth often does.
Jessica GC replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
In a way I really want to know which one is true, but I also don’t want to know. I’m so torn!
Joseph Harker replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I’m inclined to think #2 is true, but maybe I’m drawing too much from your icon of the fish… there are a couple details that sound a bit unreal in both. Which just makes both of them that much more awesome if they are real. I hope they’re both true.
I enjoyed this prompt so much! Great idea Dana!
Essay 1:
At 4 a.m. he held me captive. Well not so much captive as against my will. Well not so much my will, but against my better judgment. This is not to say I didn’t want to be with him. I just didn’t think this is where I would end up when the night was over; though I had hoped for it.
He took a seat on the couch and urged me to sit down next to him. So much closer than the last time we were in this situation. It didn’t take long for him to press his lips against mine and I didn’t fight. I was thankful for this second chance.
We shifted for hours; me on top of him, him on top of me, our lips barely parting, but our bodies barely crossing the line past PG-13. He fell asleep with his arms around me.
Essay 2:
At 4 a.m. I left his house and headed to my own home. As I walked through the door I was immediately overcome with loneliness; wishing I had stayed with him longer. All night I told myself I wouldn’t go home with him. I wouldn’t let myself fall back into his trap. Last time didn’t end well; a truth I have had to remind myself of often.
I took off my makeup, changed into sleeping clothes, and curled up on the couch with my dog. I fell sleep imagining him with his arms around me and had the sweetest dreams. His lips pressed against mine, his hands shifting to experience every curve of my body, my hands running from his head to his shoulders to his chest.
In the morning I wondered why reality couldn’t be as gentle as this, but this was pure fiction and only in my head.
Cynthia Short replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 7:48 am
What a great idea to use the same scene in two different ways! I am too gullible and naive to tell which is true!
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
I don’t know what’s true or what’s a lie here, but this could be an entire series. Write that series. Do it!
Jessica GC replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I’m usually up for a challenge, but the thought of a series terrifies me!
barbara_y replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
“dentrites of choice”?
I think she stayed, rather than wonder what might have been.
Jessica GC replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Oooh…you’re good.
1) There was a tobacco field next to the rest area where I lost him, and a child’s bike leaned lost and abandoned against the side of the building. I remember sitting on that wooden board in the dark while they waited in the van, the cramps twisting my guts inside-out and all I could think about was splinters. Here I was, leaving little pieces of him in some hillbilly outhouse by the side of the road and all that worried me was wood sticking to my legs, tearing my skin. Little pieces of wood.
2) My dad couldn’t read or write. My mother left when my brother was born. I was 7 years old and I would come home from school with papers that he needed to sign. They never got turned in. Things piled up in my backpack until it was so full I could barely carry it. I missed a lot of recess because I didn’t get my homework done. I never told anyone that my dad couldn’t read. I was just the tough kid who backtalked the teacher, who clowned around and disrupted, hoping no one would notice.
Cynthia Short replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 7:51 am
These are both such powerful pieces. You did such a good job here, there is no way I can tell which is true!
angie werren replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I can’t tell, either. And I love them both, almost as much as I love hand puppets.
barbara_y replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
I think they are both someone’s story, but I don’t see you as a tough kid, so I’ll say that one is the lie.
1
I have decided to take the tops off of two old shoe shine kits and lodge them in the roof gutters for foot holds. On the slant roof I have bolted a telescope and an old cookie jar. During the day I scan the sky for commercial planes and hawks. Neighbors stand below me on the walk encouraging me to come down. Not a chance.I toss tangerine seeds down watching them bounce off their heads. Some of the seeds stick in their hair and they run away brushing their heads vigorously. Where the tangerines come from I do not know. It’s a holiday thing. In the evening under a blue tarp I listen to the pitter-patter of rain, enjoying the radiant heat from the shingles. Much later I come down to make snickerdoodles for the jar. Under the tarp I hold the bolted warm jar between my legs and breathe in the doodle fragrance as I fall asleep. Nite.
2
I once had a feng shui master come to my house and help me. We positioned mirrors out on the low stone wall in front of the house to counter the cascading energy rushing down the hill across the street. She wore a very colorful paisley scarf and carefully adjusted the mirrors to head off any avalanche of higgs boson particles. Her attenuation was so acute that day that we quickly located the center of power in my house. It was located in a heavy built in wooden drawer in the second floor bath. Second from the bottom. When we knelt and opened it we found ourselves staring at hummingbird feeders in a bird seed store across town. She apologized and we took a bus back to the house.
Nathan replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Wow, these are great! I think they’re both true.
angie werren replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
1) truth 2) lies
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I am really digging this whole “personal essay” tone we’re all rocking. It’s great.
barbara_y replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
I’ll buy #1.
Joseph Harker replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Going with #1 as truth as well, but #2 is wonderful!
Oh, I have my work cut out for me figuring out what’s true and what’s false! They are fascinating, by the way.
Fun stuff, Dana!
#1
My fingers traced a deep line in the faux-wood surface of the table. The fork and spoon were out of alignment on the thin tri-fold napkin. I nudged the napkin and slid the flatware so they were parallel. Roger sat on the booth bench next to me, his denim-clad leg inches from mine. Miriam, the waitress, kneeled in the booth opposite us. She smiled her usual pixie smile, ready to take our beverage order. Black coffee for him. A Coke for me. She hustled away to get us our drinks. Roger seemed nervous. I didn’t want to look directly at him, which was okay, since we were sitting side-by-side. To really look at him, I’d have to crane my neck or shift in the booth. I didn’t want to do either. I wondered if I’d made a mistake.
“Do you know where the restrooms are?” Roger asked, even though he knew I knew.
I pointed him in the right direction and let him out of the booth. He walked down the hall. Miriam returned with the coffee and Coke.
“Is that your new step-dad?” she asked.
I flushed in response, but she continued to look at me.
“No,” I answered a little too slowly. A look of confusion crossed her face for a half a second; then a different look entirely.
“Oh,” was all she could say.
————–
#2
The heat in the room had to be close to 96 degrees. The small grey fan in the corner worked its hardest, but could not circulate enough air to make a meaningful difference.
Roger sat across the room from me on my grandma’s new custom-made floral-covered sofa. The woman in the lime-green pantsuit sat next to him, her mouth opening and closing like a huge fish caught on a line. She was talking, but I had lost all sense of direction in the conversation. I was distracted by Roger.
His kind brown eyes met mine and he gave me that look.
I stood and smoothed my skirt, waiting for a break in her dialogue.
She finally took a breath.
“Can I get you something cool to drink?” I asked her.
“Lemonade,” she replied and then started back on another tangent.
Roger followed me to the kitchen.
“How can you be married to that woman?” I asked as his arms circled around my waist.
angie werren replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
1) lies 2) truth
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Dialogue! You’re taking us to new heights.
barbara_y replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
#2
I once took a train ride from Singapore to Malayasia and didn’t realise that a war was taking place even though myself and two other travelling companions were the only people left on the train.When we awoke in the morning we asked the guard ( who was dressed like a soldier)where everyone had gone and he said there was a problem with the track and everyone else had gone to take a bus.We believed him.Bols
gin has amazing soporific properties and I highly recommended it for any wartime situation.
Skinny Dipping in the Malacca Straits on a hot night…not realising the current was moving us
along too far up the beach We got out and of course our clothes were nowhere to be found.We headed naked to the candlelit tables on the beach and my gallant companion rushed at a table and whipped off the tablecloth and covered us to the great hilarity of the guests.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Again, I am going with #1 being a lie because you have more detail. Am I right?
I think #2 is true, but I like #1, even though I don’t like gin.
rallentanda replied:
November 26th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Both stories are true and date back to the seventies when everything like this used to happen.This type of thing hasn’t happened to me for decades and I can’t even drink Gin anymore.
I must say I miss those years of naivete and freedom.
Joseph Harker replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Lucky! Quite a pair of experiences.
Essay 1:
They’d sent Kate away to New York shortly after she turned to me on a February corner in Dorchester and began trembling, and her eyes rolled back, and I held her in my arms that one and only time in the six months we’d known each other. All our roses lay in the snow. Of course it was love, and that was forbidden.
When I appeared in a leather jacket and tall boots before the unflappable Mr. B in his study on the second floor of the secret temple, a brownstone that overlooked the Public Gardens, I expected he’d see through me, know right away what was up. But he only asked if I’d thought anymore about divine principle, the one true family, moving into the center.
I never ended up writing the story for which I’d gone undercover. The truth was less interesting than anyone would have imagined, lots of singing, lots of salad, no mind bending drugs. If you wound up brainwashed, you wanted to be. I only saw Kate one more time, in her exotic ritual gown, coifed like a princess, not the penultimate child of an out of work drunk.
But Emma was a different story, Emma the pretty girl from Genoa, a seventeen year old runaway who strayed across an ocean with her sailor boyfriend then ran away from him so she could sell candy on the streets of Boston. Emma, I helped pack in the dark, Emma I watched walk out into the morning world.
Essay 2:
Yes, I got fired, but I learned a valuable lesson, a trick that now allows me to park wherever I want, whenever I want. Right, you say. But I tell you, it works, and it’s so simple. You see, I got a job with Choice, the local no name courier service. They charged nothing compared with you-know-who and hired anyone back then, as long as you had your own car and were willing to flog it as necessary to get your stuff delivered.
But I liked my car too much, a hopped up Plymouth my mother had given to me, never anticipating the side-pipes and glass pack mufflers. So they let me go, because I wouldn’t abuse my wheels, and I didn’t know downtown Boston as well as I thought. Who does? I mean there’s a place where Milk Street loops around and intersects itself. And there’s no parking, ever, anywhere. You’re lucky to find double parking.
Right, the trick. Well here it is. You pop your hood, turn on your flashers, like the car’s broken down, then you go do what you need to do. Simple. Long after I got canned, I continue to find this technique useful. Although the laziness it engenders has gotten me into occasional predicaments, like the time I went to visit my friend Leroy at the convenience store right next to the turnpike bridge in Newton Lower Falls. I could have parked around back. But I wanted to run in for nachos and just say hello, hated to have to walk fifty yards, so I left my rod with the flashers going right on Rt. 16.
Anyway, this cops comes in, says, “whose car is that?” I tell him, “mine.” He says, “what’s wrong with it?” I say, “it won’t turn over.” He says, “Here, lets get her out of the way.” I say, “sure.” Then while I steer he pushes me across the overpass and halfway down the next block, and I thank him for his assistance.
Police work, maybe I should look into that. They don’t make you use your own car, and you get to drive fast. And park where you want.
angie werren replied:
November 26th, 2009 at 9:02 am
I think #2 is true, only because I think you have a thing for cars!
barbara_y replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Tricky.. I can see #2 as fantasy with a knowledge base. I’ll go with #1 as true.
Jessica GC replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I am so in love with these essays.
Great exercise, Dana! I know I’m little late to the party, but here are mine.
Essay 1:
When I was child, I knew how to speak in tongues, but no one noticed. I was terrified of losing control of my gift and exploding during Mass, my jaw opening against my will; spewing forth a frantic, fiery rush of God. How horribly embarrassing; how furious my mom would be. On Sundays, I made up stomach aches, and huddled alone on the porch, speaking in tongues to a small glass snail that was filled with my grandmother’s perfume. He understood everything; in fact, he knew so much about me that eventually, he had to be destroyed. I was heartbroken as I stomped on him with my dirty Keds. I buried the musty-sweet glass underneath the porch, and the next day, when I went to check on his remains, a bright pink lady slipper grew from his grave.
Essay 2:
When I was a child, my mother collapsed on Christmas Eve and refused to get out of bed. Her eyes were red and wet and she rolled her back to me when I asked her what was wrong. There was a bad storm. Power lines were down. My dad put on his earflap hat and we went out for a walk in the lightening. Electric wires lay everywhere in the slushy snow, and blue light snaked through the gaps where they’d broken. Every few yards, my father lifted me over the jumping tongues of sparks: “Here Kristy, up and over, here Kristy, up and over.” We walked for a long time, in the damp, bruised twilight. When we came home, I wrapped up my brother’s red dump truck and offered it to my mother as a gift.
Kimberlee Gerstmann replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Wow… both of those are so interesting.
barbara_y replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
In #1 I can believe all but the flower.
Love the earflap hat.
rallentanda replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Neither are true.
Kristen McHenry replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Both are true. I’ve never been able come up with an explanation for that flower.
OK, this was Mega Fun.
Essay 1:
We used to go up to the lake in the summer, where we rented a cabin for a week. (Really, it wasn’t even a cabin, but a bungalow, no matter what my mom called it.) Every year, I’d hunt around for evidence of the other families who shared that space: receipts, leftover food, fish hooks, earrings. I rarely found anything. Then in sixth grade I started thinking about what we left behind, and whether another family would do forensics in our wake; I thought about what they might know about us that we didn’t know about ourselves, and I didn’t like it. So I started leaving deceptive traces, carving names that weren’t any of ours under tables and buying candy we never ate to leave in the cabinets. Eventually we stopped going, when my parents got too busy to drive up there in the summers. But I’ll bet “Gerald + Maud” is still scratched into the wood, and I’ll bet there’s Necco wafers gathering dust up there. And I wonder if some curious kid is investigating those phantoms like they ever really existed.
Essay 2:
People have different ways to reach the same state of mind, where you float up above your body, starting from the toes. Like your soul is being squeezed out of your body like toothpaste. The best time it ever happened to me was at a rave when we were all pressed up on the side of the stage: air so humid you couldn’t breathe, my one friend swallowing ecstasy she’d stashed under her miniskirt, blinded by repetitive blasts of color. And there was a moment when we’d lock hands and bodysurf without moving, her experience chemical and mine… well, I don’t know. Something physical and sensory and ritualistic and communal, all at once. We soared. And when the one band’s set was finished, we went outside to watch a fresh July sun come up over the parking lot, and that was when I discovered what “connection” means: it’s when you can go someplace with another person, and everything is totally understood, without a word passing between you. We walked to the afterparty with a retinue of stragglers hopping the fence after us. (The lines of connection have a habit of multiplying.)
Nathan replied:
November 27th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I want both of these to be true.
Kristen McHenry replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Me, too! I love them both, but I totally relate to the first one, even though we rarely went to lake cabins, or anywhere for that matter. I liked the fake-out with the carved names, and the Necco-wafers. (Man, I loved those things when I was a kid!…still do!) I guess I relate to the feeling of the young kid trying to protect his family. I also liked the second one; I can relate to the feeling you describe, only with different details.
barbara_y replied:
November 28th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Well, from experience I know the truth of #2, but not if it is your truth or not. I do, though, totally believe #1, but wonder why no ‘e’ at the end of Maud(e).
The first one isn’t true.’Gerald and Maud’ is
unlikely.Also I don’t see you as a name carver.
[...] * * * Process Notes This was a response to a game about truth and lies over at Read Write Poem. [...]
Wow. Y’all are really into this post. I will have to stop by tomorrow and see if I can sniff out the truths and lies I have not yet spied.