Nonfiction
My Creative Writing class this week focused on nonfiction, specifically the more creative forms, such as memoirs and personal narratives. the homework this week was to think of a point in time when I was personally affected by a newsworthy event, focus on one specific moment, and describe it. We were supposed to try to think of something besides 9/11. As I tried to come up with something, my mind reverted to a memory from my early childhood. It was only when I did a bit of research to pin point when exactly it was that I realized how very young I was! I was supposed to focus on just one moment, so I had to refrain from mentioning the bookshelf lying on its face, with books sandwiched below it. I didn't describe seeing the kitchen floor covered with shattered glass, broken eggs and puddles of milk that had been tossed from the refrigerator. These memories are from the same event, but they weren't as personal.
I was a blonde and blue eyed three year old that sunny Sunday afternoon in August, 1978. My family was living in a little one story yellow house in the small ocean side town of Goleta, California, just a mile or two from UCSB. We had come home from church, had lunch, and we were in what my mom called “quiet time”. We had quiet time for an hour or so every day after lunch. It was a chance for both mom and kids to take a rest and recharge for the rest of the day. Usually I didn’t mind too much, but on Sundays quiet time seemed to drag on for eons.
I had been shut up alone in my bedroom, probably in the hopes that I would take a nap, but I wasn’t sleeping. I was in my closet, still wearing the dress I had worn to Church, struggling to construct a house out of Lincoln Logs. My closet was about six feet long and three feet deep. Dresses hung from a rod on one side of the closet. On the other side was my toy box. This toy box was mostly white, but it had sloping green chalkboard doors that slid sideways to open and shut. The top of the box was flat, and provided a sturdy foundation for my Lincoln Log house.
My three year old hands awkwardly fit together the notched wooden sticks, which had already collapsed a couple times previously due to my clumsiness. Painstakingly, so very carefully I labored, watching the stacks of interlocking logs slowly rise. Then, holding my breath, I gently placed the flat green slats on the roof and triumphantly – but still very, very carefully, topped them with the little yellow plastic chimney, like a candle on the top of a birthday cake. Feeling a wonderful sense of accomplishment, I scooted back a bit to admire my handiwork.
As I watched, the little cabin that I had labored for so long and with so much care to build began to wobble and sway and finally it toppled, the logs rolling off the toy box and onto the floor. In consternation I watched it fall, and broken hearted, I wanted to cry. I hadn’t touched it! Why had it fallen? It was a moment or two before I became conscious of a low rumbling sound – so low that my ears barely registered it. Along with the rumbling I noticed that the whole room was moving, a feeling like being on a boat rising and dipping with the waves. The dresses above my head swung on their hangers, and toys danced off of their shelves. The crashes and thumps from other parts of the house convinced me that my little log cabin wasn’t the only thing falling. I jumped up and stumbled over the lurching floor and out my bedroom door in search of my parents to tell them that my house was falling down.
I was a blonde and blue eyed three year old that sunny Sunday afternoon in August, 1978. My family was living in a little one story yellow house in the small ocean side town of Goleta, California, just a mile or two from UCSB. We had come home from church, had lunch, and we were in what my mom called “quiet time”. We had quiet time for an hour or so every day after lunch. It was a chance for both mom and kids to take a rest and recharge for the rest of the day. Usually I didn’t mind too much, but on Sundays quiet time seemed to drag on for eons.
I had been shut up alone in my bedroom, probably in the hopes that I would take a nap, but I wasn’t sleeping. I was in my closet, still wearing the dress I had worn to Church, struggling to construct a house out of Lincoln Logs. My closet was about six feet long and three feet deep. Dresses hung from a rod on one side of the closet. On the other side was my toy box. This toy box was mostly white, but it had sloping green chalkboard doors that slid sideways to open and shut. The top of the box was flat, and provided a sturdy foundation for my Lincoln Log house.
My three year old hands awkwardly fit together the notched wooden sticks, which had already collapsed a couple times previously due to my clumsiness. Painstakingly, so very carefully I labored, watching the stacks of interlocking logs slowly rise. Then, holding my breath, I gently placed the flat green slats on the roof and triumphantly – but still very, very carefully, topped them with the little yellow plastic chimney, like a candle on the top of a birthday cake. Feeling a wonderful sense of accomplishment, I scooted back a bit to admire my handiwork.
As I watched, the little cabin that I had labored for so long and with so much care to build began to wobble and sway and finally it toppled, the logs rolling off the toy box and onto the floor. In consternation I watched it fall, and broken hearted, I wanted to cry. I hadn’t touched it! Why had it fallen? It was a moment or two before I became conscious of a low rumbling sound – so low that my ears barely registered it. Along with the rumbling I noticed that the whole room was moving, a feeling like being on a boat rising and dipping with the waves. The dresses above my head swung on their hangers, and toys danced off of their shelves. The crashes and thumps from other parts of the house convinced me that my little log cabin wasn’t the only thing falling. I jumped up and stumbled over the lurching floor and out my bedroom door in search of my parents to tell them that my house was falling down.
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