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Morning Coffee

morning coffee cup with scone, window and clock in background

Drip, pour over, french press. Bold, mild, “a little room for cream.” You order half decaf, “make it a medium,” and feel like the drunk who orders near-beer. Who are we kidding. You sit facing the window, and the clock (there is only so much time), pull out your journal, a new pen. You write the date and Wednesday and pause, words lodged in your throat. In the background, the espresso machine speaks in fits and starts, hot steam charging the milk. The barista asks, What can I get started for you? You have a list of plenty. The man sitting at the high table behind you says into his phone, “Surprise me.” He doesn’t sound convinced. The coffee has yet to kick in. Still, you jot something down on paper. Maybe just these morning observations. Every word counts. And in every detail, there is a story.

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Story in Photos: How You View Your World

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about details, perspective, and the filters through which we view our world. The way these three concepts work together are never more apparent than when I study photos, mine or someone else’s.

photo of hand holding tiny portrait photo from the early 1900sI found this tiny portrait in an old empty bank building somewhere in Waxahachie, TX. I was twelve. My mother and I were extras in Places in the Heart (a story in itself).

One particular night, they were filming a carnival scene right outside the bank. It was cold out, I’d been stuck up at the top of a Ferris wheel with another “extra” friend for what seemed like hours. We were in between shoots, and somebody mentioned hot chocolate being served inside the bank. So my friend and I hid out in the building long enough to warm up, drink too much, and discover the tiny photo wedged between two strips of floorboard. I’m sure I was supposed to leave the photo there, not touch anything but the cocoa. But I picked it up anyway and slipped it into my overalls pocket, took it home and tucked it away.

I love this photo for its size, for the look of the woman in it–her expression, her posture, the way the ribbon at her collar falls flat. In this image, I can imagine her view of the world and even her emotion: bored, a little tired, maybe a hint of nervousness disguised as indifference toward the photographer.

Fast forward plenty of years when I uncovered more tiny portraits, this time digital pictures and I knew the photographer: my daughter at four years old who snuck off with my camera and captured her view from 36 inches. The photos she snapped showed the silly moments I missed in my everyday busy-ness and revealed a vision of truth.

The baby.

photos: Special Baby with her friends

The blur.

photos: woman in motion

The brother.

young boy peeks in from behind a door

And me.

image of woman working at laptop surrounded by coffee, checkbook, journal

Each photo as a whole reveals so much about her at that age, but also about those around her, and it’s in the details where she captures that time and space: Special Baby in the spotlight; Mom in motion (that’s me in that blurry shot); her mischievous brother; and me again–this time at my laptop, clickety-clacking away, writing a blog post, journal close by, checkbook just beyond my fingertips, coffee.  (By the way, very little has changed in the last seven years, except that Special Baby has been carefully tucked away and I’m drinking decaf these days.)

My daughter’s photo collage and the portrait of the unknown woman perfectly illustrate the act of storytelling. In a snapshot, we share our framed view of the world and invite others to see life through our lens–a different, often new point of view (literally and figuratively). The story we capture, though, isn’t revealed only in the object at the center, but in the details that fill the frame, in the timestamp of when it was taken (or when it was found), and in the perspective from which we shoot–in focus or not.

I bet you have a favorite photo or two. How does that image reveal your world or the world of the person who took it?

Better yet, how does your writing reveal your world? Because really, when we incorporate the same kind of study in our stories and essays, our words–and our worlds–become that much stronger.

Don’t forget, Principles & Prompts is open for registration.
Join me online for 6 weeks of lessons on storytelling and creativity
and plenty of writing prompts.

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Smell: The Expressway to Memory

It’s nothing new to say our sense of smell is an expressway to memory.

file000284162710One whiff of black pavement on a hot day, and I am at Six Flags in the heat of summer during the late ’70’s.

My dad worked a mile or two away, so he would drop my sisters and me off for the entire day. We’d run circles through the amusement park, make repeat rides on the Shock Wave, cool off in the Cave Ride, and go home exhausted from the heat but charged in fun with our feet covered in black tar residue.

In Naming the World, Bret Anthony Johnston writes about the power of sensory details in fiction or in nonfiction, reminding us that great details simply pull at “snatches of memory and image,” allow readers to fill in the rest:

The most affecting descriptive writing results from an author’s providing not a linguistic blueprint of a library but the raw material (the air tinged with the scent of old pages, the shafts of dusty light diffused through window slats, the whispers, like trickling water, of the librarians behind the oval reference desk) from which the reader can erect her own library.

IMG_0695Recently, Kim Suhr from Red Oak Writing visited the group of writers at Harwood Place. I love inviting visiting teachers to this group not only because they bring a fresh perspective on craft and critique but because they often bring new exercises as well.

Kim talked about sensory details and walked the writers through the beginnings of a wonderful exercise that taps into memory through smell and opens the door for story.

IMG_0696She asked the group for a list of smells that evoke strong reactions, good or bad. The exercise: choose one from the list and write on it, starting with the sentence, “I smell ________, and I am _______.”

I smell skunk, and I am on a two-lane road in the middle of Texas….

Where are you?