"drop that rope!"
when i was in seventh grade i had an english teacher who was incredibly supportive and loving. some of my childhood anxiety issues were, at the time, blossoming into adolescent depression and insecurity and this woman seemed to be among the first to recognize the need for some added support. one of the ways that she did this was to try to convince me that i had some talent and natural academic ability. a fact that had not yet occurred to me or anyone in my family at that time, and frankly, wouldn't re-surface for at least 8 more years.
my clearest memory of that class is a short story assignment. the stories were to be compiled and reprinted as a class collection, the audience for which, eludes my memory. we all wrote autobiographical stories which would be used to practice the editing process. first the outline then the rough draft then the re-writes and finally the polished, finished product. we were assigned to small groups to read and edit each other's stories. a suggestion that would have spawned a major stroke had this not been a few years before i took up smoking and sitting as full time hobbies. the idea of a peer reading something that i wrote and then being encouraged to critique it was so much more than i could handle. but i didn't tell anyone this, i just stayed up all night worrying about it and trying to let re-runs of saturday night live distract me into peaceful slumber.
when the day came that the first drafts had been read by the teacher and the students arranged into short lists on a piece of paper in her hand, i began to imagine ways to avoid accountability for how terrible my story was. i was sick when i wrote it. i didn't really write it. i was under the influence of nyquil at the time. and my all-time default explanation: i didn't really try very hard. i was ready to pretend that i don't suck that much even though the proof was right there in her hand. my teacher handed back the stories for us to glance through before we were told of our group assignments. i opened mine and saw only a few red marks. (yes, this was eons before the use of red marking pens became the kind of thing that mandated reporters have to disclose to county social workers.) oh great! it's worse than i thought! she didn't even bother to mark all of the mistakes, she just gave up! the teacher read the lists of small groups and told everyone where to position their desks. my name was not called. i didn't have a group. i had nowhere to re-position my desk, no stories to read. there was a lot of mixed emotion attached to this situation. on one hand, none of my peers were going to be given an opportunity to read my story and say mean things about it. on the other hand, i have to accept now that i have completed the task so poorly that i need one-on-one help from the teacher. i wanted to melt. my teacher pulled me aside and said, "shelly, your story was written well enough already, i don't think that having your classmates read it is going to be necessary. i just want you to make these few changes and it should be fine."
the story was called, "Drop That Rope!" it was a story about the first time i went water-skiing with a friend whose family had a lake cabin a few doors down from my family's. the story described, in grotesque detail, falling down and losing one ski, then the other, and forgetting to let go of the rope and being dragged through and under the water behind a speed boat and continuing this activity for some time before finally realizing that i would float in my life jacket if i just let go of the rope. my teacher provided all kinds of praise and acclaim. she went on and on about how the story describes the incident so well that the reader could practically feel the water and sense the fear that i must have felt while being dragged under it.
of course, for this girl who is terrified of water and boats, being dragged by a rope under lake water is unimaginably terrifying. and as i re-read the story i too could feel the anxiety and dread. the anxiety and dread that i know i would have felt had i ever been dragged behind anything on any body of water. but as it was, the story was a complete fabrication. one of my pathetic attempts to be perceived as normal. all of my friends liked to waterski, so i wrote a story describing what would have happened had i ever tried it. but regardless of the effectiveness of the detail that my teacher was so impressed by, not a word of the story was even remotely true. my mistake, however, was that the characters in it were real people with whom i had daily contact. i think i was in college when i finally stopped feeling anxiety over the possibility that i would be caught and revealed as the fraud that i am. one simple assignment. 12 years of life from which to choose one small event to write about. one big lie that was stapled to a stack of my classmates' actual autobiographical stories and provided for all of the school and every parent to read. a public lie. the anxiety nearly killed me. and the great irony is this: now i can't fabricate a story to save my life. everything i write is autobiographical. and true. at least more true than "drop that rope!". truth is relative. whatever. i strongly suspect though, that if you ever find yourself in a situation like the one i pretended to have experienced, it is probably a good idea to drop the rope. that part is true. and this story is true. i think.
my clearest memory of that class is a short story assignment. the stories were to be compiled and reprinted as a class collection, the audience for which, eludes my memory. we all wrote autobiographical stories which would be used to practice the editing process. first the outline then the rough draft then the re-writes and finally the polished, finished product. we were assigned to small groups to read and edit each other's stories. a suggestion that would have spawned a major stroke had this not been a few years before i took up smoking and sitting as full time hobbies. the idea of a peer reading something that i wrote and then being encouraged to critique it was so much more than i could handle. but i didn't tell anyone this, i just stayed up all night worrying about it and trying to let re-runs of saturday night live distract me into peaceful slumber.
when the day came that the first drafts had been read by the teacher and the students arranged into short lists on a piece of paper in her hand, i began to imagine ways to avoid accountability for how terrible my story was. i was sick when i wrote it. i didn't really write it. i was under the influence of nyquil at the time. and my all-time default explanation: i didn't really try very hard. i was ready to pretend that i don't suck that much even though the proof was right there in her hand. my teacher handed back the stories for us to glance through before we were told of our group assignments. i opened mine and saw only a few red marks. (yes, this was eons before the use of red marking pens became the kind of thing that mandated reporters have to disclose to county social workers.) oh great! it's worse than i thought! she didn't even bother to mark all of the mistakes, she just gave up! the teacher read the lists of small groups and told everyone where to position their desks. my name was not called. i didn't have a group. i had nowhere to re-position my desk, no stories to read. there was a lot of mixed emotion attached to this situation. on one hand, none of my peers were going to be given an opportunity to read my story and say mean things about it. on the other hand, i have to accept now that i have completed the task so poorly that i need one-on-one help from the teacher. i wanted to melt. my teacher pulled me aside and said, "shelly, your story was written well enough already, i don't think that having your classmates read it is going to be necessary. i just want you to make these few changes and it should be fine."
the story was called, "Drop That Rope!" it was a story about the first time i went water-skiing with a friend whose family had a lake cabin a few doors down from my family's. the story described, in grotesque detail, falling down and losing one ski, then the other, and forgetting to let go of the rope and being dragged through and under the water behind a speed boat and continuing this activity for some time before finally realizing that i would float in my life jacket if i just let go of the rope. my teacher provided all kinds of praise and acclaim. she went on and on about how the story describes the incident so well that the reader could practically feel the water and sense the fear that i must have felt while being dragged under it.
of course, for this girl who is terrified of water and boats, being dragged by a rope under lake water is unimaginably terrifying. and as i re-read the story i too could feel the anxiety and dread. the anxiety and dread that i know i would have felt had i ever been dragged behind anything on any body of water. but as it was, the story was a complete fabrication. one of my pathetic attempts to be perceived as normal. all of my friends liked to waterski, so i wrote a story describing what would have happened had i ever tried it. but regardless of the effectiveness of the detail that my teacher was so impressed by, not a word of the story was even remotely true. my mistake, however, was that the characters in it were real people with whom i had daily contact. i think i was in college when i finally stopped feeling anxiety over the possibility that i would be caught and revealed as the fraud that i am. one simple assignment. 12 years of life from which to choose one small event to write about. one big lie that was stapled to a stack of my classmates' actual autobiographical stories and provided for all of the school and every parent to read. a public lie. the anxiety nearly killed me. and the great irony is this: now i can't fabricate a story to save my life. everything i write is autobiographical. and true. at least more true than "drop that rope!". truth is relative. whatever. i strongly suspect though, that if you ever find yourself in a situation like the one i pretended to have experienced, it is probably a good idea to drop the rope. that part is true. and this story is true. i think.
posted by shelly at 2/28/2006 04:15:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home