I have had the pleasure of working with students from kindergarten to college and beyond.  I have noticed in recent years that colleges and graduate schools want essays (read: narratives) to personalize otherwise common applications. Most candidates of these schools have outstanding credentials, grades, and standardized test scores. These admissions committees want to see evidence through these writings that set their potential students apart from others.

 It would seem that it would not be too hard to do. Since I am an English tutor and editor and sometimes writer, I find literary magic in everyday occurrences like going to the grocery store, working in the garden or cleaning the bathtub. I see stories happening all around me and I also see people as breathing libraries of stories and experiences.  I feel that it is so important for us all to write down and remember the unique stuff of life. Remembering gives substance to our very beings.

 I don’t know if it is because I am a Southerner by birth, but I feel that Southerners are a breed of natural storytellers, but I think everyone loves a good story. In the words of author Eudora Welty, a Jackson, Mississippi native: “Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers…great talkers.” I think everyone has a good story to tell. Stories connect us and humanize us in this very dehumanizing time. Phil Hudgins, in his 2022 article, “If you tell a good story, you might well be a Southerner” in  The Northeast Georgian, says that Southerners tell a good yarn because “ maybe it’s because we’ve seen a lot and like to talk about it. Maybe it’s because we don’t hide our imperfections; they sometimes sit on the front porch. Maybe we’re more frank.” We want to save the memory, even if it is bad because it has shaped us into what we are today.

This being said, some of my students have found it very difficult to spin a yarn for me, either fiction or non-fiction.  It is not that they are not good writers because they are.  I am distraught that perhaps the charm and enchantment of life, however difficult, has been squeezed out of them in the last few years.  

When I was growing up, my mother made me keep a diary. As I grew older, I kept journals of my travels and had my children also write the details of our trips together as a family.  I have found letters that I wrote to my parents when I was at camp, and I have letters that my husband wrote to me when he was working abroad.  These missives contain thoughts, almost forgotten but definitely cherished.

 I have been on a cleaning rampage in the last months, and we have parted with items that we no longer use.  I sometimes feel that I am dismantling my house of my memories, brick by brick, when I give these things away.  Yet, I have kept my letters and notes to remind me of the moments and people I have treasured. Those are the precious valuables for which I will always have room. #writing #memories #writeablemoments