Write Thru Crisis – Muffled Cries

Personal Storytelling, ,

Write Thru Crisis – Muffled Cries. My son was three when this first scene occurred. I had entrusted him to the care of another mother, while I went to the laundry room. We lived in a suburban apartment complex at the time, and I anticipated no danger.

When I returned, my son was nowhere in sight. My friend had turned away – for a single moment – to tend to her own child. I saw my son then, past the wide green grass of the play area, across the asphalt sidewalk and a border of more green grass. He was rocking back and forth on a curbstone at the edge of a busy highway.

I dropped my laundry basket and ran. I didn’t stop to wonder how his small-boy legs had carried him so quickly into peril. I didn’t stop to ask anyone if they had seen him take that perilous path. And, I did not cry out. If I startled him, he might topple into traffic, so I muffled the cries that terror had catapulted into my throat.

He was almost twenty when he caused me to do that again. He was back from college and staying with us for the summer. He’d gone out with friends into a formidable city and, though it was hours past midnight, had not yet returned home. I couldn’t run after him this time, and cell phones were years short of invention.

I sat on the couch, muffling my cries once more. I didn’t turn on the lamp. A lone streetlight outside the window illuminated my fears. Nightmare scenarios raced through my mind, though I didn’t once envision my son being locked into a cell, or a police club bashing him. Years later, female offspring would take my imagination to that horror show.

First, it was my granddaughter, in another large, possibly ominous city. She was there to march and shout in protest against the injustice of poverty and oppression. My son, of age by then to be her father, was near enough to find her at the precinct, if arrests should occur. Still, on that bright fall afternoon, I muffled my urge to cry out my worry and fear.

Not long ago, my daughter brought me similar alarm. She was demonstrating in support of her own strong beliefs, as she often does. On this occasion, armed police and members of the military lurked what I considered uncomfortably closeby. My daughter and her compatriots were herded into a roped-off area, but I guessed accurately that she would press close to the barrier and shout to be heard, while I muffled my cries.

Such stories grip the heart. Mike Nichols, an expert on how to create that gripping effect, once said, “We only care about the humanity.” That is because our own humanity resonates with the tale. Almost all of us have suffered through terror in our own lives, especially when we fear for someone we love. We know how it feels to clap our hands over our faces to shut out fearsome visions, and shut in muffled cries. I hope you will write about your muffled-cry moments, too.

My last story happened decades ago, during my own street activist days. I was in the midst of an angry crowd with a friend, when a policeman on a large horse reached down from his high perch and sprayed mace in the face of my friend’s young son. I didn’t clap my hands over my mouth that day. Instead – for a single moment – shock and disbelief muffled my cries.

Each of these stories deserves an ending. I reached my toddler son before he could fall into traffic. Years later, he came home at dawn and was soundly scolded. Phone calls, followed by profound relief, assured me my granddaughter and daughter in turn were safe and unharmed.

The ending of the mounty-and-the-mace story is hardly as satisfying. That afternoon ended my years of street activism. I walked away, into the safety of my whiteness.  Because of their blackness, neither my friend, nor George Floyd’s mother, had that choice. I am haunted by their cries, too soul deep and wracked with grief for muffling.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Alice has spent most of her post-activist work life in publishing, as book editor, literary agent, workshop leader, and author. She’s published 16 novels, 3 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript That Sells. Her current work in progress includes Hero in the Mirror: How to Write Your Best Story of You. Find her books HERE.

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Write Thru Crisis – Precious Life

Personal Storytelling, ,

Write Thru Crisis – Precious Life. I had a dream last night. It was deep winter, though our real season now is the beginning of summer. My son and I were in Denver, at a layover of a flight from the east coast, where we now live, to Washington State, where we used to live.

The dream details were vivid, but the time wasn’t the present. My son was young, maybe ten years old, though he is in his fifties now. I wasn’t any particular age. I was simply his mother, responsible for the safety of his precious life, and my own, and our safety was in danger.

A snowstorm raged outside, and the forecast was possibly dire. For some reason, only comprehensible in a dream, we were scheduled to travel in a relatively small plane. There was an important reason for our trip, and my son was eager to reach our destination. Everyone, including the pilot, assured me we would probably be safe to fly.

I don’t know what I believe about dreams. I don’t usually remember them after I awake. I’ve had others, vivid like this one, but I haven’t written them down afterward. I definitely have not written them down and shared them on the internet, or anywhere else.

The difference now is that we’re at a choice-making time in our personal waking lives. My husband and I must decide if we’ll reopen our business. as New York City reopens amidst the Covid-19 crisis, after nearly four months of public work suspension.

What makes this a dramatic story is the high stakes that are involved. We are both well beyond the sixty-five-plus vulnerable age for Coronavirus, and I have an underlying health condition. I won’t go into specific detail, but the physical circumstances of the company we run together are risky. My husband would face this risk in person and possibly bring it home to me.

I awoke from my intense dream to a lovely morning. The sun shone bright outside. The kitchen was flooded with light and warmth, and birds chirped beyond the window. There could hardly be a more peaceful setting. Yet, conflict persisted within our personal situation.

In a truly dramatic story, opposing high-stakes forces are at work. In our story, we hadn’t planned to retire this early. It would be to our financial advantage not to, and financial advantage is crucial to us, like it is to almost everyone we know. Back in my dream, the snowstorm continued, and threatened lives that were precious to me. In real-life, the pandemic did the same.

Have you ever been in your own high-stake situation? Has your safety, and/or that of people you love been at risk? Was a critical choice required? Did a prophetic message appear, maybe a dream? Was your flashing red light simply instinctual, or in some other warning form?

I won’t keep you in suspense. In my dream, I decided we wouldn’t travel further. My son grumbled, but the kind pilot invited us to stay in her pleasant home so all was well. Similarly, my husband and I have decided to close our business and continue the precautions that have protected us so far.

Your dramatic life stories also deserve to be told. If you’ve answered yes to any of the questions I asked about your own experiences, and I suspect you have, I hope you will write them down. Maybe also consider passing them on to me, to be shared as I’ve shared my own. Either way, I hope you will Write Thru Crisis about you own Precious Life.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Alice has spent most of her professional life in publishing, as book editor, literary agent, workshop leader, and author. She’s published 16 novels, 3 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript That Sells (revised version coming soon). Her current work in progress includes Hero in the Mirror: How to Write Your Best Story of You.

Read the story of another dramatic period of Alice’s precious life in her memoir Lifted to the Light: A Story of Struggle and Kindness. Available HERE.

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

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Write Thru Crisis – Peaceful Justice

Personal Storytelling, ,

Write Thru Crisis – Peaceful Justice. The first time I helped someone out who’d been bullied I was a young teen in my upstate New York hometown. Years later, a woman named Marsha told me the story. Some neighborhood boys had lifted her by her overall straps and hung her on a picket fence. I apparently came along and took her down.

I don’t remember the incident. But I do remember how good it made me feel that I corrected this small injustice which loomed so large for her that she’d never forgotten it, or my act of mercy. Like most positive things about me, my merciful instinct originated with Grandma. “If you’re not making the world a better place, why are you here?” she would ask.

Grandma lived by those words, and my guess is that most of you do too. You have your own history of mercies, small and large, remembered or mostly forgotten, when the world was a better place because you were in residence. Moments when you lived by the messages we are meant to impart to others. “Don’t give up. You are not alone. You matter.”

In each of these moments we are agents of peaceful justice. Each of these moments is a story worth telling, worth bringing back to life and honoring. Some of your tales of justice are personal and private, like rescuing a little girl who’s been pinioned on a picket fence. Some are on a grander scale and public, like my daughter in the street, risking safety to shout out her truth.

My daughter shares her peaceful justice story in Twitter shorthand. I follow its episodes with pride and trepidation. I’ve seen video of police and soldiers, armed and ready, too near to her for my comfort. “Ready for what?” I ask myself and don’t want to hear the answer I fear.

Many of our stories of peaceful justice feature real-life heroes we love and admire. They live in our families, friend circles, neighborhoods, classrooms, workplaces. Their stories remind us of the potential for good we all possess, and lift us on a wave of hope. My favorites often feature the Hero in Your Mirror – you, and the gift you are to those you touch with your heart.

My granddaughter is another of my real-life heroes. In high school, she reached beyond her natural self-consciousness to lobby in Washington for social and economic justice. In college, she learned how to carry those causes further. Now, she is poised to fulfill her great-grandmother’s credo and make the world a better place.

These are some of my stories. What are yours? Who are your heroes? What are their deeds of mercy, their efforts for the betterment of others? Don’t forget to remember your own deeds too. Your life will be enriched by telling your stories. Humanity is enriched when we share our passionate and compassionate selves. Write Thru Crisis about Peaceful Justice.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Alice has spent most of her professional life in publishing, as book editor, literary agent, workshop leader, and author. She’s published 16 novels, 3 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript That Sells (revised version coming soon). Her current work in progress includes Hero in the Mirror: How to Write Your Best Story of You.

Meet the good people who gifted Alice with their mercy and compassion in her memoir Lifted to the Light: A Story of Struggle and Kindness. Available HERE.

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/