Tell Me Everything
One my desk sits a picture of my Grandma Irene in a Mets T-shirt. She's a frail-looking 80ish, give or take, and her Mets--HER Mets--were her life. Keith Hernandez was her personal dreamboat.
I was at Game 7 when the Mets won the World Series. I took the train out to Shea, and rode the train afterwards. Rather than get off at my stop, I ended up getting out in Times Square. If I recall correctly, I think I danced in the street with a cabbie from Turkey. New York City was delirious with joy.
The next day, I went to visit my grandmother. She opened the door to her apartment, dragged me by the hand, sat me down at her kitchen table and said, "TELL ME EVERYTHING."
To be sure, she watched the game. Just as she faithfully watched every game on TV. But she was looking for something MORE. So I started with how I got the tickets (an unusual story that I will spare you all the details, involving scalped tickets, a pair of illegally bought sneakers, and other assorted insanity). Next there was the fact that I spent my LAST DIME on the tickets and was literally, in my pathetic little apartment at the time, scraping together quarters for train fare. I moved along to the train ride (drunken Mets fans). Banging on the train walls and doors . . . the noise, the anticipation. The sheer tremor that ran through the fans.
Next, arriving at Shea. The weather. The seats. The BOSTON fans (boo, hiss) who sat next to me and taunted me the whole time. The fights in the stands. The smell of pretzels and beer. All of it. BEING there when they won. The pile-up on the field (THE JOY!). The train ride home. Kissing total strangers. Dancing in Time Square. Everything.
She wasn't in a rush. In detail, the story from beginning to end takes a solid two hours. Minimum. One baseball fan to the other.
I remember that when I write. Because I think, if you do it well, when you tell your story, your reader should live vicariously through the characters. By the time I went to Game 7 of the Series, there was no way my grandma could have gone. She was too frail (open heart surgery), too fragile. Too old. In her heart, she had all the enthusiam. She loved Keith Hernandez like a high school girl with a crush. But she couldn't have been there. So she got to go through me.
THAT'S what writing a story is like.
Tell me everything.
Thoughts?
I was at Game 7 when the Mets won the World Series. I took the train out to Shea, and rode the train afterwards. Rather than get off at my stop, I ended up getting out in Times Square. If I recall correctly, I think I danced in the street with a cabbie from Turkey. New York City was delirious with joy.
The next day, I went to visit my grandmother. She opened the door to her apartment, dragged me by the hand, sat me down at her kitchen table and said, "TELL ME EVERYTHING."
To be sure, she watched the game. Just as she faithfully watched every game on TV. But she was looking for something MORE. So I started with how I got the tickets (an unusual story that I will spare you all the details, involving scalped tickets, a pair of illegally bought sneakers, and other assorted insanity). Next there was the fact that I spent my LAST DIME on the tickets and was literally, in my pathetic little apartment at the time, scraping together quarters for train fare. I moved along to the train ride (drunken Mets fans). Banging on the train walls and doors . . . the noise, the anticipation. The sheer tremor that ran through the fans.
Next, arriving at Shea. The weather. The seats. The BOSTON fans (boo, hiss) who sat next to me and taunted me the whole time. The fights in the stands. The smell of pretzels and beer. All of it. BEING there when they won. The pile-up on the field (THE JOY!). The train ride home. Kissing total strangers. Dancing in Time Square. Everything.
She wasn't in a rush. In detail, the story from beginning to end takes a solid two hours. Minimum. One baseball fan to the other.
I remember that when I write. Because I think, if you do it well, when you tell your story, your reader should live vicariously through the characters. By the time I went to Game 7 of the Series, there was no way my grandma could have gone. She was too frail (open heart surgery), too fragile. Too old. In her heart, she had all the enthusiam. She loved Keith Hernandez like a high school girl with a crush. But she couldn't have been there. So she got to go through me.
THAT'S what writing a story is like.
Tell me everything.
Thoughts?
Labels: baseball, grandma, storytelling
posted by Erica Orloff at 12:23 PM
21 comments
