We unfortunately missed the third meeting because I wasn’t feeling well, and during this one we felt a bit off. I liked the exercises though and was really impressed with some of our friend’s writing.
Introductory exercise:
They began to argue and bicker.
“What’s the difference?”
“A great deal.”
Soon they were fighting.
…(continue this story)
But it didn’t go anywhere, as usual. They circled around the true conflict like two welterweight boxers in a shrinking, bloodied ring. The vitriol flowed irregularly in spurts and sputters, with sharp retorts intermittently colliding with the walls and making the room seem smaller and filled with noise.
The main exercise of the evening was to write something in response to the idea of “smoke”. I had trouble coming up with something, so I just continued the piece from the warm-up:
“No, that’s not what I mean! Dammit, why don’t you ever just understand what I’m saying?”
He jumped into a pause between words as she drew a breath. “Wait, wait, we’ve got to stay calm. We’re not going to have a productive conversation if we’re yelling. Let’s just calm down, breathe for a minute,” – “Breathe? I can’t breathe when you’re breathing down my neck! You’re such a control freak! You never let me just talk the way I want to talk! Why don’t you go have a productive conversation with yourself!”
He looked back at her, seeming farther away than the meter or two that actually separated their shabby restaurant seat, somewhat injured. “You’re right. I don’t mean to control you, I don’t want to do that. But I just can’t stand the yelling. I can’t stand it. It just shuts me down. Whenever you start yelling it’s like I go blind or something, I can’t see anything, I can’t tell where I am, I just… panic.”
Now it was her turn for remorse. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m really trying to work on it. But you yell all the time also! It’s not fair.”
J noted that the piece could use some body language, some texture. (Her stuff is amazingly rich with texture - I hope I can emulate that!)
It occurs to me now that the in response to this exercise, I could probably have written something more stronger and more poignant about my father’s smoking habit and my relationship to it. I’ll have to keep that in mind for another time.