Post #92 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
MEMOIR WRITING AND A DRAWBRIDGE IN YOUR LIFE
A week ago, my partner and I returned to Portland from our birthday trip on the East Coast with Kendra. We celebrated our son’s birthday (we were with Kendra on his actual day) that evening and stayed for a night at our favorite airport hotel. Then after a leisurely breakfast we made our way out of town to come home.
We are still finding our way around Portland and this time ended up using the Hawthorne Bridge. We were well onto the bridge — no way to turn around — when the yellow light began to flash. Too late, we realized we were on a drawbridge that was about to go up.
The gate, much like a railroad crossing gate, came down in front of us. Guess this was just one of those moments when one mentally slows down and enjoys the vista. If you’ve been following my writing prompts, you’ve already figured out that I tried to see how the drawbridge could become my next prompt.
It turns out that we were on a historic bridge — the oldest vertical-lift bridge in operation in America. As you see from the animation below (by Y. Tambe), the entire middle section of the bridge is lifted up rather than the more familiar hinged effect where one edge stays down while the other rises in the air.
This provided an interesting view of a section of the bridge that I never would have noticed otherwise. Memoir writing is a lot like this drawbridge. We take a section of our life, lift it up, examine it, look at it from the top, from the sides, and even from the bottom. We write about this section and then continue forward.
While we’re examining that section of our life, we may even notice other things that we would have missed or that would not have been possible without this time for reflection. In the case of our realtime drawbridge experience, a sailboat passed under the raised section. When we are journaling or memoir writing, we are able to be open to new experiences and insights — metaphorically letting the sailboat through.
MEMOIR WRITING PROMPT
1. Consider the section of your life that you’d like to examine today. It can be a small section — perhaps something that happened yesterday or last week. Maybe it was a moment of perfect joy. Maybe it was an argument with a friend. Maybe it was anger at your boss.
2. Take that small section, close your eyes and put yourself back in that moment. Then lift it up. Look at it from all angles. Write for 10 minutes about the section.
3. What happened while you were writing — while that section was lift up away from the regular flow of your life. Did something new pass by? Perhaps understanding. Perhaps a new determination to find more moments of joy. Perhaps forgiveness of yourself or another person. All insights that bring sensemaking of your life are like letting the sailboat through.
Write for five more minutes about your thoughts on the exercise.
