Post #64 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Memoir Writers – Consider Unusual Sounds
On Thursday, I hurried off the Alaska Airlines plane from San Jose to Seattle, eager to find something to eat before boarding another plane to Victoria. I was on my way to the Association of Personal Historians meeting that was being held in the beautiful and historic, 102-year-old Empress Hotel. I made my way to the restrooms to wash my hands before an early lunch. Suddenly, I heard a strange sound. Well, the sound wasn’t strange. It was the location of the sound that was strange. If you have ever sat by the side of the pool and listened to your children or grandchildren as they swam by, feet kicking, then you can imagine the sound. But this one was the irregular feet kicks without the usual squeals and laughter of children.
“What in the world?” I thought. Then I saw a short, balding businessman move away from the drinking fountain and the sound stopped. Next a young women, so tall she belonged on a basketball team, walked up, bent down, and turned on the water to drink and there was the noise again. By the time she resumed her full height, I had figured it out. I went over to the wall and saw a round speaker, about four inches in diameter, that was a foot below the drinking fountain. A few twists of the handle proved my supposition. Children-kicking-the-water sound on. Children-kicking-the-water sound off. They had placed a microphone in the pipe, perhaps just where the water turned to make its way out of the building. That might help account for the splashing sound.
I found the food court, ate a Mexican veggie bowl with black beans, pico de gallo, fresh corn salsa, and guacamole over rice, and couldn’t resist one more stop at the drinking fountain before walking on to Gate 2F and boarding my plane.
The experience of sipping water at a drinking fountain has been changed forever. In the future, at the next airport or public park or office complex, when I turn the handle of the drinking fountain, I’ll think about that children-kicking-the-water sound.
Sound, one of our five senses, enhances our writing and engages the reader. Did your mother’s blue silk dress swish when she kissed you good night and said she’d check on you once she and your father came home from a special evening out? Did the car keys clank on the table, alerting you that your husband was home and angry? Sounds are all around us. Don’t let your written words surround themselves in silence.
Memoir Writing Prompt:
Go through a routine five or ten minute period in your regular day. But make a mental note of each of the sounds. Your world is not silent. Create a list of just the sounds. Not what was happening, just their echos in the air. If you are thorough, someone else, just looking at the list of words and phrases, can probably guess your activities.
Now write for five minutes about that five minute period, or, remember a special time and see if you can include the significant sounds.
Memoir Writing Stretch #1: Imagine you could hear a sound that you would not ordinarily hear. For example, I never expected to hear the sound of the drinking fountain water as it ran into the pipe in the wall. What would you like to hear and what would it sound like.
Memoir Writing Stretch #2: Take an object that is not associated with a sound and give it one. For example, what does the desk sound like? I might imagine that mine, a piece of etched, tempered glass on black metal file cabinets would groan each time I take out the bottle of Windex, knowing it was about to be cleaned up again.
Have fun with this writing prompt. The point of an exercise is that you can go wild and exaggerate much more than you would in your regular writing. In the meantime, you’ll begin to see how you can incorporate the sense of sound in your regular writing.
P.S. On the return from Victoria to Seattle, I wanted to get a photograph of the fountain for this post. After some walking around, I could not find a drinking fountain like the one I had seen so I walked from Terminal D to Terminal C where I had originally seen the fountain. I had been so intrigued with the sounds of water that I had not noticed the small sign. The fountain was indeed a work of art. Here’s the plaque in both English and braille.
While back in Terminal C for the photos, I also got a brief clip of the sound. Now I wish I had more, but perhaps you’ll be able to hear the children kicking their legs in the swimming pool.
