Post #125 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Storytelling Through Prices
Do you know the price of the most expensive hotel suite? According to an article by CNN, here are the five priciest nights you might ever spend:
#5. Hugh Hefner Sky Villa Palms Resort, Las Vegas
$35,487 per night
#4. Penthouse Suite, Hotel Martinez, Cannes, France
$37,500 per night
#3. Ty Warner Penthouse Suite, Four Seasons Hotel, New York
$41,836 per night
#2. The Presidential Suite, The Raj Palace Hotel, Jaipur, India
$45,000 per night
…drumroll… and
#1. Royal Penthouse Suite, Hotel President Wilson, Geneva
$65,000 per night
When I read this, I wondered about the most expensive night I’ve ever spent in a hotel. I do remember paying $300 in Rome in the mid-1990s. I was attending a conference and that was the discounted conference rate. Once at the conference we asked around and were told about a lovely little inn that just charged $65 per night. We quickly checked out of the Sheraton and into the much more modest hotel. We liked it so much that a few years later, we returned to the same small hotel, walked the same residential streets, ate in the same nearby trattorias.
But of course by the time I got to the memory of the $300 night, I was no longer thinking about something “incredibly” expensive like the five named hotels. So my mind next turned to what is the most expensive, luxury item I have ever purchased. I quickly decided that in this mind game, I couldn’t include a home. Yes, homes are expensive, but don’t quality as a luxury.
Memoir Writing Prompt
1. You can keep actual price out of the equation if you like. Instead, focus on something that you really wanted. Something that was a luxury for you. Something that you bought or talked someone else into buying for you.
Now with that item in mind, think about both the BEFORE and the AFTER time. What was the item? Why did you want it? How did that desire relate to a particular time in your life? Was this just pure materialism or were your emotions involved as well?
Write for about five minutes on the period of your desire and longing. Write about the moment of getting the item for a second five minutes. Then wrap up this writing prompt with a third five minutes that reveals what it meant to you to have the item.
If you never got the item, write about how you feel now. For example, I really wanted a puppy when I was small. I was just sure that I was going to get one at Christmas. I even imagined (but thought it was real) that I could hear the puppy on the steps in the basement — eager to rush into my arms on Christmas morning.
Nope. Never happened. It was a lovely Christmas, I’m sure. But I was so focused on the non-existent puppy that I was sure would be my final gift that I didn’t really notice what I did get. Now, so many years later, I’m glad that I didn’t get that puppy. That really wasn’t our home and I don’t think a dog would have fit in very well with the personalities of my parents. Still, I remember.
What wished for item, whether expensive or not, whether gotten or not, do you still clearly remember? Write about “why.”
{ 0 comments }
