I recently read this article in The Week magazine about high school, and the heightened emotional senses that come with that particular period of life. Here's the article ( http://cdn.app.theweek.com/noistde/14540 )
It got me thinking. This is what writing is. Or at least, good writing is a little bit more intense: everything.
I feel like there is always a connection to those high school people from that period of time, a connection to those emotions almost. You and me included. The title of the article is "In High School Forever" Yikes. Sure, I think we all wish we'd grown up somewhere, anywhere else.
But that's where we were. Then. And now you have now. What do you do with the "then" now? It's part of you. Then is what we draw from. It's a constant pool, a vat of good and bad that you can rework and replay and ultimately rewrite.
I continually pull from this period of time for real writing, for the deep stuff, whether it's funny or silly deep stuff. My sense of humor was formed in high school and by the people who just so happened to be there at the same time. I don't think anyone chose to be alive at that particular time. We were just there.
There were great times then in high school or at least they were great in the sense that they were emotionally charged, a little bit more intense. Better to feel something than nothing at all. There were plenty of cobwebs, too. the ones that reveal stuff you don't want to see again. But we all have cobwebs. High school history is not always quality material for writing or rewriting, but sometimes reflecting on the history, on the personal history, an understanding of who we are and who we are not emerges. It's the unraveling of that self that let's you find out who you are and what you should write about.
If only we could tap into it and feel it when we wanted, when we need it Yeah, if.
