My pants still fit after a series of parties this week. This, not owing to any particular self-control, but the simple fact that I wear my pants just below my belly roll. Also to the fact that said pants have an elastic waistband. Paul and I are going to partially atone for our holiday excesses by playing Smash Ball (known variously as "beach tennis," "beach ping-pong," and "frescobal" --in South America) for the next 18 hours.

I’ve been writing of late, motivated to get my act together, to “get cracking,” by the prospect of enrolling in Ellen Gilchrist’s Creative Nonfiction class at the U of A this spring. I started a piece on piloting/narrating circle-island airplane tours in Hawaii. Gary suggested that I post whatever I come up with when they’re at least half-baked. This I plan to do. Meanwhile, to lubricate the wheels of production and uninhibitedness, I offer the following piece that I cooked up a couple of years ago:


FICTION FRICTION


9.25.03 Thor’s day.

When my daughter Adele was a young girl, she would often say to me at bedtime, “tell me a story, daddy.” Just as often, I would feel this very uneasy feeling in my stomach, very much like the butterflies I usually get when I’m called to speak in front of a group. Still, she was asking so earnestly that it was pretty easy to just plow ahead. Once I got going, I usually found myself enjoying the story as much as she seemed to. It amazed me how the story seemed to take on a life of its own. The general outline, something along these lines: A sad little girl sits on her back porch after some stressful event or the other. A huge bird swoops out of the sky and stands next to her. Somehow she knows he is a friend and she’s not afraid. The bird speaks to her and explains who he is. The next thing we know she’s on his back flying up to meet the Cloud Kids who live their entire lives in the clouds.

It now occurs to me that I’d have to explain where they went on cloudless days, or maybe I did come up with some sort of explanation back then, 14 or so years ago.

I wonder what it is about making up a story that frightens me. Am I afraid of being judged as inadequate, as a poor teller of tales? Or maybe just of the unknown, of not having the answers ahead of time. A related bunch of questions and feelings concerns writing or telling stories as a whole. I have mixed feelings and thoughts about creative writing, about inventing stories that may or may not be based on what has actually happened.

Of course, now that I’m writing this, it occurs to me that stories have to be based on reality to some degree or they wouldn’t be understandable at all. Suppose I told a story that began something like: “The snarfle bleemed outside and around because the tooble sank quickly.” It actually might get your curiosity up, but I predict that if you just couldn’t make any sense out of it, you’d give up. Even that sample beginning is based on a recognizable order or syntax of words and parts of speech.

Still, I have misgivings about fiction, about stories that are invented. I don’t think I’m alone by any stretch of the mind; I didn’t make up the idea that fiction can be considered a waste of time, an indulgence, both in the writing and the reading. And I can make arguments to support that claim.

On the other hand, I enjoy a good story; both the writing and the reading or listening. And where is the line between fact and fiction anyway. Psychologists have repeatedly demonstrated that even the most honest and well-intentioned witnesses to events regularly include inaccuracies in their accounts of what happened. I also find that writing and reading stories often brings concepts, patterns, and other elements of understanding life to my conscious awareness.
It’s one thing to read from a scientific book that humans are genetically inclined to treat members of their own group with much greater regard than those of other groups. Often a deeper sense of the truth is gotten in reading a story that realistically tells the same truth implicitly, by demonstrating the principle in action rather than stating it outright.

I could go on about this. I am ambivalent. I know others feel similarly. I’ve heard them say so. I’ve heard my father say, more than once, that fiction is a waste of time. I feel and think similar thoughts about music, which I also enjoy creating and experiencing. I probably feel that way about any sort of human activity that has little or no utilitarian function, that doesn’t address our basic needs. I know there are societal roots behind these ideas, but that’s an entire book in itself.

What I do know, and my heart swells a bit in thinking back on it, is that my little girl relished the stories I made up for her and so did I. Maybe that’s all the explanation and understanding I need.


To tell of things that that never were
can stretch our minds, it’s true.
And warm our hearts and other parts
and make us feel brand new.