Spaces

Reading books that your older brother and sister leave strewn around the house is the inalienable right of any younger sibling. On a summer day when I was in my teens and I found this book of poetry sitting on the wobbly hall bookshelf, I didn't think twice. I remember leaning up against the wall and flipping through the pages. When I got to page 96, I stopped.
In the top left hand corner were the words:

WE WERE ON THE TERRACE

DRINKING GIN AND TONICS

when the squall hit. 

There was nothing more. 
The rest of the page was white space.
I looked at the cover and for the first time noticed the author's name. I wondered who John Ashbery was and how he got to write a book where thirteen words were called a poem. This wasn't poetry. It was nothing like what I'd studied in school. Where was the rhyme? The meter? The rest of the words? Clearly this guy pulled one over on a bunch of people
I read the poem again and again.  Then I closed my eyes.
Soon I began to imagine myself, a little older, sitting on that terrace surrounded by fabulously witty people, all of them with drinks in their hands. I could smell the sharp scent of gin and the heaviness of chlorine from the nearby pool. Floating toys drift on the water.
There's a sound of ice clinking on glasses.
And laughter.
The storm moves in fast. Rain comes in from all sides.
My fabulously witty friends scatter.
Someone grabs the drinks,
another reaches for the tray of limes
and a third brave soul runs to get the towels hanging over a fence.
We head into the house but the mood is different. Not as carefree.
Everyone is wet.
Uncomfortable.
The drinks don't clink.
The chlorine smell is replaced by stuffy inside air.
We watch through the windows. The floating toys are still out there banging up against the sides of the pool. There is a conversation about who should go back out into the rain to get them.
Soon the people with drinks have personalities and problems. An entire story comes to light.
When I finally opened my eyes, I'd decided that maybe John Ashbery knew what he was doing after all. It wasn't only about the words. It was about the spaces between them. The spaces between those thirteen words were filled with images.
All that happened a long time ago. In the years that followed I'd lost track of the book. I'd assumed it was reclaimed by an older sibling. This summer, when I was cleaning out my parents' house, I found it again. For many reasons, emptying out your childhood home is an arduous task. Despite my mother's pleading, I didn't want any of the china or the crystal bowls or the fancy tea sets, but when I saw the book in my brother's old bedroom, I grabbed it.
It's sitting on my desk now and every so often, I turn to page 96. There's something magical about those thirteen words. They can scrape away the decades and make me feel seventeen again. I remember everything: That summer day. That hallway bookshelf. The feeling of confusion. That moment of understanding. It all feels so close.
When I read that poem for the first time, I learned something important about the spaces between words.
But this summer it taught me a different lesson
about the spaces between years.

How Bad Childhood Memories Creep into Your Fiction

I'm working on a scene for my w.i.p. where my main character has to dance on stage. It doesn't go well for her. And the scene didn't go well for me either. While I was writing, I kept getting interrupted by my own stage traumas. It made me go straight to the photo albums.
The picture above was taken before my very first dance recital. Even at age 5, I knew I could never pull off that flashy one shoulder look, but there's more about that dress that you need to know. It's not actually a dress. It's shorts with a skirt over it.
My dance group consisted of me and two other 5-year-old girls. We were called the "Blue Eye Shadows". At the end of our dance, we were supposed to lift up our skirts to reveal a giant eye on the other side of the costume.
Dance lessons were okay. Dance recitals were another story. I was and still am an introvert, but I've always been a tall introvert, which means that when it comes to being on stage, guess who they put in the middle. 
We were half way through our big dance number when it happened. Instead of step step shuffle turn, I stepped turned shuffled stepped. The two other Blue Eye Shadows followed my lead. We lost the beat. All three of us went in different directions. One turned. The other hopped. I shuffled.
A voice boomed over the music.  It barked out orders. "Step! Hop! Step!" Our teacher Miss Corrine, the one who came up with the make up themed dance recital, had grabbed a microphone. Even though she was behind the curtain, we could see her standing in the corner of the stage. She was not amused.  We ended our dance and forgot to lift up our skirts to show the big blue-eye-shadowed eyes.
At the end of the night, we all had to go back on stage and sit there while Miss Corrine addressed the audience. Again, the Blue Eye Shadows were in the ones in the middle. After she was done with her little speech, Miss Corrine called the names of each dance group one by one and gave them presents. The boxes were beautifully wrapped. They were all different shapes and sizes. Ronnie, the Dancing  Eye Pencil who took private lessons and tapped around the stage with great pizazz, got the biggest gift.  I wish I could remember the names of the other dancing groups of cosmetics that Miss Corrine called up to the stage that night. The Lip Sticks? The Powder Puffs? The Cuticle Removers? 
She never called our name. The recital ended and the Blue Eye Shadows were the only ones who didn't get  presents. 
Our group broke up after that. We went our separate ways.The next year, I had a new dance school and a new teacher. But that blue-eye-shadowed memory stayed with me. I never got over my fear of dance recitals.
And now I'm writing a scene and putting my main character through a very similar experience.  Somehow no matter what the story is about, I always manage to slip in my own memories. I wonder if other writers do this too. 

By the way, the little boy in the picture is my brother, Robert. He always hated wearing that red suit. But that is his story to tell.