Serving Barnwell County and it's neighbors since 1852
Recently I’ve been teaching a lot of nonfiction to my students. We studied biographies a couple of weeks ago, and last week we transitioned to reading autobiographies. We read “Funeral” by Ralph Fletcher, where the author reminisces about the time his friends held a pretend funeral for him because he was moving away. We also read “The Work You Do, The Person You Are” by Toni Morrison where she recalls making two dollars a day as a child by cleaning a woman’s house. Though about seemingly simple things and situations, both pieces displayed the richness of reliving memories.
In my younger days as a reader, I detested the word “nonfiction.” Nonfiction meant that the stories were about reality, and I found the concept of reality incredibly boring. There wasn’t magic in reality, at least that’s what my thought process was. When I went to college as an English major, I had to read nonfiction, much to my dismay. But as I read, I began to realize that there is magic in ordinary things. One person who changed my perception of nonfiction was Rick Bragg, author of All Over but the Shoutin’ and a contributor to Southern Living Magazine. I had the pleasure of meeting Bragg when he visited my university, and one thing he conveyed to me was that writing needs “color.” For me, that meant whether a story was fiction or nonfiction, that for it to truly breathe, it needed vibrancy, like a bouquet of flowers, or the sky during a sunset. And indeed, Bragg’s writing is often filled with such vibrancy.
Though my reading and writing appetites still lean towards fiction, authors like Bragg gave me an appreciation for nonfiction. The medium reminds me to remember, which I need. I don’t spend a lot of time remembering my past. I am too focused on the tasks that are demanded of me in the day, or I’m preoccupied with the coming expectations of the future. But when I stop to dwell on memories—a snowy February, a walk through the woods with a friend, the quiet serenity of a purple June evening—there is a soothing healing in my soul. Good, pleasant memories are a balm for the mind. If only I would spend more time dwelling on the goodness of the past.
What about you? How often do you spend time thinking about the past? Not about the bleak, gloomy things that have left scars on your soul. I’m talking about the first time you kissed your spouse, the smell of woodsmoke under a blanket of autumn stars, the first, lilting laugh of your baby. Why don’t you take fifteen minutes sometime this week to write some of these memories down and see the effect it has on you? Who knows, maybe it’ll bring a smile to your face.
If you’d like to learn more about David, visit his website at cordersbookcorner.blogspot.com. There you can read free fiction and sign up for his newsletter to receive updates.
