As you arrive in this moment,
Deeply inhale.
Now softly exhale.
Inhale one more time.
And exhale.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
Teaching college students how to write short stories is a fascinating endeavor.
Their stories are often flooded with madness,
Murder,
And mayhem.
Because six people dying in five pages is a great way to create conflict and tension,
Right?
I gently try to tell them that if they want tension,
All they have to do is put people in a car or at the kitchen table.
We often have memories of comfort and joy associated with our meals.
The reality is that a table can often be a family's colosseum.
Pass the mac and cheese and release the lions.
Something else I try to instill in them is to let gestures do the talking.
What do I mean by that?
If a narrator were to say,
Cinderella was a sweet girl.
Yeah,
Fine,
Whatever.
We've been told what she's like,
But we don't really feel it.
That's where gestures come in.
How much more effective and moving it is to watch Cinderella as she takes care of her obnoxious stepmother and annoying stepsisters.
As she cleans out the slop in the fireplace.
She is not swearing like a sailor under her breath,
Like most of us would be as she does this.
No.
She is smiling and singing.
That moves us.
We are on her side.
The OED defines a gesture as a manner of carrying the body,
A bearing.
Our bodies have particular qualities as we go about our lives.
This could be thought of in one way as grace of manner.
Is a person a boulder or a swan?
Now it's not that one is good and another is bad.
Otherwise we wouldn't have sumo wrestling and ballet.
Gestures can also mean our expressions of countenance.
What does our face show the world?
Gestures also reveal our attitudes,
Which to put this into poker parlay means our bodies all have tells.
They can often betray what is going on inside.
There have been many TV shows and movies that tap into this kind of intense scrutiny of nonverbals to solve the crime and lock up the bad person.
But I find it more interesting to consider what can our gestures,
Our manner of carrying our bodies,
Tell us about us?
And is that what we want to hear about ourselves?
Are we constantly poised for an attack on ourselves,
On others?
Are we ready to find the smallest fault and blow it out of proportion?
Do we hate our bodies?
Are our bodies never,
Ever enough?
Inhale.
Exhale.
What if our thoughts are like salt that we are throwing into the good soil of our minds and bodies?
Are we intentionally sowing attitudes that poison and stop the good from growing?
More than that,
Do you hate everyone and everything?
Do you see every person as an annoying jerk?
When you don't get your way,
Do you attack?
This might seem like a mishmash of this and that,
But really what I'm asking is what is the character that we show to the world?
Whether we respond with fear or anger,
Tightness or openness,
We are writing our characters every single day.
Every single time we move.
Act.
So what kind of character do you want to be?
Maybe write out a character description,
One that is so easy to love because of its quirkiness,
Its grit.
I mean it.
Write out a character description and then audition for the part.
To do that well,
You have to practice everywhere.
In the shower,
In the line at the grocery store,
In the meeting that just won't end.
Wherever you are,
Be the you you want to be.
Oh,
And stay away from undergraduate short stories for a good character like yours.
Their murder.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Namaste.
