Week 6 Story Lab: Microfiction: Two Autobiographical Stories
Defining Home
When I was a child, home was where love was, where family didn't give up, where I laughed until I cried, and where I played outside until dark.
Now, home is the unattainable arms of my family, 700 miles away in a different life. It's echoes of halcyon days as I sit in my apartment room, listening to friends laughing nearby.
I wonder what home will mean next. I hope it’s the place where you and I rest our heads, where I decorate the living room and experiment in the kitchen, and where we decide our definition of "family" together.
I'm Not a Superhero Yet
Today I breathe air, not water.
Author's Note:
The first microfiction story is a "drabble," a 100-word piece. It was hard to capture my life autobiographically in such a short space, but my intention with it was to be melancholy in my retrospective perspective on my life. In the first paragraph, I reflect on my childhood, and how I understood "home" to mean, although I didn't dwell on my definition much at the time. In the space of a few phrases, I tried to offer snapshots of what life was like at home, both what was happening and how it made me feel. For the second paragraph, I fast-forwarded to my present life in college, where I've been struggling lately to figure out why Norman and my apartment don't feel like home, why my roommates don't feel like family. They are questions that I still don't have answers to. The final paragraph opens a window into my brain to see my hopes for the future. It's a reconciling to the truth that I won't ever be able to live with my family again, but that maybe I can start a life with my boyfriend where we create these mysteries called "home" and "family" together. Overall, with this story, I was trying to make an almost journal entry snapshot of my life and my feelings over time, like a time capsule for myself to find in the future.
The second story that I wrote was a six-word story (title isn't included in the word length). I've grown up as a swimmer, first taking swim lessons as a kid, then swimming for the swim team in middle school and high school, and still swimming as a work-out today. Water is continually on my brain, so when people ask me what my superpower would be if I were a superhero, my response is always that I would want to breathe underwater. Thus the title, because although I've fantasized about this superpower for my whole life, the reality is that I haven't attained it. In six words, this story tries to summarize my athletic life up to now. Although I've wanted to breathe water for so long, I've found myself landlocked in college metaphorically. I had hoped to be on swim team in college (probably as a walk-on), but OU doesn't have a swim team, so that dream was never realized. Despite those lofty aspirations for myself, these days, I find myself breathing air daily, not water. It's perhaps simultaneously a defeated narrative and also a coming-to-terms moment--I might not be breathing water, but I am breathing, I am alive.
That first microfiction stung right where it hurts. I've been coming to the same realization lately. I lived at home all throughout college to save money, but now that I'm going to dental school this summer and my family has moved to a completely different state, I realize I have one month left living with them before everything changes. It's such a sad feeling, but nevertheless one that we all come to. We'll get through it just like our parents before us <3 better things are ahead.
ReplyDeleteHey Kenzie,
ReplyDeleteYour first sentence really hits hard emotionally and I love it. Home is a word that can mean so many things from a physical building, to a town, to a people, to an environment, etc. The complexity of the word is interesting to ponder. I like how you give home three different contexts. Past, present, and a future home. Love your author's notes! You brilliantly explain why each microfiction story has meaning to you and how you came up with the idea's. It is great to know you more through those notes. Breathing underwater would be amazing!
Hey Kenzie,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the beginning of your first story! I too have struggled with being away from family since coming to college, though my family is not nearly so far away. Similar to what I saw in your story, the struggle was hardest once I had just begun college but got better once I had a friend group here in town. They provided a diet version of my home, but were not quite the same. Now we both are looking towards a future where we make out own homes and define them as we like! the second story confused me quite a bit at first, but the author's note helped clear up many of the initial questions I had. My first thought was, "Oh crap, she's drowning!!!!" A second look and further examination dispelled that initial fear, thankfully, and I developed a much greater appreciation for the story after it was given time to marinate! I loved both of the stories and am excited t see what you have to write in the future!