Preface
Up high. The RGO Treehouse. Plate glass walls on three sides.
We of the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society are having our Christmas party.
I am one of four asked to read aloud for five minutes. Folks know me. Not from any blog, but from attending the drop-in “Free Fall Friday.” (Now held on zoom across the continent—in fact, our meeting chair, a retired geology professor, lives across the great divide)
Normally, at our own home, we might write slowly and cautiously, fussing and editing as we go, inching along like caterpillars. Not when we free fall.
At the Friday drop-in we have a prompt, then we write like mad with a timer: It’s such fun to just let your pen fly, feeling safe and relaxed and intoxicated by the high atmosphere, as we glide like a happy drunkard. As Earnest Hemingway advised, “Write drunk, edit sober.” No apologies, as we are all falling free together. If pressed for time then we all write “a list.”
At the party that night I knew fellow writers would like to hear my “list” from an author’s eye. And fiction. (And nonfiction too, but there’s no (word count) space to show you, sorry) I had fun. As I walked back to my table people said they liked my reading….
Prompt- “make a list of what you observed that morning”
More old men than usual gathered at the A&W, but I sensed they all knew each other
Lots of red taillights on Elbow Drive
Nice clouds in horizontal layers, blue on grey-blue
Patches of snow covering less than 50% of the land
Heidi looking awake and cheerful
A longhaired thin lady asking me if I was going to the figure drawing
A man looking like… (ding! Time’s up)
Prompt- “Your worst date”
My worst date ever was back in the day—you know, the days when you do stuff that your grownup self would never believe. Her name was Harriet, of Hungarian extraction, and her favorite colour was facitat: that’s Hungarian for black. “Halloween soon,” she said; “you’re my date,” she said; “and to celebrate this special day, I might even wear something other than facitat.”
“Yes dear,” I said.
I said a lot of ‘yes dear’s’ to Harriet. Not because she was dear, although she was, and not because I was henpecked, although I wasn’t, but because she was always right. And me, as a typical male, I wouldn’t admit I was wrong, not until the next day, and then I still wouldn’t say I was wrong. I would just say she was right. So you see it saved a lot of time if I would just say, “yes dear,” to begin with.
“I’m going to wear red,” she told me, “and you are too.” I was imagining devils or demons or what have you. “What have you in mind?” I asked, “because you know I am a strict Christian. I mean, I can do Hallowe’en, but I don’t know about ungodly creatures. Can’t we be the Mario brothers or something? How about Mr and Ms packman?”
“No. Because that’s yellow, and my skin doesn’t look good in yellow.” To Harriet, I was a Christian nerd who didn’t know anything about colours, and she was teaching me. I wish I could say I was teaching her about computers, but no. I had a choice between buying a used car or else a computer, and although in my nerdiness I was tempted, Harriet had made it clear it had to be a car.
“Besides,” Harriet continued, “we would need a car to go anywhere in our costumes, and how would we get down the stairs? In big round costumes, I mean.”
The place with stairs was the old folie berge, which sounds rather risky for a Christian, but no, it was a typical night club. If only we had gone there, even with trouble getting down the stairs, I would have been happy. What changed my life forever with Harriet was her stupid last minute plans to… (Time’s up)
…
Sean Crawford …Don’t get hung up on your comment, just “free fall” it.
On the khaki plain
September 2020
