The first chapter of Tell It Slant by Miller and Paola is all about our unique memories and experiences. As the opening quote by N. Scott Momaday highlights, our memories make us who we are. The book engaged me as a writer and achieved its goal in helping me "uneart" my own forgotten memories. Most of the sections ended with prompts where I would jot down my immediate responses. For example, the "Taste" section is not only relevant to this week's mini essay, but also evoked some strong memories that I had forgotten about. The prompt reads as follows: "What are the tastes that carry the most emotion for you? The tastes that, even in memory, make you stop a moment and run your tongue over your lips and swallow hard?"
When we first received the food prompt last week, I thought I was going to write about my study abroad trip to Italy. I attended a personal cooking class with Professor Hulme and another student. We made our own bruschetta, pasta, and tiramisu. We then ate the meal together on the instructor's patio as the sun set. This will always be an amazing memory of mine and I am emotionally connected to it. However, when I read the Tell It Slant prompt, I did not think about that day at all.
Instead, I thought about Poppy's pancakes.
My grandparents, Lola and Poppy, have always played a huge role in my life. They live only a few minutes away from my house and helped my hard-working parents by driving us to basketball practices, bringing us to church, making our meals -- one of the most popular items on the menu being Poppy's pancakes.
It doesn't sound as ethereal as an Italian cooking class overlooking the sunset, but I feel so much more when I think about it (which I will save for my mini essay).
In regard to my writing projects overall, the first chapter of Tell It Slant demonstrates the power of memory and sensation. People that write from experience are sharing their perspective of life. Section three under "Try It" emphasizes this: "How many different 'firsts' can you remember in your life? The first meal you remember enjoying, the first smell you remember wanting to smell again, the first day of school..." I wrote down about ten "firsts" and then turned to my boyfriend and asked him what his "firsts" were. My first time driving a car was completely different from his. Nonetheless, if I were reading a creative nonfiction essay about his experience, I would be able to picture myself behind the wheel of his teammate's jeep, driving at ten miles per hour in a McDonald's parking lot, pushing down on the gas with a singular big toe out of fear I would somehow spiral out of control.
Utilizing the senses in particular makes a piece of writing more tangible to a reader. The prompts regarding senses (smell, touch, sound, etc.) were helpful because I discovered more material to write about. The prompts about the senses brought my forgotten memories to life again. One line in particular that I highlighted says, "But, as an adult -- as a writer preserving this memory in language -- I begin to create a metaphor that will infiltrate both my writing and my sense of self from here on out." Language makes a memory concrete. It makes it real. I plan to use the memories I have excavated from the book's prompts to drive the rest of my writings in this course.
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