The Meaning of Story

Someone recently asked me why I write, especially these days when writing offers more pain than reward. The answer is that for most of my life, I've been an outsider. Reading, then writing, offered a means to decipher how to fit in, how to survive.

High school was hell. I was two years younger than my classmates, didn't speak English well, was klutzy and shy--the perfect recipe for attracting the attention of bullies.

The Thursday afternoon stops of the library's bookmobile at the corner store parking lot of my neighborhood saved my life during those years. I learned English reading Marguerite Henry books, moved on to any young adult books with a horse on the cover, and by the end of the year, to adult novels, where I discovered the racing stories of Dick Francis and Mary Stewart's Airs Above The Ground.

Each book contained a hero with a problem, and by the end of the book, the hero had solved his problem and reached some form of happiness. That doesn't sound like a life-altering thing, but for me it was. Knowing that these people, who seemed as real as anyone in my life, faced their versions of bullies and survived gave me hope. And hope kept me going back to that piece of hell on earth called high school when all I wanted to do was hide under the covers and cry.

Stories remind us that we're the heroes of our lives. Like any hero we suffer. We feel outnumbered, outgunned, outmaneuvered. Some villain inevitably shows up on scene and fills us with shoulds that silence our dreams, makes us believe we're not worthy as we are, that we don't have the look or the talent to succeed, or that what we do has no meaning. But like a hero, we lick our wounds and learn. We pick ourselves up and go on. The journey is worth the fight. When we go after what's meaningful to us, we eventually get to our own version of happiness.

The possibility of that happy ending is what keeps me writing, even when it hurts. Like the line in Moby Dick that goes, "in the slippery world, we all need something to hold on to." I plow ahead in spite of self-doubt and outside forces I can't control that help seed those doubts, because I need to keep rediscovering that hope with every story. I need to give that hope to others with every story.

If you're interesting in reading about perception, check out my new article on the Writer's Page.

Until next month, keep reading!