An Emotional Rollercoaster Ride that Inspires

Exclusive Writing Lab transforming emotional reactions to craft authentic work

Hi and welcome to Flight School:

In this post, a writing lab with prompts, we move to the next phase where we agree to enter the story and be that person. To learn more about this stage, refer to the original lesson here.

I got as far as the crossroads, which was the perimeter of my solitary world, as far as I was allowed to go alone. We would loiter here, on occasion, for my father to come home from work if we had important news to impart: the death of a pet fish, the arrival of a visitor, the time my sister leapt from the sofa and hit her nose and had to go to hospital for stitches (she bears the scar to this day).

I was hesitating here, watching the cars go by, engaged with an internal debate as to whether the event of my leaving home meant I was now outside such rules as never to cross this junction, when my mother caught up with me. She had run from the house in her apron and her face was distraught. For a moment, as I saw her bearing down on me, I thought she was angry, that I was in terrible trouble. But she caught me in a close, enveloping embrace, and murmured, “Don’t go, don’t go,” into my hair. ~ I Am, pg. 41-42

The best way to practice “becoming the narrator” is at that moment when the story evokes a strong response like bursting into tears. It’s like when you’re in therapy talking about some silly, seemingly inconsequential event and then suddenly, surprisingly, stumbling into the core heartbreak of your life.

Just like in therapy, story can awaken you and more so when you allow yourself to become the protagonist, the antagonist, and/or the sub-plot characters.

When reading this particular section and bursting into tears (twice), I knew I was in the presence of a deep hurt still festering within. Then, as if that first passage wasn’t enough, O’Farrell went on:

I will be reminded of this moment when, almost two decades later, I say goodbye to her as I’m leaving for Hong Kong. We’re on the platform of the local station, I have my backpack at my feet and the branch-line train is coming through the tunnel. I’m about to get onto it and I won’t be back for a long, long time. She doesn’t tell me not to go but the grip of her fingers on my shoulders is the same: heartfelt, insistent, infused with the awareness I was always going to leave, that we both knew, on some level, that the urge had always been in me.

There I was, once more, weeping for yet another ignored heartbreak. The first one, I’ll keep to myself, but the second feels important and pertinent.

Here goes:

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