There’s a moment in life when you feel you’re a writer. No matter the skills you have: they’ll come. It’s a way to look at life that reveals.
This morning I woke up at 6.15 am and did my workout, then I realized I was in a story. I was crafting a story. My life. Sure, not a story that humankind will take care of in the following centuries, but a story.
Does jotting down the notes you’re reading makes me a writer? No, it doesn’t. No? Listen: it does. Why? Because I’m the child of something writing me, I’m a writer by genetics — somehow. Listen.
The end of a story
I was at a funeral some weeks ago. Next to the church, the hearse gathers around it the family orphaned by their grandfather. The grandson, about 13 years old, clutched a paper handkerchief in his right hand — the look inside the hearse, attentive and desolate.
The boy’s parents fixed their eyes on the coffin, and there were traces of dismay and serenity in their eyes. The mother hugged her son, who, in response, clutched the paper handkerchief even tighter. The boy remained motionless, with a storyless, weary look.
The priest exited the church and began the funeral rites as the workers approached the coffin to carry it inside. A few words introduced the sacred service, then a slow column formed toward the entrance and inside the church. The end of the grandfather’s story started.
From the road came arrogantly the rumble of two pickup trucks that interrupted the silence of that walk to a final farewell. They were fast-moving pickup trucks full of signs and colors advertising products. The urgency of that rumble swept away death with the indifference of those in the middle of another story, not yet finished.
Life was moving on.
It was a funeral: the end of a story. That’s not the point. The point is that the end of a story is a story, too. Everything is a story, and it deserves someone to tell it.
We live in the information era when neverending waves of brain stimulation hit us; they are too numerous and short to be a story. The writers’ mission is to slow the waves’ frequency and transform the storm into a calm sea: a quiet environment where one can remember.
Writers build memories. Time is not linear. Stopping by in memories is not living in the past. We can remember happenings that never happened, too. Stopping by memories is a touch-point with our identity. So, writers are enablers of identity.
Nothing to say
Yesterday I called my father by phone. He didn’t answer. I called him again. After a while, the nurse handed him the phone and invited him to answer me. ‘Why aren’t you answering the phone?’ — I asked. ‘I’ve nothing to say’ — he replied.
End of the call.
Stories resonate. Writers are musicians; they play events and go beyond the truth of the events they play. So, it’s a dangerous job, too.
What’s the truth? Isn’t it the most convincing story? Copywriters well know that mechanism. It’s a matter of purpose. Do you want to tell or influence the will of others? That’s the edge.
I write to enlighten a piece of existence. The best writer I know who masterfully interprets this mission is Murakami Haruki. No matter which novel you read, the atmosphere you get in is constantly stooping to look at the details that reveal the worlds that brood within us in the unfolding of the days.
Slacker
He does nothing. Since childhood, he was scared by the other’s judgment. Now, nearly forty, he’s still a child but an old child who lacks energy and purpose. His parents have looked after him and still do, but they gave him no education.
He pretends to be a man, but he’s a “still,” so lazy that he’d ask you to pass him a cup just half a meter away from him: he’ll not make an effort to take it himself.
He’s a story with no plot. He’s a story with no story but a story.
When Murakami Haruki started writing, he found his style by writing in English — with minimal vocabulary — and translating it into Japanese, his mother language. It was his way toward simplicity. He tells that story in “Novelist as a Vocation.” I’ve been impressed by discovering that journey: I’m doing the same. That’s resonating.
It’s 6.28 am on another day. I’m into the early morning silence when the far noise of a car brings to my mind others’ life. It’s my writing moment before my wife and my child wake up. That’s when words coagulate into thoughts, and I understand that everything is a story.
Writing and reading a story is like breathing. Some oxygen enters — reading — and other goes out — writing. The same happens with telling and listening: it’s not a matter of the material support that hosts the story. It’s about moving a breath.
Imagine a world without stories. What would it be? Is it something you can describe? Imagine people walking the Earth and owning no words to say what they want; they survive with the unconscious expectation that something will happen, and meanwhile, they eat, sleep, and make love. You see: that world without stories would be a story anyway.
You can write for whatever reason. The crucial facet is writing to catch the time going and give it a face you can recognize. Otherwise, what’s life? Sure, writing is challenging: how many people can jot down their experiences and make stories from them? A few humans can.
I’m a technical writer for a living. That’s not being a writer like a novelist, but it’s the door open to the awareness of communication as the glue that makes things exist and work. Technical writing roots in stories, too.
At the end of the day, what’s communication? It’s the journey of the hero — a piece of information — that, through many challenges, someway reaches its destination and wins its game for life. That’s a story.
Nuclear smile
Diary of March 11, 2011: They are talking about the Fukushima nuclear accident on TV. Like an apocalypse, multitudes of people will have to flee their homes.
At the table with Cri and Matt, we are having dinner. We are far from that disaster, yet I am weighed down by the pain I am witnessing on TV. I try not to let it show.
I look at my baby, Matt. His smile speaks of another world, a world of sparkling joy.
Life has no mercy.
Stories go on.
Falling in Love with Stories was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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Author: Luca Vettor
