On this September 11, two years after the tragedy at the World Trade Centers in NY, many of us who write believe more whole heartedly than ever that getting our words on the page makes a difference in our lives and in the lives of those who read our words.

The World Trade Centers tragedy caused us to pause and examine what we most value in life.  As we followed the stories of victims and survivors, we learned about kindness and empathy, caring and risking for the welfare of others.  Our mourning and shock helped us see that what we do everyday, what we think, feel, and wonder about matter.  And as we honored those who risked their lives for others, we learned that taking action rather than waiting passively is most important for coming fully alive.

Against a backdrop of sorrow, we have dedicated ourselves to getting the experiences of our hearts and minds down on the page before we have no time left to do it. In our dedication, we may have realized we could use some strategies to help us shape our endeavors.  This week, in honor of our individual efforts to invest in life through writing, I want to share a discussion of a piece of short fiction by Grace Paley and show you how her fictional story gave me an idea for creating surprising personal essays.

You may be familiar with Grace Paley’s story “Wants.”  But if you don’t own a copy of the story in an anthology, click here to read this story on line.

 Paley’s speaker in “Wants” is a woman waiting on the steps of the library to return two library books after 18 years.  Suddenly, she sees her ex-husband:

I was sitting on the steps of the new library.

Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.

He said, What? What life? No life of mine

I said, O.K. I don’t argue when there’s real disagreement. I got up and went into the library to see how much I owed them.

The narrator tells us her ex-husband followed her to the “books return desk.”

In many ways, he said, as I look back, I attribute the dissolution of our marriage to the fact that you never invited the Bertrams to dinner.

That’s possible, I said. But really, if you remember: first, my father was sick that Friday, then the children were born, then I had those Tuesday-night meetings, then the war began. Then we didn’t seem to know them any more. But you’re right. I should have had them to dinner.

I gave the librarian a check for $32. Immediately she trusted me, put my past behind her, wiped the record clean, which is just what most other municipal and/or state bureaucracies will not do.

I checked out the two Edith Wharton books I had just returned because I’d read them so long ago and they are more apropos now than ever. They were The House of Mirth and The Children, which is about how life in the United States in New York changed in twenty-seven years fifty years ago.

Most certainly with her tongue in her cheek, Paley draws a character for us who has her finger on the pulse of things but has no ability to take action.  At the library, which is a new one since she took the two books out years ago, her husband is as stuck in the past as she is:  he still wants to talk about the reason he feels their marriage dissolved.  With a very human view of time, the narrator lists what intervened and made her not invite the Bertrams to dinner.  Her list grows from a sick parent to the birth of children, to a war and the resulting wedge driven into a friendship or perhaps just so much time gone by that the friendship was left behind amidst the busy days of living.  Reading the list, we see our own lives passing us by. When she says, “But you’re right, I should have had them to dinner,” we recognize our own feet stuck in the past.

Why does Paley’s narrator choose this day to review her life and to take at least on action she long postponed?  She reveals this at the story’s end:

Just this morning I looked out the window to watch the street for awhile and saw that the little sycamores the city had dreamily planted a couple of years before the kids were born had come that day to the prime of their lives.

Well! I decided to bring those two books back to the library.  Which proves that when a person or an event comes along to jolt or appraise me I can take some appropriate action, although I am better known for my hospitable remarks.

The library will wipe the narrator’s record clean, but she cannot seem to as easily wipe away self-deception.  She is happy that she can take some action despite her ability to camouflage herself behind hospitable remarks, like she says at the story’s beginning: “I don’t argue when there’s real disagreement.”   This character’s thoughts and behavior makes us think deeply about ourselves.  What does it take to get us to act?  What is it we prefer to mull over and over while time passes and we do not move forward?  What is it we realize has changed over the years even as we have not taken personal action ourselves?

With these questions in mind, I thought about a way to grow an essay using the organization in “Wants.”  After you read the story, think about writing an essay using these steps:

1) Go to a specific place that you have not sat before, a place from which you can take an action or make a decision. This place does not have to be very far away or even exotic, only somewhere you have never perched.  For now, describe this place using all of your senses. Tell what you hear, touch, taste, smell and see.

2) Next, tell what action you are taking or what decision you are making.  Paley’s character is on the library steps because she has come to return books after 18 years.  What are you going to do where you have chosen to sit?  The action can be as seemingly insignificant as taking shirts in to be laundered instead of doing them yourself or as consequential as telling your boss you no longer want to work for him or her.  Perhaps you will knock on the door of someone you haven’t spoken to in a very long time or decide to take a class or join a group or adopt a child. When you decide upon an action, state what that action is.

3) Now that you have described where you are, imagine someone you know coming into view.  Write the way you imagine they look and what they are doing in your view.  What might the two of you talk about?  Open an imagined conversation by saying, “Hello, my______.” Paley’s character fills in the blank with “my life.”  What would you call out after hello to the person you imagine is there? (i.e. Hello my anger and my appetite, hello inertia, hello my fuel and engine.)

4) Now write a conversation between yourself and the imagined person, a conversation that sounds as if it could be real if people actually let themselves say what they felt and thought.  Bring up the past if you like.  Let the other person nitpick or encourage you, whichever you imagine they might in real life.  Talk about specific events and gripes. Or talk about specific dreams and ideas.

5) When you have completed the imaginary conversation, reveal the reason why you chose the place you went to sit. What did you hope to accomplish in this spot?  Paley’s character saw sycamores in the prime of their lives and decided to return library books she’d had out since her kids were little.

6) Now make a statement about yourself as Paley’s character does (even if it is exaggerated) when she says, “I can take some appropriate action….”

You will find that after choosing a place, deciding on an action, discussing life in conversation with someone and then telling why it occurred to you to sit in this place at this time, your statement about yourself will include valuable insight.  What you are writing and what you see inside yourself will resonate.  You will feel more alive no matter what you find to say about yourself because it will be eye opening.