Changing Diapers is the Easy Part

I just finished the first draft of my memoir and as soon as I got everything down on paper I began to think about how I can revise, revise, revise. Do I have enough details, do I have too many? I wanted to capture a day filled with joy in the midst of a very difficult time in my life. The opening provides a glimpse to this period in my life and the closing brings me back to the reality of it.

For this story of a day in my life I see myself as both the main character and as the narrator. As I reflect on this I wonder how it would have felt to attempt this story through a third person perspective or even the possibility of seeing it through the perspective of my son. My son is entering the Air Force in January and he just happened to stop by my house this evening. In reading this piece aloud to my son it caused me to think that I need to add much greater detail to the events of the day, the time I was with my son. The only problem is that we were not engaged in a lot of exciting activity. Truthfully, in many ways it was rather ordinary and mundane.

My son was only two after all. He said he did not remember anything about that day and that did not surprise me. I suppose in many ways, the story was really not about him but rather about how my love for him was something positive that I held onto through dark times. If there was anything that supported and fueled my desire for change, it was my love for my son. When I remembered the events of the day, it was easiest for me to think of them chronologically. It was really about a simple bus ride downtown for an ice cream cone and a stroll around campus. Perhaps the seeds of my returning to school were planted there.

The dialogue was difficult for me to remember and there really was no dialogue between my son and I. I am thinking that if I had a couple of photographs of the day, the event and places, it probably would have stirred more concrete images. I seem to remember more about feelings than about the details of the day.

Never mind, I just shoved it into a trash can, poured lighter fluid all over it, and lit a match. In doing so I also invented a new phrase...radical dramatization!