I’m going to move in a different direction.

Next semester, I’m taking a creative nonfiction writing course.  I’ve taken a lower level course of this same name and I loved it so I’m looking forward to this one.  It’s also being taught by a well-respected writer in this community so it should be interesting.

To start preparing myself for different types of writing, I’m going to use some prompts from a local graduate student’s website (http://www.poewar.com/index.php?p=39).

What are your very earliest memories?

—

My memories from this time period are very hazy but are ones that I’ve held for such a long time.

I can remember being very young, living in Florida.  My dad was away in the Navy.

The first memory seems gray.  The walls were gray.  The floor was gray.  The color of the air seems to be gray.  I can’t see any color in this memory whatsoever.

I am in a small kitchen, 60s era.  I can see the stove and it’s an old-fashioned stove (but probably current for that time).

I can see my mom.  She’s sitting on the floor.  Her hands are to her face.  She’s crying.  She’s sobbing.

My brother (my only sibling at the time), is sitting next to her.  He’s crying.

I sit on the other side of her.

I don’t know if I cried or not.  I just remember the sorrow that I felt at that moment.  It seems like it was the deepest despair.

It hurts.

—

During the same time period:

My brother and I are out in the Florida sun.  There are ant hills.  We were making mudpies filled with ants.

I see the color yellow.  I don’t know if it’s the color of the house, a car, our clothes, or the feeling of the sun.  It’s yellow…everywhere is yellow.

—

A hurricane had come though.  I think it may have been Camille.  I’m pretty sure it was.  It was big.  The biggest that had been recorded.

I’m looking at a swimming pool and there is a tree in it.

Tree boughs float like ghostly apparitions within the blue-green water.

Leaves and branches are scattered all around.

The sky is gray.