Thinking about fiction and creating characters has shown me something unexpected. I never noticed until recently how little I know about real people in my life. I think I know them, but so much of that is actually either my projection or filtered by the narrow lens of my own life. How many rich stories are out there for the hearing -- or taking -- if I could only pay more attention.
Or had paid more attention. This lack of knowledge feels especially true with regard to people who have passed away. Sometimes I almost feel them nearby, as though they are reaching out to share with me. Chapters that are now closed. At least for now.
For example, my late aunt, my father’s sister. I knew her only in the context of being my cousins’ mother, an adult figure to my child’s world, and later as one of several aging relatives. We got on fine, so far as I know, but I don’t think I ever asked her anything about her own life, aspirations, or feelings.
One example, perhaps more poignant because of its banality, was her habit of rearranging her kitchen cupboards every few months, so that I could rarely find a drinking glass at first try. It became a standing joke between us, but I never wondered why she did it. Until now.
As I look back, I see a woman raising a family in post-WWII midAmerica, in a house her carpenter/husband built from scratch. A solid house, but a small one and barebones one. My uncle would never consider moving to a larger one, or from midtown to the suburbs, as most people of that generation and class would have done. The house seemed big in my childhood years, and I was fascinated by the way so much was crammed in. But when I visited as an adult I realized how tiny was. And how unchanging. My uncle never wanted to change what wasn't broken, and then only for more bare bones.
I imagine now that her minor kitchen rearranging was a chance to do something a bit creative in a limited context. Someone whose own dreams had been buried in her role. Or maybe that’s just my projection. I never asked her, or really bothered to look. (And yes, my uncle is the same situation. So much he might have said.)
And so it goes with almost everyone I knew who is gone, or, for that matter, with almost everyone I know now. I’ve begun to see people around me as sparks of life, who carry around universes within themselves, some of which they would never want to share, some of which they would share if asked in the right context.
Some of which is there for the seeing.
I’m wondering if that’s what makes for the richest fiction -- not an imaginary world filled with projections of the author’s own imagination, but rather peopled with true and perceptive observations of real people around them, so that readers see themselves in the story, not some cardboard cutout or comic book world.
The stories that really are -- or were.
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