[stylist] Writing exercise: creative nonfiction- Life Lessons

[Vejas Vasiliauskas]

Hi Bridgit,
I really enjoyed reading your story.
Just out of curiosity, did your mother want a rich husband to 
take care of you because you are blind, or is that just the way 
she felt all girls should be?
It must have been really tempting baking things and then not 
being able to eat them.  If I were you, I probably would have 
snuck some in my mouth when my mom wasn't looking...
Vejas

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org
To: "'Writers' Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sat, 1 Aug 2015 16:03:46 -0500
Subject: [stylist] Writing exercise: creative nonfiction- Life 
Lessons

List,

This has nothing to do with recent convos, but here's something I 
just wrote
up.  Needs lots of fleshing out.  I changed the POV between 
descriptions of my
mother and me, even when referring to myself in the past.  I like 
to play
with structure and format.  Just trying it out here.

Life Lessons

Chocolate fragrance permeates my nose.  Rich, velvet dark 
chocolate mingles
with sweet, sugary dough.  I spread the batter into a baking pan, 
hands
smoothing, pushing thick cookie dough into the corners.

My mother baked desserts almost daily.  Dinner was always 
accompanied with
cake or cookies or bars.  Each bite home-made, exactly how a 
woman should do
it.

I'm a little girl full of energy.  Riding my bike, building a 
fort, swinging
as high as I can-my mother frowns on these activities.  "It's not 
very
lady-like," she chants at me.

Chocolate chip cookie bars rise in the oven.  A kitchen full of 
bakery
smells.  Flour, sugar, vanilla, chocolate chips-comforting 
smells, smells
that feel like home.

My mother said she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and wife.  She 
cleaned,
cooked and even sewed at times.  But time presented another 
mother.
Conflicted, confused, full of resentment, she never was content 
at home.

"You want to marry a rich man who will take care of you," she 
explains.

I watch her apply make-up with an adept hand.  "You want to be 
pretty,
Bridgy, especially for your husband." Another mantra chanted 
throughout my
childhood.

I pull on dance clothes, checking my reflection in the vanity 
mirror, the
vanity my mother insisted I needed.  Will I ever be pretty like 
Mom, I
wonder.  We drive to the dance studio she now owns.  Off to work.

Heat rushes out of the oven as the bars are removed.  The top is 
golden
brown, the chocolate chips still gooey.  It's perfection as 
mouths salivate
in anticipation.

Mom baked chocolate chip bars.  Standing in the kitchen, 
ingredients
surrounding her, she taught me how to follow a recipe.  "Baking 
takes
precision," she told me.  "You will need to know how to cook for 
your
husband."

The world is never black and white.  Grey seeps in through 
cracks, making
nothing clear.  Conflicting images intellectually understood, but 
emotionally
take a toll.  Who am I? What am I? Questions asked daily.  One 
day I know, the
next, it's unclear.

"Your joy is in God.  Without God, you will have no joy," my 
mother said.

She sat on the fllor mat, finishing her third work-out for the 
day.
"Remember, Bridgy, if you don't stay in shape, your husband will 
leave you.
No one wants a slob." She moved gracefully, a dancers body 
noticeable in
each step.  But she was drawn, frantic-like.  As though her very 
life depended
on the exercise at hand.

I follow her every move.

She's thin, so thin.  Beautiful and graceful-I stand in front of 
the mirror
scrutinizing every inch of my body.  Finding the flaws, I learn 
how to hate
my body.

The cookie bars cool on a wire rack, gooey in the center, crisp 
on the
edges.  Moist banana bread covered in foil sits on the counter.  
Chewy
Snickerdoodles welcome guest on the table.  Each item prepared 
with heart-a
wish to bring joy to any entering my kitchen.  Treats for others 
but not me.
Rarely do sweet confections touch my lips.

Perfection, always strive for perfection.  Lessons in childhood 
collect on me
like weights drawn to a magnet.


Bridgit


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