Why I Write, 01: To Freeze Life
A reflection on black tights, fiction, and cryogenic memories.
This morning I put on tights the same way I've been putting on tights since I was a little girl. I pinch the fabric and reel the nylon in with my fingers until the toes and waistband are almost touching. From there, all I need to do is slip my feet in and wiggle the garment up my legs. A dance.
I learned this well-tuned tight system from my mother. When I was teeny, tiny, she used to hold my tights at the waistband and lift me off the ground, yelling, "Alley-oop!"
Little girl me loved this ritual. Present me standing alone in my closet thought, I should write this memory. I should work it into a scene. I thought: Memory freezing is one of the reasons why I write.
I'm currently reading 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg. She begins her guidebook by outlining why she writes at all, and it made me want to do the same. How would I verbalize why I put pen to paper? Why do I return to the page, no matter how much it breaks my heart and frustrates me at times?
To list every reason now would require a dissertation; a series seems more approachable. So here we are at reason 01: I write to freeze my way-too-quick human life.
As much as it horrifies me that Walt Disney is cryogenically frozen somewhere (fully intact and likely problematic as ever), I wish that I, too, could lock my memories away in a confidential location. Preserve them, somehow. It's horrific that every day my memory is fading. That one day, I could, for example, put on tights and not think of my mom.
This practice called writing is a way to put off the forgetting. By inserting a detail of my life into the life of a character, I can breathe new air into that memory.
A bonus: Writing my memories down is also a way to remember that personal and universal are often more intertwined than we think. So many women remember their mothers pulling up their tights or braiding their hair or applying that inaugural dash of pink lipstick. If I put my own memories in ink, I can reach through the page and say, “My mom did that, too!”
We're not so different—me and this reader I've never met.
Sitting here at a cafe writing this, there are so many memories I want to freeze. The bright yellow of my coffee cup and the woman across the way who's holding her own cup and wearing a paler yellow sweater. I want to remember these LA winters and how, the longer I live here, the more I realize that this city does have seasons. Minute differences in the fullness of the trees and the coolness of the early afternoons.
Freeze, I yell in my mind. Freeze! Freeze! Freeze!
It's simple, really: There's so much to notice. The more I write down, the more life I get to live again (and again and again).
Reading: Godshot, Chelsea Bieker, 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg
Writing: My novel
Watching: True Detective
Eating: Cookie+Kate Roasted Cauliflower and Farro Salad with Feta and Avocado
Life Lives is written and edited by me, so please excuse the occasional grammatical error or spelling gaffe. My Very Talented Mother, Caitilin McPhillips, designed my logo for me. Thanks, Mom.
The more I write down, the more life I get to live again (and again and again). #goals