Autobiographical Narrative with Commentary - Essay Example

TMA 04: Option Autobiographical Narrative (Prose) with Commentary Prompt: ‘A Gift’ My eyes blink in the darkness. Memory overwhelms as my fingers run over it; reading the embroidered letters, feeling the frayed texture of the cloth. My mind flits back to that sunny afternoon; I was nine, hot and sweaty after the game. We had won. We never won. But that day we had won. And all the guys were yelling themselves hoarse but I had only one person to go to. And he was standing there, across the nets, smiling more proudly than I’d ever seen. I remember breaking into a run and coming to a jerky halt just inches away from him. ‘Well done,’ was all he said. And then he brought out his hand from behind his back and clenched in it was a cap: my favorite team, a gift from my favorite person in the world. I can feel the sweat of every match I played with this cap on, on my fingertips. I can smell every victory, every moment of jubilation. I remember the days I wore it to school, my friends staring at it enviously. So many memories lodged in this little article of fandom. Then there’s that other night. Years later; I was nearly thirteen and still wearing that cap. Waiting nervously outside her door, hoping she couldn’t tell. God, she looked pretty. Always did. Brown hair hanging down to her shoulders, those freckles that crinkled up whenever she smiled. We’d just returned from our very first date and I was hoping I could get to kiss her. It didn’t happen. But I’ll always remember that moment clear as daylight. My childhood had been unusually happy. My parents allowed me my freedom and yet I always knew that they’d be there whenever I got into a mess. My friends were always a fun lot. Barry and Jake, my two best buddies; school would not have been half as memorable without them. I had been quite a good student, not outstanding perhaps, but above average. Our Biology teacher in Junior High had a reputation of being the meanest cat around. I remember the time I had forgotten to submit an assignment on time. Not only did she send me to detention hall for two hours, she never missed the opportunity to remind the whole class of my misdeed! There was always baseball. Weekend games at the field and season’s tickets when Dad’s favorite team played. I had always been a little shy, though. Rarely spoke out in class; didn’t make the effort of making new friends: I was pretty happy with the bunch I knew and loved. I liked to spend most of afternoons at home in my room, unless we had a game. Reading was a lifelong companion. Blyton and Dahl as a child; Superman and Archie’s comics in school; later moved on to more serious literature: favorites always being Steinbeck and Camus. It’s still in my hand, the cap. And I remember a conversation I had with Jake, the day we graduated. ‘It’s all over,’ he kept muttering, sipping his beer. ‘No it isn’t!’ I had said, punching him playfully. ‘Think about it. You’re off to college. So’s Barry. I’m stuck her with my Pop.’ ‘Well there’s plenty of people who are going to stay, you know.’ ‘It won’t be the same. Just won’t.’ ‘We’ll always be buds, Jake. Always.’ I hadn’t realized then how different things could turn out. I moved out to a different city. The phone calls started getting more and more infrequent, and I didn’t know what to talk about most of the time, anyway. People do grow up and change. And there was no use fighting it. The only things one can hold on to are memories. And hope they make it easier to go on with life. I get up from my chair and step out of the dark room. I’m getting late for my meeting with a college professor. He had called me to say he would like to talk to me about further studies. I was more than happy to oblige. Here was a man I admired who was going out of his way to help me choose my career path. Who could complain? I dress mechanically. Not too formal, but not careless either. A white T-shirt and grey trousers; my hair looks pretty civilized and I spray on some deodorant for good measure. As I sit on the bus, looking at the houses passing by, I realize I’m still not over that baseball cap. My childhood, my past lingers, leaving a trail of bittersweet memories. All the lawns in this neighborhood look so neat and well-kept. Folks must be richer than we used to be, I tell myself. There’s a little blonde girl swinging in the garden, and her shrieks of laughter make me smile. I used to love swinging from that tire in our backyard too. A Labrador, his pink tongue hanging out, stares at me from above the fence of another house, as if it could understand the time warp I was living out right now. I look at the person sitting next to me. An old lady, her wrinkled hands placed on her lap of faded yellow cotton. She’s almost dozed off, her chin touching her chest. I will be this old someday. How much of my life would I recall then? Would I still remember my most precious gift? How much of my life would I be grateful for? Would I have regrets? Oh, these questions! Here I am about to discuss my academic future with my professor and all I can brood about are immaterial questions of a distant day. I stare out of the window again, determinedly. No more lounging about in the past or daydreaming about the future, now. I tell myself that I have work in store for me, a lot of it: Finishing my studies, getting myself a decent job, starting a family. I can’t afford to get sentimental now. I remember with a guilty pang that I’ve not called my parents in more than a month. ‘I’ll call you every week, Mom’ I had promised her before leaving for the airport, as she stood weeping in her apron. Why now? Why now! Guilt and memory and joy and pain: why are they flooding me now? What am I to do with them? Clutch a faded baseball cap and cry over a beautiful childhood that’s passed me by? Agonize over the wrong decisions I have made and the people I have hurt over the last several years? I don’t know if what I’m doing with my life now is the right thing to do. I’m just doing what I believe will lead me to happiness. I have never seriously spent time pondering over the ‘rightness’ of what I’m doing. I was pretty certain I wouldn’t do something excessively immoral or cruel and that was the only assurance I ever needed. This bus ride to my professor might be what secures my future. The degree I’m looking to complete might allow me to take care of aging parents. The girl I’m seeing could be my wife in a few more years. But who can tell for sure? Who can say confidently that they are at peace with their past and content with where their future is headed? This is uncharacteristic of me, this sudden anxiety. I feel a little alone all of a sudden, wishing I had my father or someone wiser than I to talk to. Funny how just stumbling upon an old gift could bring such memories and questions gushing like a river upon me. Worse still, questions I could not find answers to. ‘You were always lost without her’ Jake had told me of my mother on our last phone call. Was I? Did my mother and father really play such a big role in making me the man I was today? And I never consciously realized it. I never spent time thinking about how much I really owed to these influences in my life. Always took it for granted, really. And here I was on a bus, barely five minutes away from disembarking, and it strikes me. Life has very strange timing, sometimes. I must remember to call Mom and Dad today. And no matter how awkward it feels, Barry and Jake too. Maybe I wouldn’t even have been at this sudden crossroad in my life without each of them. Should I not at least try and let them know that? I get off the bus and spot my professor sitting at a table near the door of the café we’d decided on. The minute he sees me, he waves his hand at me smiling. I take a long, deep breath. This is it. The moment of real decision-making; now is when I begin to make the choices that will define my life. All the memories of the past, the nostalgia, the fears and apprehensions must be put on hold for the next couple of hours. There’s no room for misgivings and frayed baseball caps when you have begun to build your future. [1522 Words] Commentary: I chose to write about ‘a gift’ from the suggested prompts for my autobiographical narrative. The word itself brought forth a flood of memories and almost compelled me to write on it. However, choosing the prompt proved to be the easiest step of the entire process. As Sara Haslam mentions in Creative Writing (edited by Linda Anderson), finding the balance between internalizing one’s writing and making it universal is hard to reach. I found myself getting into too much specificity about my personal experiences initially. Later, on revision, I discarded the portions that I realized no one else could possibly relate to. I understood that even though this was an autobiographical account and hence, necessarily personal, there was an important need to make it accessible to any reader. If I delved too deeply into the contents of my own mind and memory, I risked losing the interest of the reader: something a good writer would never knowingly aim for. On the other hand, I did not want to remove the personal touch from the piece entirely, as then it would sound hollow to me. I hence went with keeping the details that I thought, and hoped, people would recognize with incidents in their own lives. Haslam also speaks of ‘Incomplete Memory’ (p. 271) and how it does not prevent authors from writing about their past. I found this true in doing this exercise. Certain facts of my childhood have become slightly hazy and yet it does not stop me from reminiscing or re-constructing then in my mind from time to time. And as far as the ‘why’ question is concerned: I think my reason behind wanting to write an autobiographical tract would be a combination of a few factors mentioned in the book. Revisiting my past and getting a newer, possibly more matured point of view on it would be a major incentive; as would coming to terms with certain unresolved issues in my past, by putting it down on paper. I decided to keep my writing style simple and in the form of an internal monologue in present tense as this, I thought, not only captured what I was trying to say perfectly, but also brought with it a sense of authenticity. It felt more real writing it the way I chose to. This style allowed me flexibility and made me comfortable. Since I didn’t have to worry about the form too much, I could concentrate on the flow of the story. The purpose of my piece would be to show a realization, that is almost an epiphany, does not linger for too long and brings with it a sense of temporary but profound peace. Just by musing on an old gift and on a bus journey the speaker finds a temporary solution to the confusion that has crept up on him in the interim. A sudden onset of perplexing questions brought on my memory, which is just as suddenly resolved for the moment. The speaker grows, however imperceptibly, in that little duration. [504 words] Read More