Photoessay #1097 - The Dark Story

I'm taking this yearlong course at Univ of Washington Extensiion in Memoir Writing. It's just the right thing at the right time for me. I can devote tons of time to this and I'm loving it! I took the Guided Autobiography class this past summer; the teacher had taken this program and used some of the exercises and the ideas. But that's mostly fun, just to get you writing about your life among various themes. I loved the other women in the class, we're still getting together and reading our pieces every two weeks. Fun!

But this class takes a more serious tone, you work to put together something more comprehensive and complete. Plus learn serious writer stuff. We look at other writers and see how they do it. And wonder if you really have the nerve. 23 people in this class, all women, I'm among the oldest.

Going in, I had the idea of writing about UCSC 1970...did I have the nerve? Could I remember enough? Could I make it hang together and maybe rewrite some history while I was at it. I know, I KNOW those were extraordinary people at an extraordinary time.

On my teacher's blog, she suggested that her memoir students come to the class so inspired and excited (that's me), they think they know what they want to write about (yes, yes). And then, around week 6, the dark story emerges, the scary story that they know needs to be told. Do they have the courage? Why, again, did they start this anyway?

I thought, heavens, that won't happen to me. I started work on an exercise that Theo(and also Joanne, in the summer class) suggested. At home, I drew out a map of Crown College by memory (subsequently I found *3* more online). And started writing all I could remember about each site on the map (dining hall, gatehouse, central square, etc). Write write write, you do start remembering things. And then it hit me. The Dark Story. The story about Priscilla. Sex and death. Haven't thought about that story for years. Needs to be told. A tragedy (including a fatal flaw), a loss to the world.

So I write it up with the nine components of story from our book. Does it fit? Yes. I show that to a few of my class members with my burning question? Can I take the sex out? No! No! they all say. The sex has to stay. Geez. I tell Dennis. Oh well, my kids are all older that I was at the time. And who cares who was sleeping with who in 1971, most everybody in that class hadn't even been born yet!

So I will tell the Priscilla story. Likely on this blog.

Aside to Matt, one of my readers...you certainly remember this story.