I recently came into contact with some friends I hung out with in high school, but haven’t stayed in touch with since then. It’s been great. An unexpected and exciting adventure. To me, as a writer, it’s fascinating to learn what the other three have done all these years. I still remember them as they looked and were back then, so it’s like seeing our life stories play out with all the surprises revealed that we never dreamed might happen back then. I could never have predicted much of what my life has been like, let alone the others.
And, this morning I read a great piece in the paper written by a young woman about how people have asked her what she wants to be when she grows up or what she wants to major in when she gets to college. Like many of us at that age, she just wishes she knew the answers. Well, my friends and I didn’t have the answers then either, but our lives have played out pretty well anyway. I think the important ingredient was the underlying values and strengthening experiences we acquired without even realizing it. Those were the essential determinants in the stories that have played out as they have, even though they were only vague shadows in the backgrounds of our consciousness at the time.
Again, as a writer, I find it fascinating to reconcile those vague shadows with the lives that evolved. I also think the characters in the books I love best are presented to us readers with those shadow indications of what underlies our heroes personalities, and makes them real and interesting. Also, capturing those shadows in our own writing is an essential challenge to us writers.
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