From Edie: Eva Marie Everson shares how memories sparked by songs, photos, and everyday moments can inspire creativity and help Christian writers find God at the heart of their stories.
Dipping the Quill Deeper: How Memories Can Inspire Our Writing
by Eva Marie Everson @EversonAuthor
I was sixteen. I drove a 1965 white-with-red interior Mustang. Three in the floor. Air conditioning.
And an 8-track tape player.
A classmate had invited me to a party being held at his home out in the country. Please understand; I grew up in Small Town America. An honest-to-goodness one-traffic-light metropolis. Everyone pretty much knew everyone . . . and their business. So when I say the house was in the country, it means everyone knew where the house was.
I arrived at the party on time. Hot dogs and burgers sizzled on a charcoal grill. A wide variety of chips decorated a weathered picnic table. Cokes chilled in a nearby ice-filled aluminum tub. A radio balanced on an open windowsill. The good stuff played: Creedence, ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers . . .
For hours, we had ourselves a blast. Laughing. Talking. Someone brought out a game of Twister (I can’t recall who, but I’m sure—now that I’m older—one of the boys). All the while—through the food, the co-colas, the homemade ice cream, the music, the laughter, the games—I kept one eye on my watch. My father and mother gave this daughter a lot of freedom, except when it came to curfew. Eleven o’clock. Not eleven-o-five. Not even eleven-o-one. I could arrive home early, but never late.
I had to keep in mind the time it took to get from the party house to my real house. Twenty minutes, if I didn’t drive underthe speed limit . . .
If I wanted to be at home by ten-fifty-five, I’d best leave by ten-thirty-five.
All was well. Fun was being had. Until it happened. A nice-looking boy started talking to me. Okay. He wasn’t a boy. He was a young man. A young man from out of town with thick biceps and an even thicker moustache. Fine muscles, a moustache, and a motorcycle. He flirted. I flirted. He talked low and husky. I batted my Great Lash eyelashes until, again, I looked at my watch. Eleven o’clock!
Fear pulsed through me as I told this young man (who knows his name?), “I gotta go.”
I said a quick goodbye to my host, to those still gathered, jumped in my car, threw that baby in reverse, then first, second, and on to third. I zipped down the two-lane blacktop like there was no tomorrow. And, for me, there may not be.
About halfway home, I spotted headlights zooming toward me on the left side of the road. As it passed, I recognized my father’s car. And he recognized mine. He hit his brake lights; I kept going.
Apologies spewed out of me the moment I dashed into the house. And, as you can surmise (because I’m writing this more than fifty years later), I survived the fury. If restriction was handed out, I don’t remember. In fact, this memory would be a forgotten (so not a memory at all) had it not been for hearing a little Creedence the other day. A song that took me back to a summer’s night so very long ago. In my mind’s eye, I could see the outlines of friends and classmates garbed in early 70s fashion, laughing, eating, playing games. I almost swatted at an imaginary gnat within that memory. Almost ran my hand over glistening skin from the warmth left over by the day’s sun.
Today, as a mother and a grandmother, I understand my parents’ rule a lot better than I appreciated it then. But as a Christian, something else came to mind: my father came after me. Not because he was a bully or such a strict disciplinarian, but because he loved me. He wanted to know I was safe (I didn’t make a habit of being late). I might have broken down on the side of the road . . . been in an accident . . . or, you know, been talking to a young man with a motorcycle and moustache.
This, of course, led me to think of how, once upon a time when it seemed I’d lost all track of time as that fork-tongued devil held me in a conversation, my Heavenly Father came after me. He pursued me relentlessly. Because He loved me.
He still does. He always will.
For the writer (and you knew this had to do with writing, right?), memories that spring from old songs, photographs, or even a phrase uttered by a stranger go below the surface to a place that sparks creativity. For the Christian writer, it dips deeper. We experience the memory, we write the words, and the dots connect. A song. A recollection of a summer’s night with friends. The relentless love of a father.
And in the center, there’s God. Always.
What about you? Have memories sparked creativity lately?
TWEETABLE
So much. I write women’s contemporary fiction, and family drama I suppose. Ha! How could that not be evoked by my memories…or perhaps my writing is what will often open up a window to a forgotten memory. I loved this.
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