A Pool Scene
Day 6—Part 1
You are swimming in the pool, underwater. That means you are holding your breath. How long a person can hold their breath is a pretty good indicator of their overall willpower. You know, supposedly.
Anyway, you come up for air—gently and gracefully or panting for air … it’s your choice—and then do a breast stroke toward the side.
I’m there, out of the pool, sitting on the edge, legs dangling in the water. I’m wearing sunglasses, yet my eyes are still kind of scrunched up from the sun. I’m super sensitive to sunlight.
If you’ve read Everything Fails and remember it—or maybe even The Grand Story of Not—then you can comment on how this place reminds you a bit of how you imagined the pool from that book, the one where I’m hanging out with Horace, and he gets in the pool while still wearing his suit.
If you do, I look around for a minute, then say, “I don’t see it.”
If not, then you simply reach the side of the pool.
You can flirt with me by playing with my right leg. Or you can get out and sit next to me on the side. Or you can stay in there if you like the water or the view.
Play procedures:
Reread the book up to this point. If that feels like too much, just reread the stuff above. If even that is too much, just take a second to reflect on it.
Ask the question: How did we get here? How did we get from yesterday to today? Write your answer or ideas or frustrations in your journal.
If that requires too much thinking or is simply too ambiguous or vexing, don’t worry. I will give you a few stems. Keep in mind these are plot stems, not story or existential explanations. That’s part of the price, I’m afraid, of letting someone else do your thinking for you; you get shallower outcomes. Anyway, here are a few possible explanations for you to start with:
Prior to the start of the book, we had been invited to a friend’s wedding, and this is taking place at that venue or destination, sometime after we got there and sometime before leaving, probably prior to the actual ceremony.
We have a membership at a condo farm out of town somewhere, and we decided to take advantage of it this weekend. The pool in the story is the ‘owners’ pool,’ which is why no one else is there. All the riffraff have to swim in the ‘renters’ pool.’
This is happening at some time much later in the book and is so presented out of sequence. People like to call this sort of thing ‘nonlinear storytelling,’ and I dunno. Maybe it is. But memory isn’t exactly linear, so I don’t see what the big deal is. This option buys you more time because then we can see in a scene or two down the line (i.e., in sequential order) what will show or explain how we got here.
One other procedure you might want to get in the habit of running is reconciling different versions of the story. How are they all possible? Do you care? Is your ‘headcanon’ more important than ‘Word of God?’ I mean, I hope it is, but you need to be honest with yourself, sayeth the Authoress. And lastly, what suits your sensibilities best for how to keep reconciling them as the book kudzus out?
Part 1 of Day 6 of National Novel Writing Month 2022 and The Teresa Van Santāna Literary-Somatic Experience
