A true writer can’t help but see new storylines and characters developing with every innocent event in life. My students at Yeshiva at IDT in Newark where I teach English composition journalism and public speaking are accustomed to me entering the classroom with a new writing assignment that came to me from something I saw or experienced only hours earlier. Case in point a few days a week I exercise at a health club in the morning then drive to my teaching job. One day while at the health club I overheard a college student answer her cell phone yell the words “Not now Mom leave me alone!” before she slammed her cell phone shut fury written all over her face.
I brought this moment to my students — what is the back story? What was happening in the relationship between the student and the mother before this phone call? What transpires between mother and daughter after the student leaves the health club? The young men in my class creative imaginations unleashed dreamed up everything from suicide to homicide to complex family dramas years in the making. Now I have to hold myself back from approaching this young woman at the club and asking her “So how’s things with your mom?” She became so real to me she was a character in my story — the story I was writing about her life.
A couple of nights ago I was invited to speak to a group of women in Lakewood about one of my favorite speaking topics — preparing early for Shabbos by chatzos. The gathering was a big success and I was feeling good as I walked to my car. Until I saw the note pinned to my windshield.
“I’m sorry I hit your car. Back rear damage. Here’s my phone number.”
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