In Writing in the Dark, Jeannine Ouellette asks in her latest Substack issue, Is It True That Anyone Can Write?
That’s a great question. It reminds me of the sayings, We All Have Talent, and Everyone Can Create. I believe those statements to be true, but like writing, as Jeannine suggests, we need to find the right words (or visuals) to tell our stories for the reader and viewer.
So how does one go about mining the millions of words in the world's languages to tell a compelling, curious story? And what does any of this have to do with squirrels?
I’ll answer the second question first.
Now that I’m back to a semi-regular walking habit, Cooper and I hit the trails at the arboretum, aka the perfect squirrel habitat. For the last two days, at a quarter of a mile, Cooper stops in the shade to lift a leg on a mature hickory tree and inspect the ground below the canopy. This is where Shirley the Fox Squirrel (after this coincidental second meetup, I decided I had to name her) forages and eats acorns. Fox squirrels, by nature, spend a good part of their days on the ground, but Shirley, both days, was perched on a stump about twenty feet up on the hickory, chucking and clucking at us, batting her paws on the tree to try to ward us away from her domain. As an animal lover by nature, I got a kick out of Shirley’s behavior and Cooper’s dismissal as Shirley chattered on. I paused the podcast I was listening to (QWERTY, Marion Roach Smith interviews Elizabeth Rau, author of The Good Slopes: A Collection of Essays, which I highly recommend) to videotape Shirley, which sadly seemed to irritate her further. Mindful that I didn’t want to disturb her for too long but unable to resist her charming, if hangry behavior, I laughed and clicked on Cooper’s leash, signaling it was time to move.
As we continued our walk, I couldn’t help but think about how this squirrel’s behavior would make a great personal essay. Rau mentioned that her essay collection is about the life around her. What was Shirley teaching me, if anything? All creatures are protective and will defend their space at any cost. Something along those lines? Or is this only a joyful moment? Shirley amused me, no doubt. But is her behavior worthy of an entire essay? The only way to find out leads me back to the first question. How does one cull words and shape a story that matters?
Constraints are one of the most effective ways to help writers get out of their heads and put words on paper. I’m a huge fan of constraints. Here’s On Hope, a memorial poem I wrote about the Orlando Pulse massacre, where I used numbers 49 and 53 to represent victims and survivors, respectively, alternating each passage with the numbers. I’ve used constraints in my watercolor, choosing a specific and selective range of colors to produce several works of art.
A literary constraint is a technique that creates a condition that imposes a pattern or forbids certain things. In Jeannine’s issue, she takes this further and suggests a container for a story, one type of constraint that artists use with great success also.
I chose a resume for my container about Shirley, the fox squirrel.
Shirley the Fox Squirrel
800.344.nuts | shirley@animalia.com | Hickory Tree Den, KY
Objective
To eat as much food as possible, store as many acorns as possible, and remember where I buried them. To maintain plant composition in the forest to rebuild ecosystems. To birth as many pups each year to preserve future fox squirrel populations.
Education
The Forest of Foreverland
Honorary Dray
Parachute and Obstacle Course Graduate
Awards & Acknowledgements
Consistently amuses humans with an abundance of cute and clever tactics.
Maintains Least Concern on the IUCN Conservation Status.
Experience
Expert Cat and Dog Teaser
Provides high-end entertainment for four-legged creatures.
Maintains excellent escape measures by jumping over fences and squeezing through small, narrow holes.
Bird Feeder Thief
Maintains a low profile, mostly early mornings and evenings when four-leggers sleep and eat.
Demonstrates sharing and community bird feeder standards with other creatures and exceptional methods of breaking through squirrel barriers.
Stealth escape measures when two and four-leggers approach.
Writing absurdity is liberating. Maybe I wrote a personal essay about squirrels, after all. Thanks for reading. Have a squirrely day!
Stay curious. Stay safe. Make an Impact.