Couches

Noah, circa 2001

It was a futon couch, brown, probably dirty but it didn't smell. My first apartment in Chicago on my own- my roommate's couch. We had the couch, a houseplant in the windows, and a TV. For a while my Gustav Klimt poster hung with ticky tack to the white wall. But then I moved it to my closet door. I think my roommate hung a Pearl Jam poster instead or something I don't really remember.

I don't know why I picked to write about this couch. I never really sat on it. I'd sit on the hardwood floor. My roommate's ferret would scurry around & always slid inside the cushions from underneath and we'd have to get him out.

I'd come home from work (Art Institute) and make peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches with day old bread I'd get around the corner on my way. I'd come up the back entrance most times. I had a lot of keys on my keychain and I never could get the alarm code right the first time.

I was always alone in the apartment and I'd sit cross-legged on the floor, with my peanut butter sandwich (or sometimes Taco Bell) and I guess that couch sitting there by my side kept me company. My life was so full of lots of things back then but couldn't have been emptier.

Then I moved back home-


[I performed this writing exercise with pen and paper, to ensure no "backspace" editing. I set a timer and then just wrote. I transferred it word for word here.]

[P.S. three minutes goes FAST!]

[I kinda want to keep on writing this story.]

Please visit Casey (Moosh In Indy) for her couch post: the constant stuffed it.

Instructions:

At Blissdom, in our Writers Workshop with Hallmark writers Sarah & Molly, & Casey from Moosh In Indy, attendees were given a writing assignment:

"In her amazing book, What It Is! writer/artist Lynda Barry shares (among other flashes of genius!) a simple exercise she learned from her college professor and mentor Marilyn Frasca. It's one I use all the time to get my mind in gear.

Here's how it goes: With pen and paper, make a list of ten couches you've known in your lifetime. (This also works with other words, but couches are my favorite because they are central to many moments in your memory.)

When you've made your list, take a deep relaxing breath and find the couch that has the most powerful emotional charge for you. Then begin writing about it in the present tense. Describe the scene.

What's behind you? In front of you? To your left? To your right? Above you? Below you?

Who is there? What are they saying? How does the scene unfold?

Keep writing for three minutes until you've reached the end of the vignette. Keep the pen moving. Three minutes will seem like a long time. But don't stop. If you run out of words, doodle a little till they come again.

Don't edit! Keep the memory and emotion there in all its raw glory!"

Link up your post (not your blog, your post) here in the linky below and visit others as they write along with us.





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