A single day of life can seem completely uneventful or can have enough activity and incidents to fill a thick volume. Ask James Joyce about that. There’s more to a day of life than a series of events. There’s a story.
Even for writers, many days go by uneventfully, unexamined. But each day of life can revel a story if it’s looked at closely. It’s relatively easy to make a list or activities or to fill in a calendar with the detail of every waking hour, but that’s not the story, is it?
The story of a day has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And, most importantly, it has a storyteller.
That’s where you come in.
To make a story out of a day you need to be able to step back and gain perspective on your day. The story isn’t the order of events—that’s the plot. This happened that caused the next thing. That’s not what we’re looking for.
The story is an arc of meaning. It is the answer to a question. It is a revelation of purpose.
Here’s the story of a recent day of mine:
If you asked me the day before I would have told you that I was quite expert in pain, but today I can tell you honestly that I know very little about it. Days of revelation often start like this one with ordinary events and without foreshadowing and portents of things to come. The only thing unusual about this day was that instead of pouring myself a bowl of bran cereal as I did the day before I made an omelet. Even that was not far out of the ordinary.
What was unusual was when I raised myself out of my seat at the table to kiss my wife goodbye I felt an explosion of pain in my back. As you know I’m no stranger to back pain, but this was on the wrong side, in the wrong place. My first thought was that it might be a kidney stone, but it was too low on the back, not high like the previous ones. I assured my wife that I was fine and sent her off to work.
Thirty minutes later I called her to return and take me to the hospital. The pain now shot through my body and thoughts of exploding organs ruled my imagination. As she hurried home I paced, only pausing to search the internet for symptoms and diseases and wondered if I would soon succumb to the pain. I saw no irony in my situation and did not consider my thoughts of doom fantastic or unlikely. I soon found myself kneeling at the toilet, spewing my breakfast, but that provided no relief. When she arrived we hurried into the car and we made the short journey to the emergency room. As she drove I felt panic rise along with the pain.
Then finally there, standing at the receiving window with promised relief near by, things changed and the pain lessened. I filled the offered flask and recognized the signs. It was a kidney stone. And soon, scanned, medicated, and blissfuly relaxed, it was casually confirmed with medical authority. Nothing new. Nothing to worry about. Just a tiny accumulation of crystal-like stuff plugging up the plumbing. Flushed out, gone. Problem solved. And all inside a brief morning.
Except for that memory of pain. I spent the day dozing and medicated, unworried and unthreatened. But throughout the day the memory of the pain would rise up. It was a lesson. You’re not such an expert. You know nothing, Randy Murray. There’s far more to learn.
I’m not signing up for that curriculum. I’m now ready to learn more about the pleasures of living and leave the study of pain for another day, another time. You’d do well to do the same.
For today’s assignment, write the story of your day. You can select any recent day, perhaps from within the last week. Look for a way to make the experience of the day into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and if possible, some bit of meaning that comes not from the events, but from your experience of them.
You may need to try writing the story of many different days. It’s an excellent practice for writers. You can then pick from them, look for patterns, and decide which ones make good stories to share with others, perhaps over a drink or by the fire.
We’re always happy to hear a good story. You just need to write your own.
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