The Writing Exercise, Part One

The Writing Exercise

Describe a place, a building, a room; have it evoke a character

I arrive at the writing seminar about five or ten minutes into the session and stand undecided at the door. The room is airless, a windowless cubicle with a faulty ventilation system and maybe twelve women of varying ages sitting in a semi circle, plopped into those small plastic desk chairs with the uncomfortable skewed arms.

A reading already is in progress and the instructor enthusiastically though a bit insistently waves me in. Near the door, squeezed into one of the torturous seats not designed for adults or children, and leaning up quite close to the instructor, sits a woman in her early forties with strange little bangs flopping over her forehead- they are dark, shiny and clumped. She has what I see as a perfectly ordinary if slightly ecclesiastical little face, innocuous with a permanently annoyed expression.

The woman with the floppy bangs is reciting a story about someone she calls mummy, who once, when she, the reader/writer, was a young girl, gave her an awful, awful haircut, especially concerning the bangs. This now grown person whose hair fell once victim to such vengeful shears sits in her skewed chair wearing expensive jeans and a shirt that looks like it comes from Banana Republic possibly at full price, although she does not appear to be gainfully employed-  a situation which no doubt allows her time to write such anguished drivel. Her cheeks are sun color and there is a touch of red on her nose, which also makes me think she has a summer place somewhere, maybe in the Hamptons- a perfect retreat wherein to garner the right dash of inspiration. In addition, people from the South Bronx do not refer to their mothers as mummy. I decide to stick around at least for a short while just to see what happens. . . .