Some Things I Absolutely Know

I am reading Carolyn See’s incredibly inspiring book, Making a Literary Life. I’ve had this for years, and have read parts of it, but in a low point of NOW WHAT, I picked it up and have since felt my literary aspirations invigorated. This morning I was reading about her basic ideas for plot is that you simply have well written characters and have them DO something. Also, you should write entirely from what you ABSOLUTELY KNOW. So I started to think, what are the things I absolutely know?

I know the color of the California skyline goes from blue to rust, when you’re flying in to San Francisco or San Jose.

I know the sound of my mother dragging on her third cigarette in the morning.

I know the mixture of dirt, cement, and pebbles that make up the driveway of my elementary school, and the sound that rubber wheels of bikes and cars make driving on it.

I know the bruised patches that Graham gets on his lips when he’s tired or rung out.

I know the white barked trees that line Bryant Street, in my hometown, with the leaves the size of my hands, but not the names of them.

I know the route from my house to my best friend’s house I used to ride on my bike on the way to school.

I know the smell of that friend’s head, and her laugh, and what she was wearing the day I met her.

I know the lay out of the house I lived the longest in, and the phone number, and the way our kitchen looked.

I know the pock marks on my dad’s brown shoulders, and the way he runs his tongue against the back of his front teeth, when he is really tasting something sweet.

These are things I absolutely know. There’s more, of course, and what emerges is that I know lots of things and it isn’t hard to figure them out, or make them up. If you are looking for new sources, what are the things that you truly know—intimately, without thinking to hard? What are the things that you have lived with, believed in, experienced? You are smarter than you think.