rumjhumIn his post “Make in Fun” (on Wednesday 11th November ’09) Alexander Burns wrote “To that end, I’ve determined that a writer has learned most of what they need to know about storytelling by the age of 10 or so. After that, all that’s left is to learn how to make it good.” I totally agree. What’s more it reminded me of something that I do from time to time – Eavesdrop! On my kids, and especially my daughter who will turn twelve this month!

I know it is a sneaky habit. I’m a bad mom. Sorry! But I can’t help it. The stuff they talk about, the books they read, the things they do, and more importantly write and so often the stories they tell themselves or to each other is so interesting. So inspiring too. For my writing I mean.

You see, kids have these absolutely wide open windows in their minds. Information, ideas, imaginary things keep flying in and out all the time. They have this absolutely fresh way of looking at everyday, mundane things. They keep “discovering” the world around them. If you sneak around the kids, your imagination is sure to get fired up.

I loved it when my daughter and son too, were younger and talked to themselves when they either drew pictures or played with their toys. The stories they told themselves were entertaining, though not always, actually almost never, logical. Probably that’s why they were so entertaining in the first place. I did not plagiarize their stories (it seriously didn’t occur to me at that time, and now I wonder if I did miss an opportunity, since my kids wouldn’t sue me for that, would they? :D ). I wish I had recorded some of that prattle, though. Sigh. Nevertheless, eavesdropping on their imaginary voyages and adventures did inspire me and often liberated me from my adult constraints of fact and form.

Anything is possible in a child’s inner world. Nothing is improbable!

Not even lemon yellow polka dotted purple ice cream
Served in a jelly belly bowl with a slice of moon beam!

Some of the stuff they think of and say actually provide fodder for us adult writers. Like the time I found my daughter, then around nine years old, looking thoughtfully at the artificially created turquoise waters of a swimming pool. After sometime she muttered, “Rapture of the deep is what happens to sailors when they are drowning; they don’t want to come up.” I stood still. She had connected something ordinary with something extra-ordinary and seemingly unrelated to the present. She skipped away to do something else and I found myself seeing a vast stretch of turquoise water all around me and feeling an immense sense of ecstasy wash over me. My daughter had just opened up a new dimension, another portal before me. The first draft of my poem “Rapture of the Deep” was born then and there; the poem was later published in A Little Poetry. Another time, on a rainy evening, I heard her advise a frog that was staring at her from its perch on a low railing, almost eye level with her, that “he was better off as a frog!” She was around six then and far more fond of birds and animals than Barbie dolls and princesses. My Story “Return of the Frog Prince” almost hopped off my head and was published a couple of years later in the Lily Literary Review!

It’s not always that a poem or a story takes shape every time I eavesdrop on my kids, or any kids for that matter. But their artless words and wide open hearts are not merely joyous to behold, like a rainbow seen in the crystal light after a shower, with the scent of renewed life all around you, they have a potent magic in them. I think the magic is really the cleansing quality that they have, something that makes you shed, at least want to shed, your inhibitions and adult complexes. The effect is wonderfully refreshing. And I think that is good for writers.

___________________________________________________________________________

Rumjhum Biswas has been writing poetry almost since she learned to read and write. It was her way of getting back at the world. Now a plump, bespectacled and hopefully respectable mom of two and wife of one she continues to write poetry and also fiction, because while poets remain poor some fiction writers do get rich and that gives her hope. Her publications and mutterings are here: http://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com/ She also jabbers from time to time at Flash Fiction Chronicles.