I think one of the most fun things about peopleâs writing is revealing the quiet, personal mythology of individuals.
Iâm not talking about their spirituality or their religion. Iâm talking about the things that evoke immense emotion in us one way or another that we struggle to explain why and- thus- the symbolism in our stories that to one interpretation is really only for us, if I write a scene where a character as a child eats an orange sherbet push pop that maybe to everyone else it will be an irrelevant detail, and I feel alone in the overwhelming nostalgia and softness of sun-soaked childhoods at a very specific park and a routine I used to follow for no particular reason- but I like to think itâs not, only for me.
I think that, while itâs a folly to presume to know the mind of anyone youâve only read the work of, there is a kind of intimate exchange in storytelling. We talk often about obscure or strange trauma triggers, people whose minds have somehow condensed an abusive experience down to the sight of eggs on a plate or a particular song but only when itâs whistled- but these forms of trauma simply reflect a broader truth in human understanding. We make patterns out of the strangest things.
âPareidoliaâ is the proper term often used, and, as I so often like to do with words, I chew it apart into its pieces and look for pretty fragments. Pareidolia is simply the way that we look for, and see things- patterns, faces, hands- where they do not factually exist. The things that are most important to us make soap bubble distortions out of our world. But inside of that word is âidolâ, like an idol for a deity. I am sure that presence has other meanings, but a part of me imagines it almost as a personal pantheon. The strange gods of the life that only we have lived, and that we share at a thousand small places with others.
The god of my childhood is orange sherbet push pops, eaten in summer, earnest attempts made to lap up all the sweet sticky syrup before it drips too far but never successful, and the plastic âumbrellaâ (really the pusher, but it was always an umbrella to my eyes) taken to play with and turn in my fingers long after the cardboard tube was gone. Perhaps, somewhere in the world, there are other people that know that particular god.
A curious thing to call divine. Just one memory among many. But whenever I see them again, itâs like turning over a page in an old yearbook and thereâs your best friend who you havenât seen, who you wonder what theyâre doing now. The vocabulary of our most intimate and personal experiences are littered with ostensibly meaningless objects that held our hearts once.
If I read a story, and two people eat peaches together, lovingly described, gently rendered, I wonder if the authorâs first love tasted like peaches.
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