Writing Class Stories, V

The last of my four-session writing class was last Thursday. I must admit that it was hard to concentrate knowing that the boy I have a crush on, with whom I had a mere five nights left to spend with before he flew home to New York, was drinking a beer and reading a book while he waited in my favorite restaurant for my class to let out. It was also the night I was to be critiqued on the piece I emailed to my classmates earlier in the week, and being surrounded by the largest group of people ever to read something I had written, who were waiting to either praise me or criticize me, was more than a little nerve wracking.

The night started with us making a list of our favorite and least favorite sounds. Being the good complainer that I am, my list of hated sounds was twice as long and much more creative as the list of sounds I enjoyed. I didn't hesitate for a moment when I wrote down my favorite sound, though, as it's something I've loved my entire life.

My very least favorite sound, btw, even more than the fucking ice cream man's speakers blasting "hole in the doughnut" for two hours every evening outside my house (seriously, every. single. evening.), is wind chimes in the later afternoon. Don't ask me why, it's just always stirred something inherently sad inside me. I can't explain it. Anyway, we were told to pick something off our lists and write about it for seven minutes...here's what I wrote:

My mother would take showers before bed. As a girl with wild, untamed hair, this was impossible for me, and I was forced to wake up early each morning and be subsequently greeted with an unfriendly blast of water, jousting me from my dream-filled sleep. When my mother took showers at night, she didn't think about things like the cowlicked nape of her neck that was sure to greet her in the morning after sleeping on wet hair, or bangs that would stand up straight come morning. She thought about warm water hitting her smooth skin, and the whoosh of the faucet drowning out the worries in her wine-soaked head. So I thought about that too, but from the dryness of my bed, the comforting sound lulling me to sleep.

The blurry, muffled sound of someone taking a shower late at night still has the most calming affect on me. I've selfishly conspired to convince past boyfriends to bathe before bed, and knowing that my means of convincing sometimes involve me having to put-out rarely deters me. I'm like a whore who gets paid in the loveliest, most relaxing sound imaginable. I would be wealthy by today's standards. You can take your new-age "womb sounds" CD and high priced sleep aid prescriptions...throw someone in the shower and I'm out like a light.

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What are your favorite/least favorite sounds?