184: Just Tell Us How it Went Down

Allison Langer  0:15  
I'm Allison Langer.

Andrea Askowitz  0:16  
I'm Andrea Askowitz. And this is Writing Class Radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories. Together, we produce this podcast, which is equal parts heart and art. By heart, we mean the truth in a story. By art, we mean the craft of writing, no matter what's going on in our lives. Writing class is where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our shit. There is no place in the world like writing class, and we want to bring you in.

Allison Langer  0:49  
Okay, so today on our show, we bring you a story by Alison Colwell from Canada. In this episode, Alison tells her story that is very much contained in a moment, basically, a moment in the hospital with her mom, which is really cool. It's a great, great example of Hot Topic, Cold Prose, which we will go into after her story. So stay tuned back with Alison's story after the break.

Andrea Askowitz  1:21  
We're back. This is Andrea Askowitz and you're listening to Writing Class Radio. Here's Alison Colwell reading her story, Look Away.

Alison Colwell  1:36  
Adhesive tape holds the IV needle in place, and puckers the papery skin of her hand. My mum glances at the needle, then looks away. Needles have always made her feel faint. I try to smooth down her hair where sweat has made it spiky. "I want it out," she tells me. "Not 'til they're sure you're okay," I remind her, "Just don't look at it." We're in the day surgery recovery room. She's the only patient left. The nurses have unhooked her from the monitors and drawn the curtains closed around us. My mum was scheduled to be discharged an hour ago, and no one would tell me why her hernia operation went so much longer than predicted. My 68 year old mom lives alone, so I'm spending the night post surgery in town with her. While we wait, I try to entertain her with stories of her grandkids, though she refuses to be distracted from the needle. From the hospital. By the time I was eight, I already knew what to do when my mom had an epileptic seizure. How to roll her onto her side, place her in the recovery position, and then fetch a wet cloth to cool her forehead. I'd been taught that if I didn't follow the steps to make sure she could breathe, she might choke on her tongue, or vomit, and die. My dad left when I was nine. Taking care of my mom became my responsibility. I stroke the hand without the needle as she tugs at her thin blue hospital gown. "I want out," she says. She tries to sit up, then collapses back down. "I want to leave," she tells me again. "Go get the car." Then she says, "I don't feel good." Her eyes drift away from mine. They flicker shut. Her head slumps deeper into the pillow. Flat on her back, she falls unconscious. I open my mouth to interrupt the nurses chattering at the other side of the room, when the scent of sickness fills the small curtain space. Vomit seeps from the corners of her mouth, runs from her nose and drips onto the hospital sheet. I scream. I pull at her shoulders. The cold steel of the siderail gets in my way as I try to lift her, roll her into the position I learned as a child. I try to empty her mouth. Vomit splashes my clothes, drips onto the floor. Then the nurses are beside me. Her bed is cranked up. The weight of her is released from my arms, but not my heart. She almost died. I could have gone to fetch the car. I might have stepped out of the room to call my kids. She almost died. I take a step back from the bed. My arms tangle in the curtains that clatter on their aluminum tracks. I grab a handful of Kleenex and clean my shirt. She almost died. The nurses inject anti-nausea medication to her IV. She's coming round. "I just need to get out of here," she says. "I just need this out of my arm." I stare at the floor, the slick linoleum speckled with drops of her vomit. I could have stepped away. It was routine surgery and she almost died. For a long time after, I will be afraid to look away.

Allison Langer  4:56  
Wow, okay. I've read this a couple times now, because she submitted it, and we sent it back for like, very few edits, just a couple of questions. And then I heard the recording, now I'm hearing it again. And each time I feel I've gotten something different from the story, which is interesting, because I think I've been in different stages each time I've read it or heard it. And I'm interested to hear what you're thinking about how it landed.

Andrea Askowitz  5:23  
So you're saying that you have experienced it differently because of your different position in time, or what you're going through? Cool. That's cool.

Allison Langer  5:32  
It's like art, you know, when you go to a museum, and you go back, and every time you see it, you're feeling something different? I don't know. 

Andrea Askowitz  5:38  
Yeah. 

Allison Langer  5:38  
I think it's really cool. 

Andrea Askowitz  5:39  
You just admitted it was art.

Allison Langer  5:41  
I did a simile. I didn't say it was a metaphor.

Andrea Askowitz  5:45  
Oh, you said it was like art. Writing is art. Right? So yeah, these stories are art. So yeah, I agree with you. They- they hit us differently wherever we are. I felt like I heard it deeper. And maybe that's just because I've heard it a few times. But this time I really heard her- her own- the narrator's looking away, or not looking away, from the very beginning. It felt like I was paying attention to that idea, what she was looking at, more than the mother. So like, it starts with her mother looks at the needle and then looks away. And then she says, just don't look at it. So from the beginning, I was thinking about the narrator's- I don't know, maybe because I knew, I knew that at the end, she wasn't going to- she wasn't going to be able to look away. But that's how I was hearing it this time. 

Allison Langer  6:40  
There's so much I really liked about this. So when I first read it, I was like, wow, this is really cool. I thought the technique was really cool. How she repeated, she almost died, she almost died. And I felt the impact of it. It was very short. I felt it had a beginning and an end. It has very like hot topic, cold prose. She just tells us like right away, like what happened in sequences.

Andrea Askowitz  7:03  
Have we talked about that on here? Have we talked about hot topic, cold prose on the podcast?

Allison Langer  7:07  
I mean, probably in the eight years we've been doing this, but who knows?

Andrea Askowitz  7:13  
I know. Do you want to explain it?

Allison Langer  7:16  
Yeah, of course. So- 

Andrea Askowitz  7:18  
For any new listener. 

Allison Langer  7:19  
Or anybody who just needs a refresher, basically, what happens is, when you're discussing- the narrator is discussing something very, like scary or sudden or impactful, it's a really effective tool to just tell us the facts. Without much emotion, without much thought, just like- this happened. This, this, this, this, this. And then you're just drawn in, almost like a train wreck. You're just seeing everything happening. So I felt that's what she did here.

Andrea Askowitz  7:50  
I have a question for you about that. And I think this whole story is hot topic, cold prose. And I think it's so awesome. Does hot topics, cold prose- so like the topic is hot, the prose are cold. Does that serve to slow down the story or speed up a story?

Allison Langer  8:06  
I don't think we're getting the story. We're getting the situation. So we just get the situation in a sped up manner, so we can go ahead and get to the story. 

Andrea Askowitz  8:14  
So it speeds it up. 

Allison Langer  8:15  
Yeah. 

Andrea Askowitz  8:16  
Okay. 

Allison Langer  8:16  
To me it does. And I liked that. Because you know, I listen it to- two speed. Sometimes two and a half. If that's possible.

Andrea Askowitz  8:24  
She almost died. She almost died. She almost died. 

Allison Langer  8:25  
Yeah. 

Andrea Askowitz  8:25  
Is that how you hear it? 

Allison Langer  8:26  
Pretty much, yeah, I do. 

Andrea Askowitz  8:28  
Oh my God. You're a Looney Tune. 

Allison Langer  8:30  
I find it really difficult to listen to very slow talking. Yeah, that's why I get bored in classes. I have to like, can I record this and just listen to it later? On double speed?

Andrea Askowitz  8:43  
Yeah, this is your ideal narrator. 

Allison Langer  8:46  
Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

Andrea Askowitz  8:47  
Cool.

Allison Langer  8:47  
I might still listen to her fast, just because that's how my brain works. But anyway, okay, back to the story. I really thought that the way the narrator tells us a bit about the backstory, about how, at eight years old, she already knows if she doesn't roll her mom onto her side, she can choke and die. 

Andrea Askowitz  9:07  
Yeah. 

Allison Langer  9:07  
And then the dad leaves at nine. And so now it's her responsibility. And I felt the weight of that in such a big way. Now, the narrator could have chosen to then tell us what her entire life was like because of that. But what she decided to do is focus on just this container, this moment with her mom at the hernia situation in the hospital. And that's a narrator's choice, but I probably would not have taken the story had it had so much stuff, because I would be like, well, what is this about? Is this about the narrator growing up without a dad, having to take care of the mom? Like no, this is the moment the narrator is talking about and she brings in just enough. 

Andrea Askowitz  9:48  
But I do think it's about the narrator's responsibility, to- her respons- her feelings of responsibility for looking after her mom.

Allison Langer  9:57  
100%. But we don't need every scene- 

Andrea Askowitz  10:00  
No, because we got it.

Allison Langer  10:01  
That happened along the way. Yeah.

Andrea Askowitz  10:02  
The moment where she- right after, like, vomit's coming out like, oh my god, so scary. And then the narrator rolls her on her back, the position she learned as a child. I was so satisfied at that moment, because we already knew that she had to do it. So that was- that was sort of like a call back. And I understood it, I felt it. And then I thought the line right after that, a weight was lifted from my arms. Oh, when the nurses come in, and then they help. So weight was lifted off her arms, but not her heart.

Allison Langer  10:34  
Because she knows she can never look away. And this is the thing. This is why it hit me different. Because I've been writing something on control. Like, I'm working on an essay. And for me- 

Andrea Askowitz  10:44  
Are you?

Allison Langer  10:45  
I am.

Andrea Askowitz  10:46  
Control. 

Allison Langer  10:47  
Control. I know, I- you know, I have a little issue with that. But, um, so I- the way I heard it here is that this narrator feels like as long as she's by her mom's side, her mom will live. And that is her sense of control about her mom's situation. 

Andrea Askowitz  11:07  
Okay. 

Allison Langer  11:09  
If she walks away- like you hear, if she had gone to the car, if she had done all this stuff, that her mom may not have been okay. 

Andrea Askowitz  11:16  
Right. Maybe. 

Allison Langer  11:17  
Her mom could have died. So it's her way of- of ke- like, feeling in control of her mom's situation. 

Andrea Askowitz  11:23  
I mean, I didn't listen to it or hear it or read it in terms of the idea of control. But I'm with you. That's her way of controlling her mom's life. If that's where you are in your mind, if you're working on a story about control. Yeah.

Allison Langer  11:39  
Exactly. And so if she had wanted this to be about how she can- like, keeps her mom safe through like controlling this, she could have taken that in a different direction. But right now, she focused on, I would say, like, not looking away, just being there for her mom and keeping her safe. That's what she can do.

Andrea Askowitz  11:57  
It's a really tight, perfect story. Thank you so much, Alison Colwell, for sharing your story. And thank you for listening. Alison Colwell graduated from the BFA program at UVic, which is the University of Victoria. She's the Executive Director of the Galliano Community Food Program. She's a single working mother of two children with mental health challenges and a survivor of domestic abuse, all of which inform her writing. Allison was recently awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant to work on a series of interconnected essays that weave fairy tales with memoir. Cool, can't wait to read it. She's been published in Rising Tides, Folk Life magazine, the Fieldstone Review, the Nonbinary Review, the Fourth River, the Humber Literary Review, the Ocotillo Review, and is forthcoming in Two Hawks Quarterly and Hippocampus magazine. She also writes fiction, the daily science fiction flash fiction magazine, Crow and Cross Keys, the Drabble and Tangled Locks Journal have published her work. I'm so excited to hear this list of journals, because so many of them I don't know. There are so many- SO many- literary journals that produce really good work out there. I just wanted to say that for our radio listeners.

Writing Class Radio is hosted by me, Andrea Askowitz. 

Allison Langer  13:33  
And me, Allison Langer. 

Andrea Askowitz  13:34  
Audio production is by Matt Cundill, Evan Surminski and Aidan Glassey at the Soundoff Media Company. Theme music is by Justina Chandler. There's more writing class on our website, including stores we study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats, and live online classes. If you want to write with us every week, and you should, or if you're a business owner, community activist, group that needs healing, entrepreneur, scientist, and you want your team to write better, check out all our classes on our website, writingclassradio.com. Join the community that comes together for instruction, an excuse to write, and the support from other writers. To learn more, go to our website, writingclassradio.com. A new episode will drop every other Wednesday.

Allison Langer  14:25  
There's no better way to understand ourselves and each other than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What's yours? 

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  14:36  
Produced and distributed by the Soundoff Media Company.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai