Most of us know that there’s a lot of bad stuff happening in the world. But at the same time, there are heartwarming stories out there of heroic acts, immense generosity, and good old fashioned human interest stories.
Life is a paradox.
Paradox can create tension in a piece of writing, and this prompt can help you do that. It can also help you make sense of difficult circumstances, whether they’re you’re own, or those of a character you’re working with. And it all starts with these two lists: “The worst that could happen,” and “The best that could happen.”
Read the prompt below, or watch my short video above, for an explanation of this prompt, and give it a try.
The Prompt:
Take 10 minutes and generate two lists under these two headings: “The worst that could happen,” and “The best that could happen.” Generate as many words, sentences, or phrases as you can for each list: just write whatever comes to mind. Then choose one from each list, pair them at the top of a blank page, and write in response for 20 minutes.
A short note about what I wrote in response:
Those of you who have read my work know that I occasionally write about aging. As someone who has loved and lost friends and family members who never had the privilege of living long enough to grow old, I understand that I’m lucky to have made it this far. Not everyone gets to grow old.
Even so, I struggle with aging, and am always on the search for people who can help me see the wide variety of ways to grow old. To learn more about this concept, and to get inspired, you can check out my friend and fellow writer Kaye Cleave and her incredible Instagram account cleverly named, “Aging Disgracefully.”
For this exercise, I chose these two phrases:
Falling and breaking a hip
A big garden and a new home in Italy
The worst that could happen/The best that could happen: What I wrote
In the summer of 2003, when I was 38 years old, I wrote an essay titled, "Being Gay and Going Gray," in which I lamented how my body was changing, how I was growing old. Twenty years later, I cringe a little thinking about that essay, because now I really know what it feels like to grow older, and it's not what I expected.
Mostly, I'm surprised by how everyone I love is dealing with it. I have friends who are turning 65, 70, 75, and I'm watching them shrink and fade. We're talking about bone spurs, psoriasis flares, and skin cancer over decaf cappuccinos with oat milk; we're giving up running or long camping trips; we're investing in high speed blenders and sharing smoothy recipes. Some of them are closing off, staying in, gaining a lot of weight, or are so thin I worry that they'll disappear. One just had a facelift, while another made a documentary. Others are writing books.
There are a lot of ways to age.
That's something I've always known in theory, but I'm seeing it now in the people I love, and in my own body too: in the mirror, or in photos, my silvering hair and round face surprise me more and more. Who is that older looking version of me, and who does he want to become as he grows even older?
I worry now about a friend having a heart attack or a stroke, or why some are always cold. One says he won’t live in a wheelchair, another one begins to use a cane. I love them all, but I want to follow the ones who still travel internationally, who study foreign languages, who decide to have hip surgery after all, so they can hike the bluffs above Big Sur. One friend, who's 63, does one hundred pushups a day, another dances the Lindy Hop in Golden Gate Park. One brings me pages of poems and says she wants my help choosing them for a chapbook contest.
How do I love them all? How do I turn toward the swollen limbs and the broken hearts and the wounded egos who feel they have to give up on their dreams, or refuse to let go of their younger selves? And who am I to decide who's in denial and who isn't? I just don't want us all to end up in tiny one bedroom apartments, like my Aunt Betty, who only had her one big love for 14 years. After he died, she spent her 60's and 70's alone, watching TV in her house dress, and handwashing her dishes poorly because she refused to wear her reading glasses. I don't want any of us to grow old that way, but maybe I just don't want any of us to grow old at all, and we all know how that's going to turn out.
If we're lucky, right? If we're lucky.
Aging Disgracefully