In Retrospect…

Or, how way leads on to way.

Photo by Edge2Edge Media on Unsplash

This post I owe to one of my most enduring Substack friends, Don Boivin. The other week, Don posted a Note that invited his readers to write “A Six Word Story.” One story, in full, in just six words. His S.W.S. was: “Like mom, she hated her father.”

Six word stories require readers to “write more;” to supply details that the six words purposefully, and provocatively, leave out. The reader is to do with them whatever they may, or not.

Ernest Hemingway is credited, though likely apocryphally, with one of the most famous six word stories:

“Baby shoes: for sale, never worn.”

Haunting.

See how intriguing these are? An entire story encapsulated in six words—so much shared in those six words, so much not shared by the words not written. I RSVP’d Don’s invitation and wrote my own—almost the exact six words that came immediately to mind:

Funny how things like this work. Those six words were supposed to be the alpha and omega of the entire story. I thought I’d go on with the rest of a lazy Saturday on a cool, blustery, drizzly (aka perfect!) day in the Great Pacific Northwest. And then I went for my walk. And as way leads on to way, as the legs took their familiar steps, the mind kept going back to that six word story:

Why those six words?

What do they mean?

What are they supposed to mean?

What are those six words trying to say to me? What do I want them to say to others?

Should I write more? Isn’t the point of a six word story to stop at those six words? I mean, Kert…they’re called SIX WORD STORIES for a freakin’ reason!

Yes. That is the entire point.

But, way leads on to way. Or, in the words of another Substack friend Petya K. Grady, who just the other day wrote a wonderful piece on why some writers write, I was “grabbed and bothered” by those six ethereal words. But “in a good way.”

And besides, rules are meant to be broken.

Six Becomes More: True Story

I’ve tried writing fiction in the past, but I get bored too easily. I prefer to read it more than write it. My preferred genre of writing matches that of my reading—expository, non-fiction. Initially, on my walk as I was considering the next 6, if not 600 (6000?) words to my six word story, it felt initially like it needed to be a story of fiction. There are a lot of possibilities there. But, I got bored. On my walk. In the rain and the drizzle that Saturday morning, I got bored adding words of fiction to my six word story—and I was only composing the thing, at the time, in my mind—I was walking after all.

And then I thought…”wait, I think it’s memoir. I think it’s a story of memory, and chance, and intention; of synchronicity and serendipity and coincidence, and luck. Oh, and destiny.” Wow, all that in six words.

True story.

“I shouldn’t have been.”

Shouldn’t have been…what?

What does that mean? And what do you mean by “In retrospect?” Don’t you have to BE before you can inspect retroactively?

Shouldn’t have been a teacher? A Principal?

A husband? A Father?

An athlete? A lover?

Shouldn’t have been early? Late?

What???

Are regrets present?

What are the next 600 (6000?) words?

Well, truth be told, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have BEEN…period.

End of story.

Because when I thought about it, and I looked back, looked way back, to all the things that had to happen for me to, well, BE, those six words were the only conclusion I could come up with that made logical and statistical sense as my six word story. It boggles the mind to consider every decision made by every ancestor of mine, and every action and timing of the universe, including the complex biologies of each individual, and of all the other beings that individual interacted with, that ended up, with time, and consequences, with ME at the end of that story. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been. I was improbable; a complete and random chance, a roll of the cosmic dice, an impossibility the likes of which hadn’t happened before and won’t happen again…ever.

Think about it. Pick one of your own way back ancestors of the past. Male or female, it doesn’t matter. You don’t even have to know their name because chances are good you don’t. Had that ancestor been just five minutes late to a fateful chance meeting of their future mate, you couldn’t have been because they, as a couple, wouldn’t have been. Multiply that by every decision that person made prior, every act or fate that was spelled them from death’s potential early fate. Then multiply that by two to account for the mate—then by the countless numbers of ancestors each had themselves. And don’t forget then to raise all that to the power of the chance rareness of all the biological odds inherent in conception.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been.

It’s fun, too, to move forward with story, and not just via a retro version. For example:

Had I, when I was a young boy growing up on a hop farm in Toppenish Washington, not caught the dream of football, my mom wouldn’t have bought me a 49er uniform and helmet that thus encouraged the dream further. And then I might not have tried to sign up for grid kid football but got rejected from tryouts because I was too big for my age-mates (I would have had to play with older kids and my mom didn’t want to risk that). But the dream continued. And then I might not have gone out for my eighth grade school team where the bug firmly dug into my ego and psyche (I was a little good at it). And then maybe I wouldn’t have continued to play thorough high school; wouldn’t have torn my medial collateral ligament that required surgery and 33 staples and a full-length cast for nine weeks ending my sophomore year of playing. And then I wouldn’t have persevered through all the painful rehab and physical therapy such that I was able to suit up for the fist day of practice my junior year where my high school team (GO RED DEVILS!) broke a 44 game losing streak. And then I might not have played my senior year and enjoyed so much success that I began to think I might be able to play in college. Then, two years later, I might not have tried out for my college team and earned a spot on the roster. Then I might not have come back a second year where, in pre-season camp, at a time with the men’s football team and the women’s volleyball team shared the same athlete’s mess hall, I might not have seen from across the hall, the beautiful young co-ed, whom I spotted but didn’t approach (you know, shyness), so I asked a high school friend of mine who happened to also be on the volleyball team for at least her name. And then my friend might not have mentioned to that co-ed that a football player asked about her. And then that co-ed might not have approached me first by way of introduction (you know, shyness me, not so shy, her), and then might not eventually became my girlfriend. And then she might not have said yes to becoming my wife. And we might not have decided to have kids. And we might not have had two thriving, beautiful children who are great people to boot. And I might not have been gifted, by my daughter and son-in-law, with THE MOST AMAZING GRANDSON ANYONE HAS EVER HAD IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!

All because I liked the 49ers, and had a dream.

The 49er on the left; the Ram, my wee brother. Circa 1971.

Looking back, way really does lead on to way. But even a slight deviation or hesitation from each little decision and accident and chance of timing and opportunity, could have, by definition, lead on to a different way—my wife, after all, was on her own unique way. But it didn’t. The way, all along the way, led on to THIS way.

And I really do have the most amazing grandson, ever.

Here’s a fun synchronistic side note: I had written the first draft of this post and had been polishing it up for posting. That’s when I came across this paragraph from one of the best writers on Substack, Chloe Hope:

“Years ago, a Harvard doctor attempted to calculate the likelihood of a singular human being’s existence. Accounting for the odds of one’s parents meeting, staying together, having a child, the odds of the specific sperm meeting the specific egg that created you—as opposed to a sibling—and the unbroken chain of survival and reproduction of all your ancestors for the past 4 billion years, he arrived at a figure: 1 in 10^2,685,000, which is 10 followed by over 2.6 million zeros*. Some similar equation then must apply to all the beings with whom we share a planetary home; which seems to me to implicate that the world is positively overflowing with the miraculous.”

True dat! And yeah, I really shouldn’t have been (10^2,685,000 worth of shouldn't).

[here’s a link to Chloe’s entire piece “the big cloudless blue.”

*And here’s the footnote she included following the odds notation above: “I’d have written it out but if I wrote one zero per second—without stopping to eat or sleep—it would have taken me 31 days to finish.”]

So…at risk of repeating myself…

“In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been.

And yet, I am.”

And that’s the ten word true story I’m sticking with.

But…

In retrospect, you shouldn’t have been, too.

And yet, you are.

Too.

We are, literally and mathematically, statistical improbabilities. In spirit-speak, those are called miracles. We shouldn’t have been, but…

We are miracles.

And when you’re a miracle, what’s NOT possible?

(The real question then becomes: What are we going to do with the miracle that is us?”)

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The Summer Day
~ Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Maybe you can tell me in six words.

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Always and Ubuntu,

~ k