statement of aesthetics

 Golden Gardens, WA

Recently I finished my freshman year of college at the UW. Spring Quarter, I took an intro to short story fiction writing class which will go down in personal infamy for being the hardest yet most rewarding class I've ever had the pleasure to take. My professor, Rae Paris, is a talented, strong, inspirational woman who constantly gave real, honest feedback on my writing which, while frustrating, changed how I write fiction and non-fiction alike. 

Upon submitting our final story for the class, we also had to write this statement of aesthetics. The prompt and my own statement are attached below. 

North Bend, WA

"While writing, reading, and responding to writing are crucial in developing craft, also critical is articulating reasons for writing. The overall questions you’re trying to answer for this assignment are these: Who are you? What stories do you want to tell and why?

In order to answer these questions, this assignment asks you to consider your many identities and their intersections, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, class, gender, LGBTQIA+, citizenship status, ability, language, and so on. How might your experiences, your understanding of self, and your connection/disconnection to the world impact the kinds of stories you want to tell? When I finish reading your Statement of Aesthetics I want to feel as if I have an understanding, or a glimpse, of who you are and what stories matter to you." -Rae Paris. 

Snoqualmie Falls, WA

Better Than That 

I’m afraid of failure. Not failing a test but failing other people: teachers, parents, friends, myself, etc.

            I grew up in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, in a gated community where all the houses look the same. It is about forty minutes south of Disneyland and thirty minutes inland from the beach and ten minutes from where wildfires burned for so long when I was in third grade that school was closed for a week and we nearly had to evacuate our house. Many of my friends’ parents were lawyers or real estate agents or nurses. While our area was definitely upper-middle class, everyone worked. I can’t think of a single wife or husband that I knew growing up who didn’t have at least have some kind of job – even if it was just working in the Boutique by the Grocery Store one day a week or volunteering with the PTA. It was clean and the roads were wide. It was always green even though California was in a drought for a long time. There was a little five-foot deep man-made lake where the geese and ducks live; you can run or walk around it or rent paddle boats in the summer. I spent many evenings sitting by that lake in high school when I didn’t want to go home.

I’m afraid of Ferris wheels. This is because when I was younger I almost fell off out of one when it was stopped at the top. They give me anxiety now.

My mom grew up in a house on Lake Sammamish, Washington. I go to college here now, and I’ve visited her home and her lake. It’s different than when she grew up there, she says. When she was a teenager, she walked to all her friends’ houses and didn’t have a curfew. She worked at the Little Store and water skied on the lake even in the winter. She had a blended family. When she was young, her step siblings were babies so their house was always loud. Her dad was a really bad alcoholic. She never lived with him after he moved out. She didn’t speak to him from ages nineteen to thirty-two. She cried really hard at his funeral. It frightened me how much she cried.

My dad grew up in Walla Walla, Washington and Miami, Florida. His dad lived in Walla Walla and his mom lived in Miami. Even though they lived in opposite corners of the country, he flew back and forth for a couple months at a time for his teenage years. His mom was a flight attendant so he flew on Delta for free. His twin sister lived in Miami more than Walla Walla, and my dad lived in Walla Walla more than Miami. I think he had a confusing childhood because of this – confusing because he was separated from his twin for so long. His mom remarried a few more tines; his dad remarried and had two more kids.

My dad’s parents got divorced when he was 7.

My mom’s parents got divorced when she was 13.

My dad moved out when I was 16.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was 18.

I didn’t tell my friends that they were separating for eight days because I didn’t want them to think that I couldn’t hold my life together. I’m afraid of being adequate. I would rather be extraordinary, above average, outstanding, unprecedented.

I cried at school in front of my class one time because a famous couple had announced that they were getting divorced and it triggered me. My classmates got overly worried because I never let myself feel sad in front of anyone. My aesthetic is happiness and optimism, always.

I’m afraid of not being in control of my future.

I’m afraid that I don’t put all of my trust in God to be in control of my future.

“I thought I was better than that.”

So, I tell stories.

I tell stories about relationships, about love. I tell stories about things I wish happened to me, sometimes about things that did happen to me. I tell stories that allow me to create characters that I wish I had in my life. Or characters that I can give justice to when I can’t tell people in the Real World how I actually feel.

I want to tell stories that are relatable to people in a similar situation.

I want to tell stories that heal.

I’m afraid of getting a divorce.

Like my parents.

Like both their parents before them.