"Why do you do that?" she asked. "Why do you refer to yourself as he rather than I ?" She was speaking of a recent blog post I had written about myself.
It wasn't the most flattering narrative, but "flattering" is not what I was
going for. Sometimes writing in the first person puts me a little too
close to the subject—which in this case was me. I don't want to write
about myself; I want to observe myself. I want to observe myself "on
paper," if that makes sense. Writing in the third person puts
me in a state of mind for that. I tried to explain that to her but I
felt this was one of those times when my verbal skill was badly lacking.
She said "Okay," a perfectly noncommittal response.
She was planning a trip to the US, to the city of her late husband's birth. I was trying to assist her. I had access to plane schedules and bus schedules and Google Maps. Long after our conversation ended I still pursued a quest to find the perfect routes, the perfect connections.
Why do airlines say an arrival
or departure will occur at 9:04 or 12:09? That sounds oddly specific for
an industry which does well to arrive or depart within an hour of their
scheduled time. (Unless they have greatly improved since I last used
their services.) Why not say 9 AM or 12 PM? Is the aircraft really going
to pull back from the gate at the scheduled minute? How often does that
happen?
I drove the virtual highways and byways of Google Maps, stymied that the local bus terminal has parking for a dozen customers wanting to drop off or pick up a passenger, while one intercity bus holds 50 or 55 passengers. Cruising the spaghetti roads of a local airport, I puzzled over the question of why I couldn't take the exit off Airport Drive that goes to by-the-minute parking instead of being forced to go to daily parking. I understand there is now a game called Airport Roads. I will guess the player's goal is to drive to an objective somewhere within the airport grounds, and the game's goal is to prevent him from getting there. Rather like real life.
Anyway, the time is now 3 AM and it's time to hit the Publish button and call it a night. Good night, all.
2 comments:
Excellent comment and if you feel comfortable writing in third person go ahead and good luck helping your friend with the schedules at this time of the year, with Covid-19 is a huge challenge.
TA
Greetings
I completely agree that writing in the third person is freedom to go where ever you want with your story. Getting caught up in the "I" keeps my brain from experiencing the art of writing -- Isn't that called poetic license?
Write how you feel and the proof is in the story line !!!
One lucky friend to have you do all that research --good man !!
LL
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