David CookNot long ago, my wife told me about something called the "Six Word Memoir." Created by Smith magazine, the idea is to summarize your life story in six words.
"Rich inner life, moderately priced exterior," one reader wrote.
"Autistic son is my life coach," said another.
"Remember your keys. Forget your prisons," said a third.
Not quite as svelte as a haiku, the Six Word Memoir is still worth a spin. Legend has it such tiny prose started with Hemingway, who won a $10 bet by successfully writing a novel in only six words.
"For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn," he reportedly wrote on a bar napkin.
The Six Word Memoir got me thinking, especially as someone who deals in 600-word columns every day.
Could I reduce all I've seen to a half-dozen words?
Could I boil it all down?
During the last four years, I've written somewhere near 750 columns, which is around 600,000 words. Lay them out end to end, and this long string of columns would stretch, oh, about 350 yards. (Huh. Since 2011, I've written a short par 4.)
It has been precious real estate, this slip of newspaper. From day one, I saw it as a form of social contract between columnist and reader. If you read, then I'll try to make it worth your time.
Sometimes, the right words flowed. Others, I came up short. Some days, I was just plain wrong.
There were days this column felt like my own personal country music song. It could leave me head-over-heels in love, or crying in my beer at night.
This column has taken me into some caustic, dire places. From rape culture to the crushing boot of poverty, to kids with cancer and others with a street-life hopelessness. I've seen the long arm of the law win when it shouldn't. Seen the slow machine of bureaucracy fail so many good people. Come face-to-face with racism, hate and sexism, as well as the slow ache of 21st-century addiction. Got my first death threat from a neo-Nazi. Encountered so many, many angry people. Parts of this city are covered in trauma. Each day, a hierarchy of needs goes unmet.
Six words? Here are my first three:
Lots of pain.
But along the way, I discovered something else: compassion. And cooperation. Go anywhere in the city, and you will find a symphonic beauty of ordinary people doing extraordinary things for others. Whatever dark we may print in our headlines is always countered by an inextinguishable fount of human kindness that too often doesn't make the news.
Most folks want democracy more than combative discourse. Show them a path to common ground, and four times out of five, they'll take it.
The big heart of Chattanooga beats with resilience and beauty. They say heaven comes down like a ladder; writing this column has allowed me to meet many of the folks who will be first in line on the way up.
Six words? Here are mine:
Lots of pain.
Even more love.
Isn't that true for all of us? It's as if being human means pulling behind us a train of sadness and joy, wound and blessing. Some days, all our personal history feels like a long bridal veil. Others, a big fuse.
Or, at times, a question mark.
When I turned 40, things started feeling a little catawampus inside. Every so often, I had the notion my heart was about to drop out on me, like an oil pan on the highway.
"What's wrong?" my wife asked.
"Don't know," I'd answer.
You may have had this feeling too; it's the kind that just sort of lingers there, staring, like a dog at the door. Not gruff. Not frightening. Just patiently waiting for some attention.
Later, around 41, it hit me.
Something was missing.
It was the classroom.
All my career, I've done one of two things: write or teach. Both are joys, both the true loves of my working life. The last few years, I've been writing, but not teaching. Turns out, my heart's been looking over my shoulder.
So starting this fall, I'm going back to the classroom, teaching English full-time.
Instead of four columns a week, I'll only write one.
See you in a couple of Sundays. Until then, indulge me a few more words. Really, just three.
Thank you, Chattanooga.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.