Deconstructing Ephemerality

The other day, I watched “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” with my friends. What started as a simple after-office outing turned into a hot mess of us crying in the cinema, and understandably so.

Now, I don’t want to risk spoiling the movie, and this post is not about how good the movie is (it was good!). Rather, it’s about the thoughts that started swirling in my head after watching the movie.

You may have read somewhere that my own grandmother played a huge role in shaping my writing career. And no, it wasn’t because she was a writer herself or supported me in any tangible or concrete ways. In fact, I’m not even sure she knew that I loved writing at all.

For the majority of my childhood, my grandmother was blind. Her children took turns hosting her since it wouldn’t be wise to let a blind person live alone. This meant that during the period when my parents hosted her, I always came home from school to find her sitting in the living room with eyes staring into the void.

When I was in grade school, I didn’t have a lot of friends. There are a few reasons for this. I’ve identified as an introvert for the longest time, and that must have played a huge role in me not actively looking to make new friends. But the majority of my classmates lived closer to school, whereas I lived a few kilometers away.

This meant that while the other kids could meet up after school and play, I was often forced to go home immediately. My parents both worked 9-5 jobs, and considering the only adult supervision I had back then was my 80-year-old grandmother who could barely see, I understand why they never let me hang around after school.

Back in the 90s, we didn’t have a lot of entertainment options. I had a super old CRT TV that we had to hit every so often to make it work. I didn’t have any gaming consoles or even a VCD player. All I had were loads and loads of books.

Maybe that’s where I developed my love for writing. By spending most of my childhood buried under the pages, soaking up all the wisdom from authors of times past.

In any case, my severe lack of entertainment options left me with a lot to be desired, to the point where I made it a habit to talk to my grandmother every single day. At first, I talked about my day at school—who answered the teacher’s questions correctly, who passed out during the morning ceremony, who peed their pants, and so on.

But there were only so many things a 10-year-old could remember or even share from her school days. It wasn’t long before I started telling her stories from the books I’d just read instead of sticking with my own experiences. Looking back, this can be considered my first try at storytelling.

Something magical started to happen when I ran out of both stories from my own experience and from the books I’d read. After all, with the speed at which I was consuming books, there was no way I could supply my grandmother with enough stories to keep her amused.

At this point, sitting down with her in the living room and telling her bizarre stories from the books I’d read had become more than just a pastime—it was a game of sorts; a ritual that I would never miss, simply out of the sheer delight I found on my grandmother’s face when I finished my story.

Before long, I learned to improvise. I had this brilliant idea—if I ran out of stories to tell, why not invent my own? And so I did.

At first, my newly invented stories were nothing more than poor imitations of all the great fiction I read. I’m embarrassed to admit this now, but at some point, I also “borrowed” iconic names from other fiction franchises shamelessly. (But hey, you can’t expect a 10-year-old to be churning out fictional names left and right. We simply didn’t have the brain capacity for that.)

But the more stories I invented, the better I got at naming characters. And with better characters, I also started to create more interesting stories. I could tell—after all, I saw how my grandmother reacted all the time. She went from flashing a polite smile at my childish attempts to craft stories, to genuinely asking for more by the end of each session.

To say that I was proud of my accomplishment would be an understatement.

Now that I think about it, I guess this is where everything began for me as a writer—just me, my grandmother, and hours on end spent telling stories born from pure imagination. I didn’t have a specific message to share or anything to prove. I just wanted to be with my grandmother, whose idea of fun was listening to me ramble.

Years later, I would eventually pick up the pen and start to record all my make-believe stories into books. Even further into the future, I would attempt to publish my manuscript and metaphorically give birth to all the books you’ve known me for: 3 (Tiga), Unspoken Words, Maybe Everything, Polaris Musim Dingin, and Celebrating the Fallen Leaves.

Years later, long after my grandmother had passed, I would always recall our little, innocent story-sharing sessions. When I knew no better than to shamelessly borrow character names from other books or movies, and all I worried about was how to ace my next test lest I incur my mother’s fury.

As I reminisce about this, I am hit with a sense of nostalgia like no other. After her passing in 2009, I started to forget how my grandmother sounded, and I even have difficulties recalling her face without seeing her photographs.

But I like to believe that, as long as I keep on writing—as long as I keep on these make-believe story-sharing sessions in her honor—I will forever be connected with my grandmother, albeit spiritually. She lives on through every word I pen, and hopefully as a guide who reminds me from time to time not to write for fame, acknowledgements, or renown, but just for the sheer fun of doing it.

For all I know, maybe that’s why I was drawn to writing in the first place—to keep my memories, my thoughts, and my feelings alive. To deconstruct ephemerality into its barest form, and rearrange them into stories that, hopefully, will live on forever.

Cheers,
Alicia