Rain on the Windshield

The weather has shifted. A heavy, grey mist has settled over the terminal, and the smell of wet pavement is now competing with the usual diesel. I am watching a woman stand just at the edge of the overhang, her hand outstretched as if she is testing the water, or maybe just waiting for it to stop on command.

In my last post, I kept things strictly to what I could hear and see, but my classmates challenged me to lean into the "creative" part of this experiment. Professor Matthews reminds us that memory and observation are flawed anyway, so we might as well be honest to the essence of the moment (Matthews 115).

I am looking at a man sitting on a metal crate by the loading dock. He has a bouquet of grocery-store carnations wrapped in crinkly plastic resting on his knees. The plastic is covered in condensation. I don't know where he is going, but I can imagine the story. Maybe these are a "peace offering" for a late arrival, or a celebratory gesture for a birthday he almost forgot. The conflict is written in the way he keeps checking his watch and then smoothing the plastic wrap. He is anxious. The carnations are bright pink, a violent contrast to the drab concrete.

When the bus finally pulls in, the tires kick up a spray of muddy water that nearly clips his shoes. This is that "mechanical violence" I mentioned before, the cold reality of the city (Matthews 112).

John D’Agata writes that real knowledge is problematic the moment we try to nail it down, and he’s right (D'Agata 132). I could ask this man about the flowers, but the "truth" I’m capturing isn't in his answer. It’s in the way he cradles that cheap bouquet like it’s made of glass as he steps into the crowd.

Anne Lamott talks about the stories "tugging on the sleeves of our hearts," and as I watch the bus pull away, leaving a smear of red taillights in the rain, I realize that the mystery is actually better than the facts (Lamott 6). The observation is the "ledger," but the story I’m building in my head is what makes it nonfiction I actually want to write.

Works Cited

D’Agata, John. "We Might as Well Call it the Lyric Essay." ENG 211: Introduction to Creative Writing, 2025, pp. 129-132.

Lamott, Anne. "12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing." TED, Apr. 2017, www.ted.com/talks/anne_lamott_12_truths_i_learned_from_life_and_writing.

Matthews, Araminta Star. "Introduction to Writing Creative Nonfiction: Hint—It’s Not What You Think." ENG 211: Introduction to Creative Writing, 2025, pp. 112-118.