Or Is He Just Guessing?
Dylan hopped onto the computer one night, researching something on the internet. My blog popped up.
“I did not say I hated computer class!” he yelled. “I never said I hated computer science! This is a lie! Not the truth! You’ve broadcast something for the whole world to see that just isn’t true!”
I was in the other room. He just kept bellowing about truth, and the media, and how I’d “lied!” to the public about what he actually said.
So I thought about it.
And perhaps Dylan did not say he hated his computer class. Maybe he said something else. Maybe he said, “I can’t stand my computer class!” or “I really don’t like my computer class.” I suppose he could have used those words.
But the way I remember it, he said he “hated” computer class.
I often think about Angela’s Ashes, which is maybe my favorite book of all time. The writing was so superb, and the details so compelling, that I devoured ‘Tis almost immediately afterward.
At the time, in spite of being a mom to two toddlers, I was taking a fiction writing course at the local writing center. One day, I asked the teacher about Angela’s Ashes author, Frank McCourt.
“How can he possibly remember all those details?” I asked, genuinely confused. “There are pages and pages of dialogue from his childhood! Does he have a photographic memory? Or is he just guessing?”
The writing teacher laughed. “I think he takes some liberties with the exact words,” she said. “It’s called ‘creative nonfiction.'”
So the next writing class I took was called “Creative Nonfiction.” And since that time, I have done the best I can, reporting as accurately as possible.
Perhaps Dylan did not say he “hated” his computer science class. Perhaps, no matter how I remember it, those weren’t his exact words.
And it no longer matters. Today, he loves the class.