STRETCHING THE TRUTH

I was quite a talented liar when I was a child. I don't mean the ordinary lies like..."no" I didn't pick the neighbors flowers or "no" I didn't track all that mud into the house or "no" I didn't eat a candy bar ten minutes before dinner and ruin my appetite. I mean I was a pro at stretching the truth. I could spin a yarn by the age of eight that would have people sitting on the edge of their seats...at least other eight year olds who were naive enough to believe what I was telling them.

I didn't have a particularly happy childhood and one of the ways that I escaped that sadness was to over compensate when telling someone a story. And that's what most of what I imparted to others about my life was ...stories. I think this was truly the beginning though of a great imagination and a true story teller.

For three years, while growing up, I was lucky enough for one month each summer to go to Camp Longacres, a horse camp in upstate New York. I remember the first year I came back sitting at the table eating dinner with my parents and them asking me how I'd enjoyed it. Well, I could have just mumbled "fine" like most kids my age would have. But I was a writer, a teller of tales even then and I needed to make it seem like that camp stay was not just okay...but fantastic!! So I spun a yarn about being in the horse ring taking my lesson when suddenly one of the other girl's horses took off with her and I had to gallop to her side and rescue her from her runaway stead and certain death. Kudos to my parents who just sat there nodding and smiling as I took 30 minutes to expound on this story and give them all the details right down to the breed of each of the horses.

You may think this is scandolous, but I appreciate my childhood imaginings. I don't have those same tendancies to enhance stories about my personal life now as an adult. But it can take me 30 minutes to share a 5 minute anecdote because I'm a writer and I need to paint a full picture as I give a narrative. Hey...it's who I am so if you don't have at least 30 minutes...then be warned...don't ask me any questions or get me involved in a conversation.