People don’t think to much about the dangers around them; however, I have a faint paranoia when it comes to getting hurt. After all, safety always comes first. I’m extra cautious, making a weird face if i see something that could possibly hurt me. Tiptoeing up the carpet stairs, my arms extending as far away from my body with sharp scissors grasped tightly in my hands as my knuckles turn white. Placing each step carefully on wet pavement, fearful that i may slip, and then who knows what could happen. I wasn’t always like this, in fact I was quite clumsy, an airhead. And it was this nature of mine that led me to quite a few injuries. One I remember specifically, was getting hit in the head with a heavy, white golf ball.
It was a hot summer day in mid July. All the kids from the tween groups at summer day camps loaded onto the school buses, parked in a single line. The camp leaders were yelling at the kids to walk in a single file line, orderly, neat, and perfect. Every single kid was in his or her own world, mindlessly talking and screaming with their friends, or running around in circles for no particular reason. I pounded up metal bus stairs and plopped onto the leather seat. “Move your heavy backpack, it’s taking up space.” Soon the bus began rolling away from the parking lot of the Shawnessy YMCA and onto busy Glenmore. We left early; otherwise, we would have been stuck in traffic. We sang out loud in tune to the songs being played on the radio, and gossiped about all the drama that twelve year olds could muster at day camp.
We reached our destination-Shaganappi Golf Course. Everyone piled out of the bus, and the young leaders frantically worked and hurriedly yelled to try and get scattered children to where they should be. Me and my friends came together and declared ourselves a group, we smiled already imagining our victory over the other groups of girls and boys. Because we were so enthusiastic, we ran to get our supplies. We clutched our golf clubs and our pail of golf balls, and walked over to the area that we were assigned. I grasped the cool metal ball. It was a pristine white in color, and weighed a lot. It stared back at me. I thought to myself, man it would hurt if this hit someone, and then dropped the ball back into the bucket. Our group began to set up, and we thought we were ready to begin golfing, when the instructor ran over to us and pulled me and my friend back.
“You have to stand far back when someone is golfing, or you could seriously get injured.” He blurted “Safety is a gift you have to value.” We followed his instructions but rolled our eyes in the process. All of us took turns hitting on the dark green turf. We were not bad, in fact we did quite well, piling up the points as we took turns out after the other. Suddenly I had the urge to drink water. The burning heat of the summer sun made me crave for cool and refreshing water. I dropped my club and beelined for the water fountain in the old park building across the golf course. I did not bother paying attention to my surroundings, and aimlessly, like a lost child, walked right through the field. As I made my way to the water fountain, a sudden spark of pain erupted on my forehead. I stopped in my path, dazed at what happened, the pain grew into a throbbing ache that consumed me. My blurry eyesight found a golf ball lying near my feet. I brought my hand up to my forehead, and my fingers grazed a large bump. I panicked. The pain grew as a camp leader led me back to the bus and started to fill out paperwork. I spent the next hour or two with a blue bag of ice on my head, wondering who had thrown the golf ball that nailed me in the noggin.
My parents came to pick me up from the YMCA, they were stunned after seeing the gigantic red and purple bump on my forehead. “Oh my god what happened?” My mom ran over and gave me a comforting hug. I was still in pain, my head throbbing. I was tired and wanted to go home.
I spent the rest of the day in bed crying. “Why am I so stupid?” I thought back to how I aimlessly walked out onto to the field, not looking left nor looking right. From that day onwards, I was always careful of my actions, careful of not getting hurt. After all, safety is important.
Dear Noor,
I absolutely loved your anecdote as it captured the essence of your sarcastic humour and made reading the piece that much more enjoyable! The one line that I thought truly clicked to set the tone and mood of your writing was, “I thought to myself, man it would hurt if this hit someone, and then dropped the ball back into the bucket myself,” as it was one of the several lines that urged the escape of a chuckle from within me as I was reading. Due to your choice of wording and the chosen placement of the dominant lines, I also believe that you successfully convinced any reader that knew you to imagine this whole scenario while reading, as I -for sure- did. 🙂 As for your writing specifically, I thought your usage of repetition while describing your setting was quite effective in certain parts of the piece, as they added to the flow of the writing that enhanced the atmosphere it intended to create. Another part of your piece that I admire is the way you described the innocence of the summer camp days and the common feelings that overwhelmed the majority of the children, as that added to the childhood regret you conveyed at the end of the anecdote as you looked back at this memory now at this age.
As for improvement, I would suggest switching up a bit of the spacing to make the piece slightly easier to follow and to enhance the effect you intend to leave on your readers, through the pauses. Particularly for the parts where you included dialogue and thoughtshots, possibly by adding in spaces to make them their own free-standing lines may add to the flow of the writing through stylistic choices.
Overall, I truly enjoyed reading your piece through your hints of humour and genuinity weaved throughout the writing. I will definitely be coming back to read more as I see your posts popping up on the main feed with the gorgeous visuals. 🙂
Sincerely,
Preet 🙂
PS: Just wondering, would you say that this incident was a dominant memory and injury that developed your caution or was it one of many that contributed to the change in attitude?
Hey Preet
I appreciate your feedback. Thank you! I am glad you liked the story and enjoyed the humor in it. I will definitely keep all your feedback in mind when writing my next piece, especially when it comes to spacing. I see what your saying about keeping some lines separate, I do agree that this would add to the flow of the writing, and I will keep this in mind for my next post.
Once again, Thank you!
Noor
Also, this injury was, unfortunately, one of many during my childhood that led to the development of a paranoia!
I strongly related to your anecdote as I myself am not a very athletic person. I think you built a really strong voice in this piece and that is what made it so enjoyable to read.
One thing you should work on further is editing your writing small mistakes like capitalization and sentence structure can disturb the flow of the writing. Other then that I really enjoyed reading your work and look forward to reading more.
Sincerely Aliza
Hey Aliza,
Thanks a bunch for your feedback, I appreciate it! I’m glad you were able to relate to the story and enjoyed reading it, and when it comes down to being unathletic, then that’s a struggle I very well know! otherwise, I see those little mistakes, and hopefully I can get back to editing those as soon as possible.
Thanks for the feedback!
Noor
I thought that this anecdote was very funny, I also liked your writing style it is considerably better than my own
Hey Amrinder,
Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad you enjoyed reading it and found humor in it as well!
Noor
Dear Noor
i though this anecdote was so beautifully presenting. every sentence you wrote from the beginning i felt like i could clearly imagine in my mind like it was a picture so well done with that really ! just like you im really paranoid all the time of getting hurt. im also such a big klutz. Always slipping and falling and embarrassing myself.
one thing that i could suggest would be spacing out your paragraphs so its allot more easier to follow other than that everything was beautiful, just like you 🙂
Love Amrit Chera
Hey Amrit,
Thanks so much for giving feedback, I really appreciate it! I’m happy that you both enjoyed the story and were able to follow along with a picture in your mind. I can totally relate when it comes to being a big klutz! I see what your saying about spacing, and I will definitely work on that in the future.
Thanks Beautiful
Noor
Dear Noor,
Wow! This piece was very interesting from the beginning till the end. I really enjoyed the climax the most, when the golf ball hit your forehead. The words you chose in specific areas went very nicely with the theme and mood of your story.
The only place for improvement is the small errors that you have. If you fix them, your piece, in my opinion, would be great!
Other than that, I really liked your narration piece. Good job, and keep up the amazing work!
Sincerely Maira
Hey Maira,
Thank you for feedback, I truly appreciate it. I’m happy that you enjoyed my piece and were hooked in to it from the start. i see what your saying about editing small errors, as I do realize that this piece does have some basic errors, that I will hopefully get back to as soon as possible.
Once again, thank you!
Noor