May 1, 2008
A PRIMAL BLOT
They’re out and about now. And I find myself jumping at any dark blot that sifts into my peripheral vision as I run my woodland trails. I wonder if my heart will always quicken at a black spot in the landscape now, my body somehow registering for flight before my consciousness tells me it’s a rock, or an old rotting stump. I’ve become conditioned in some primal survival sort of way — in the same way my entire body stills if I catch sight of a long wiggly thing on the trail, before my brain actually processes what it is — an old shoelace, a piece of string, or common garter snake. That indelible response comes from childhood. I grew up with snakes — nasty ones that could take your life.
It drives home just how much we are all a composite of our past experience. I also grew up with some nasty cops during the apartheid era. I still, irrationally, grow anxious at the sight of a yellow van (the kind the police took people away in never to be seen again). My Zulu nanny used to threaten me with this possibility whenever I misbehaved — the cops were the evil tokoloshe, the monster under the bed come to spirit you away. Whoda thunk a bright yellow vehicle could instill fear for life 
As a writer I find this rich territory. Backstory shapes character, and it drives current reaction. I’m thinking about this as I try to feed my character’s past into my story while still moving the plot forward. Perhaps it’s as simple as a heart stalling at the sight of a yellow van.
spyscribbler Says:
Yikes! I swear, your runs scare me sometimes! Your backstory is fascinating. Fear of a yellow van, the tokoloshe. Those are the kind of details you just can’t find from research, that bring a story to life.