I was asked by a wonderful travel journal, Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, to pitch an idea for their Streetview section, where writers compose travel essays about the street where they live. I put together a pitch and was accepted. Then it was time to get to work.
I didn’t focus on the history of my street generally, as I knew that would be unappealing and wasn’t what a memoir is expected to be about. I stuck to subjects that would reveal my subjective view of living on this street. As I wrote I thought about what a great writing assignment this was, and how other travel memoir writers could try it out as well. So, below I’ll give you that assignment, and some specific questions to ask yourself to find material for your essay.
First I want to remind you that by writing about the street where you live, I dont mean ‘home,’ as in the place where you grew up and all the emotions and memories that entails. I mean the street where you live right now. Presumably you no longer live in the exact home where you grew up. But even if you do, this essay is about the street where you live as you see it and feel about it at this moment.
Here are my tips for writing about the street where you live:
1. Start with what brought you to this street.
Narrate your initial thoughts on this new location, and how it’s situated for your life’s circumstances. Close to bike trails if you’re a biker? Uneven roads if you’re a runner? Close to playgrounds if you have young kids?
2. Write about life on the street as you experience it.
As you come home after work, or as you walk home late one night and round the corner onto your street, ask yourself: How do you feel? What do you think about? Write down your answers.
3. Write about any traditions or practices unique to your street or area.
Does anything unique occur on your street at any particular time of year? A Halloween parade or Christmas light competition, or something smaller or stranger than that?
4. Focus on your perception of the street versus others in your life.
How do the other members of your family interact with the street that might be different from you? What do they notice that you don’t? How do they feel about the neighbors that may be different from you?
5. Write about the changes on the street you’ve witnessed since your arrival.
Narrate the stories of neighbours come and gone, homes demolished and rebuilt, babies born, or any changes that have happened on your street.
6. Write about what the seasonal changes look like on your street, and how they affect you.
Write about the snow piled up to your doorstep, or the teenager next door who rakes your leaves for you, or the way the sun lingers on pink and blistering on summer evenings.
7. Write about how old the neighborhood and the house roughly is, and how that makes you feel.
Do you plan to stay here for the long haul or is this just an in between place? How do you think you’ll look back on your time in this place after you’ve left?
Let your own unique voice be the through line of your piece about the street where you live. Travel memoir is all about place, and your subjective experience. Focus on a place you know well: the street where you live. Capture this moment in your life.
