The X chromosome - tracing the heart of your story.

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Page Lambert: Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Words

The X Chromosome

Tracing the Heart of Your Story

Greetings!

Secretariat's Meadow

Last weekend was the birthday of the great racehorse Secretariat. His bloodline and the story of his greatness lives on in the hearts of those who loved him, and literally in the equine hearts of all his descendents. Our favorite stories endure because at their core, beneath the word-smithing, lies heart. But how can you ensure that the heart of the story you're writing will tick on and on?

If you could weigh the heart of your story - feel its pulse in the palm of your hand - could you trace its genetic greatness back to the works of the authors whom you most admire? Would there be a "felt" line of descent between the story you're writing now and the first childhood story that made your heart race? Maybe it was Wind in the Willows, or Tom Sawyer or My Friend Flicka?

What do I mean by "felt line of descent?" If we explore the literal and figurative "heart" of the race horse Secretariat, we'll find that his story starts like all fairy tales...

Once upon Eclipse a time (actually, it was Apri1 1, 1764), in a country whose coasts stretched between the wave-capped waters of the Irish, Celtic and North Seas, a chestnut Thoroughbred colt was born. His owner the Duke of Cumberland christened him Eclipse and sold the stud colt to a sheep dealer. The sheep dealer sold half-interest in the horse to Captain O'Kelly, who was married to a brothel owner.

Eclipse went on to be one of the world's great racehorses. He died in 1789 and, as was the tradition in England, just his head, heart, and hooves were buried (a gruesome, gripping detail). When the London surgeon performing the autopsy cut him open, he found that the racehorse had a massive heart weighing 14 pounds - 6 pounds heavier than the heart of an average horse.

Greater even than Eclipse's fame as a racehorse was his fame as a sire. In 1837, a progeny filly with a rather small frame named Pocahontas was born. She carried an X chromosome passed onto her by Eclipse's daughter Everlasting. 150 years later this "large heart" gene would be passed down to one of the greatest horses the world has ever known.

Secretariat won the Triple Crown, setting track records and world records at the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont. He died at the age of 19 after siring more than 600 colts. His heart wasn't put on a scale and weighed as Eclipse's had been, but the surgeon who held the champion's still-warm heart in his hands estimated it at more than 22 lbs.

How, then, does a heart fuel not only our legs, but also carry our dreams? How can a heart urge us to go the distance, to keep writing, in the face of overwhelming odds?

In Mary O'Hara's classic novel My Fiend Flicka, I could feel my own heart racing as young Ken McLaughlin rode down the mountain after seeing Rocket's filly for the first time:

No dream he had ever had, no imagination of adventure or triumph could touch this moment. He felt as if he had burst out of his old self and was something entirely new - and that the world had burst into something new too. So this was it - this was what being alive meant - Oh, my filly, my filly, my beautiful...

Heart-filled prose. But Mary O'Hara didn't finish Ken's sentence. She left it to our imaginations, perhaps even to our pens hoping that we would write our own everlasting stories - ones that would pulse in the palms of the reader's hands even as we raced toward the finish line.

Look toward that finish line. See who has gone before. Imagine their words and stories leading the way. Visualize that line of descent. Thank those who have already run the race, clearing the way, then look behind you and visualize those whose stories will follow yours, and cheer them on as well.

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