“It’s Ellie, right?”
“Yeah…” Ellie was trying to place the person asking. She
didn’t recognize her from any classes, but she did seem familiar.
“I thought I remembered right. I was at your reading last
week. I have to say I’m really impressed.”
“Oh,” Ellie could feel herself starting to blush, “Oh,
thanks a lot.”
“How long have you been writing?”
“Since I discovered it was something people did. Like, books
were written by actual people, they didn’t just appear in the library by
magic.”
“It’s still kind of magic. Even if there are people behind
them. Or at least that’s sort of what I think. Books can be magic. What you
read last week was magic.”
“I don’t know about that but thank you again.”
“I’m making you uncomfortable. I’m sorry. I’m really bad at
not just sharing what’s on my mind. I know most people hate it, but I think…”
“It would be so much easier if everyone did it!” Ellie
interrupted.
“Exactly! I’m Jade, by the way.”
“Hi, Jade, I’m Ellie. But you knew that. Now you know that
officially.” Ellie shook her head. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. Would you mind if I sat with you and asked you a few
more questions? You can tell me if I’m imposing. Like I said, I wish everyone
would just say what was on their minds.”
Ellie checked her watch, “I’ve got to take off in like
fifteen minutes to meet my friend but you’re welcome to sit with me until
then.”
“Thanks.” Jade sat down and opened her backpack taking out
an old black composition notebook.
“Are you going to take notes?”
“Yeah, know it’s weird, but my brain is really busy. When I
write things down as I listen it helps me to focus on them. Sometimes it helps
me to get the ideas to stick, or to make sense, or to connect. It sort of slows
down my monkey chatter. I think that’s why I love books. I can focus on the
words and on the pages and it sort of shuts down everything else.”
“Are you a note taker when you read?”
“I am. I’m constantly writing things down to try and figure
out exactly what I think about them. You know? Like you read something in a
book, and it strikes you, but you aren’t sure why. What does it mean? Sometimes
it ends up not meaning anything but you just like the way the words feel in
your head.”
Ellie smiled.
“Okay, I know I sound a little crazy when I talk like that, but I figure
someone who writes like you do must understand that words have a feel to them.
If not, you can pretend I never said a word and we can start over.”
“No, I think it makes total sense. There are some words that
just feel good to read, and to say. They have a weight to them. I get it.”
“Okay, back to my intrusive questions. How did you get the
courage to share what you’ve written? Every time I think about showing someone
else my work I back out. I’m afraid that they will hate it, and then that would
mean they hate me because I created that.”
“Wow. Okay, so the first time I shared something with
someone they did hate it.”
“You’re kidding? How could they hate what you write?”
“You’ve only heard one small piece of what I’ve written over
the past 18 years. And that piece was written and rewritten and thrown away and
dug back out of the deleted files folder and written again. My first piece was
a poem about a dog. And I shared it with my half-sister who told me I should
give it to the dog to eat because that would make it better.”
“Harsh!”
“It was harsh, but it was also probably true, and I did
appreciate her honesty. But I was only 6 so looking back it’s understandable
that it was crap. At the time though I had been really proud of it and thought
since she liked our dog more than she liked any of us she would like the poem
as well.”
“And sisters can be mean.”
“Yes, they can. The next person who saw my writing was my
best friend and she loved it and encouraged me to do more of it. Also, probably
not an unbiased source, but at least this time it was in the opposite
direction.”
“How about your parents?”
“The only writing of mine they’ve ever seen have been school
assignments. Maybe now it would be okay, but I used to write a lot of really
dark things in high school, and I think they would have wanted to send me
straight to therapy. Not understanding that the writing was my therapy.”
“But your friend was fine with the dark things?”
“I don’t know that she ever considered them overly dark.”
“Oh well now I’m intrigued.”
“She’s an intriguing person. And one I said I’d meet five minutes
ago. It was nice to meet you, Jade. I hope to see you in writing group next
week. Maybe we can get you more comfortable with sharing your own stuff.”
“Nice to meet you too. And maybe, I’d really like to for
sure. I just need to find the guts.”
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