Earlier, I mentioned an old project I wanted to revisit. Strangers gave me 7 sentences to build a story. I put them on a spreadsheet and moved them around to look for the best order. The goal was to illustrate the story and create a book.
I wanted to write more, but felt I needed an excuse to write and a built in audience. I feel differently now. No excuse to write is needed. No audience, either. But I did enjoy the experiment of taking the words or ideas of random strangers and making them fit into a coherent pattern.
I want to try it again. This time, no Kickstarter, no illustrations or book. Only the words. I hope if I stay focused on writing, my writing will improve. The bigger goal, however is to find my voice. As a writer and an artist, I have long felt I didn’t have anything to say while at the same time I have too much to say.
Focus is something we are told we must have. But I don’t. I am interested in everything. Sometimes for days or weeks. sometimes only for minutes.
Back to the 7 sentences from strangers. After, I organized them and thought about them for a few days, I wrote three versions - in one afternoon…
Here is the link to add YOUR sentence submissions.
Version One: Standing at the door
Standing at the door,
I ponder the rain
and debate taking an umbrella from our extensive collection
or just going without and
jumping
in puddles
while I walk to work.
I see a woman walk by me.
I look back.
Her curly hair flowed down the middle of her back.
She was a blonde British woman, I, Hispanic Texan
and we are soulmates.
I imagine what she would say about herself.
In a thick accent,
so heavy, but I could still understand her.
She looks up.
She smiles slightly.
When others talk about me, they say that I am a quiet, boring woman because I tend to ignore the world around me; but this is only because I’m busy listening to the clamour in my head, to the voices of people real and imagined that are always with me.
She winks.
She turns back to walk away from me, but I follow her.
I have to.
I am in love most with my potential, because sometimes it is all I have.
Now, I love hers.
Ours.
I catch up to her.
I catch her eye.
She begins to walk faster.
I roll my eyes at myself. “What am I doing? She…”
She grabs my hand.
She pulls me toward her.
“There is a bar.” She points with her other hand.
We sit.
She tells me everything.
Every detail.
I see her words as they roll from her lips.
She clutches my hand again.
“It is not about the road you walk on; it is about the path you choose.” She squeezes my hand and taps the table.
She says her last boyfriend had it all wrong.
He wasn't sure if it was worth the effort.
She learned nothing. She shrunk in his shadow. She was an accessory.
She needed more.
She needed a partner.
I was him.
She could tell.
She could see it in my eyes.
She only kept one thing she learned from him,
a prayer from a monastery.
She said it before each meal.
Our waiter laid out our plates in front of us.
Cheeses. Breads. Charcuterie with pickled vegetables. Two large goblets of perfectly deep purple wine and two more filled with water and a single floating ice cube.
She turned her gaze to our meal and closed her eyes.
“Bless the farmer who grew the food, the vintner who made the wine, the cook who prepared the meal and those who are gathered at this table.”
Version Two: The diner in the rain.
A sign above the register suggests, “Bless the farmer who grew the food, the vintner who made the wine, the cook who prepared the meal and those who are gathered at this table.”
The cashier reads my order back to me. A turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese and sprouts on sourdough bread, heavy on the mustard, HOLD the mayo.
“Is there anything else?” I ask for a glass of the house wine. I don’t really know much about wine, but the sign goaded me. Maybe it would fit nicely with the sourdough bread?
The wall behind her is filled with small wooden frames. They protect old pictures, old advertisements cut from newspapers and countless signs doling out life advice.
One sign claims, “It is not about the road you walk on, it is about the path you choose.” It shows a road with a fork and a hiker walking toward the point of decision. Other signs talk about effort and potential. Some signs have no text and leave the viewer to make it all up. I like those the best.
I like to listen to others. Take their advice. Mix it up and make up my own mind. I am in love most with my potential, because sometimes it is all I have. I know I have gifts as we all do, but after some failures potential seems like the greatest of all truths.
When others talk about me, they say that I am a quiet, boring woman because I tend to ignore the world around me; but this is only because I’m busy listening to the clamour in my head, to the voices of people real and imagined that are always with me.
I find myself lost in my own thoughts. I check in and out of the real world. I hold a book in my hand pretending to read as I half listen to the sounds in the room and half listen to myself.
Two older women at the next table talk to and about the young boy they are with. A grandson, adopted away from his addicted mother by his grandparents. The first lady tells the second that her husband was not sure he could get it right this time. “He wasn't sure if it was worth the effort. He raised a drug addict and did not want to raise another.” And now they were much older. Could they get it right this time? The second lady reassured the first. It was not their fault. They raised their daughter to be strong. At a certain point the kids make their own choices.
I looked across the room at the sun beaming in through the corner window. The light laid across the glass case filled with trinkets of the towns’ past. Green vases glimmer. An old ashtray, with the towns name printed on the side and more pictures of the towns past glory and framed pictures of the high school football heroes and cheerleaders. A large faded white oval doyly covers the top of the case and casts a shadowed pattern a top of its contents.
The door burst open as two large men push through. They are caught up in their conversation. The wind bounces the door against the glass cabinet and slowly shuts itself. The men walk up to the counter to order. They glance briefly at the menu. The shorter man rushes his friend to finish the story. He seems to be wrapping it up then appears to start over. “I thought the relationship would never work. We were too different. She was a blonde British woman, I, Hispanic Texan and we are soulmates. But, we…”
“You ready to order?” the cashier put the story on pause. “I got a coffee break coming up and I need to sit for a few minutes. What can I get you?” The men got serious and began to look at the menu. The Texan ordered a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese and sprouts on sourdough bread, heavy on the mustard, HOLD the mayo. I liked him. His friend leaned in to the cashier and said “I will have the usual.” She rang them up and they took the table behind me to wait for their lunch. Maybe I would find out what happened with the blonde British woman.
I looked at my phone. There was no time. I had to get going. I gathered my stuff and walked away from my table. As I approached the front door, it blew open again with a gust of wind. The rain was back. I noticed an umbrella stand near the door. A wooden sign hung around it with the painted words, “Take it or Leave it!” A sign hanging above recommend customers make themselves at home, “Our place is your place.”
Standing at the door, I ponder the rain and debate taking an umbrella from our extensive collection or just going without and jumping in puddles while I walk to work.
Version Three: Living the dream.
It is not about the road you walk on, it is about the path you choose. I looked out the window plotting my next steps. The path to my next journey could take any direction. The first step would show me the next step. I could not make a move now. I still had to go to work. I still had to plan how to get where I wanted to go. What to take? Who to tell? Or not?
I packed my lunch, my uniform, my work computer and notebook into my bag. Standing at the door, I ponder the rain and debate taking an umbrella from our extensive collection or just going without and jumping in puddles while I walk to work. Or should I drive? The rain wasn’t going to stop today. Maybe tomorrow?
I slung my bag over my shoulder and locked the door behind me. My neighbor stepped out of her door at the same time. She was wearing a heavy full length dark coat. It seemed a bit much for this spring rain we were about to walk into. She had a large suitcase on wheels at her feet and a canvas bag over her shoulder. None of this was her usual work gear. I did not ask where she was going. I just wanted to go with her. She was a blonde British woman, I, Hispanic Texan and we are soulmates. I don’t think she knew yet.
We were both thousands of miles from home, stuck in a frozen northern city under the guise of a quest for knowledge. She was working on a PhD in an obscure subject. I was working in one of the labs at her school. My days were filled with slicing samples of tissue small enough to view under a microscope. Repetitive work that set the real scientist up to make discoveries that could change the world. Her days were filled with breaking down chunks of literature into pieces small enough that freshman planning to study other fields could grasp the concepts enough to move through their required classes.
We had the same job. We talked about it in our shared hallway. Neither of us ready to take our relationship farther. She seemed to know where she wanted to go. Finish school and find a teaching position in some warm southern location, in a tiny town where intellectual pursuits were valued. I was not so focused on my career as I was on getting out of the rat race before I got into it too deeply. I am in love most with my potential, because sometimes it is all I have. I craved warmth, too. A small college town somewhere that was always warm, just the right amount of rain. No snow or ice. Maybe a small family farm with horses, a lovely writing room for her and children playing outside.
She said, “When others talk about me, they say that I am a quiet, boring woman because I tend to ignore the world around me; but this is only because I’m busy listening to the clamour in my head, to the voices of people real and imagined that are always with me.” There were novels inside of her. Hundreds. She needed to actually write them down. She needed a quiet place away from the jaded colleagues and the students who were just trying to pass. She needed the space to explore the ideas running around inside her imagination.
She was brilliant. I could listen to her talk in the hallway for hours. I could not wait to read her novels. She was not convinced that others held her in such high regard. I listened to many stories of her PhD advisors telling her their most ridiculous ideas about teaching and about how the students weren’t as good as they were when he was in school. Teaching and writing were for fools. He didn’t think a young person could make a career out of it anymore. Her father thought the same thing. He wasn't sure if it was worth the effort. They both told her it was better to go into the business world. She did not want that life. She wanted something more serene.
I could picture the place. A farmhouse in the country. A dining table in front of a south-facing window looking out over sweeping hills. A wood fired stove to cook and a prayer before breakfast: “Bless the farmer who grew the food, the vintner who made the wine, the cook who prepared the meal and those who are gathered at this table.” Then dishes could pile in the sink and wait for late afternoon chores. The gardens outside brim with luscious vegetables while farm animals graze.
She could walk upstairs to the loft to write. I could walk outside, feed the animals and drive the tractor around. At the end of the day we could meet in the hallway outside our bedroom door.