"I am living. I remember you." --Marie Howe
We are all one, seamless and perfect. Yet we are all unique, different and true. The nuances that distinguish one person from another are not actually lines that separate us but thick threads of humanity that weave between, over, and through all of us. This ride can only ever go up so long as we live and remember each other. Here's to all the days you're going to make worthwhile!
Then came the tricky part: how do I give them to the world?
Well, we ended the day earlier than usual today and I had an orthodontist appointment after school. Every three weeks or so, I take the bus from school to my orthodontist's office (it's not that far). I do a lot of walking from school to the first bus stop and then from the second bus stop to the medical building and then the same thing on my way back to school again. So I planned on leaving my slips of paper along my usual walking route, inadvertently imagining the type of people who would find them later on.
Maybe a high school student on his long and tiring commute home will find the slip that I left on the side of my seat inside the Route A bus. Maybe an ER nurse at the Straub hospital, just finished with her shift, will discover the piece of paper that I placed inside the basket of her bike as I walked past the bike rack in front of the building. Maybe the lady who runs the small semi-kiosk-slash-café in the first floor of the Medical Arts building will see the yellow note that I placed on the basket of napkins tomorrow as she opens up her window in the morning. Maybe a young girl, excited to have her braces taken off after two years, will spy the bright piece of paper hiding between the magazines near the main counter as she sits patiently in the orthodontist's waiting room. Maybe an elderly woman, walking back from her monthly check-up, reaching into her bag for her car keys, will read the small note that I left underneath the windshield wipers of her small Honda Accord. Maybe a middle-aged businessman, nearly late to his daughter's orchestra performance, will see the yellow slip wedged into the slot of a parking meter outside of the concert hall as he hurriedly searches his pockets for loose change. And, finally, maybe the last note will catch the eye of the bus driver who will scan the seats of the bus at the end of the day, checking to see if anything had been left behind.
I've just recently started believing in poetry and the answers that they conceal and reveal at the same time. I hope that I not only conveyed in some small way this undeniable beauty of poetry but also gave someone some sort of purpose even for just one day. If anything, a smile at the thought of anyone even taking the time to write the note and leaving them somewhere someone will find it would also be awesome.
On another note, remember that secret gift that I gave away and couldn't share with you just yet? Well, I finally found out what happened! So, every year, our school holds an annual writing competition for poetry, short stories, literary criticism, and haikus. And every year, the teachers and co-chairs in charge invite student writers--that is, seniors and juniors recommended by teachers--to serve as student judges in the first round of judging the submitted entries.
Along with other seniors, I got an invite. On my way to the short informational/training lunch meeting, I asked one of my friends, Rachel, if she was gonna go straight to the meeting or if she was gonna go and buy her lunch first so that I knew whether to wait for her or not. But she just looked at me and replied, "I wasn't invited to judge."
I immediately felt terrible because I knew that Rachel is an amazing writer--I am not joking when I say that I expect to see her published someday. Her analyses are always clean and sophisticated and her creative works are superb. And I'm not saying all of this just because she is my friend, mind you. So to find out that she had not been invited was just downright shocking to me. I knew that she deserved to be a student judge (and I was ready to ask her previous and present English teachers to back me up on this, confident that they would enthusiastically give their recommendation) and that she would definitely enjoy it. So I talked to one of the co-chairs about the situation and asked her if she could talk to the teacher in charge of the competition about possibly inviting Rachel. She herself was shocked that Rachel hadn't been invited in the first place, so I had a good feeling that everything would turn out well. And they did!
Risks taken: 14
Hugs: 2
Current food cravings/obsessions: WATER
Playlist(s) of the Week: Just "Dancing With A Ghost" on repeat...
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