I woke up this morning to actual footsteps on the stairs. Mike was still home. I had to tell him… I had to tell him.
I wonder what happens to our stories that we have such a deep desire to tell? What happens to the universe as a result of those stories?
Do they swirl out of our mouths like butterflies on a breeze? Do they, unbidden, create a hurricane half way around the world? Or are they bound by the molasses nature of the way things are. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes, there’s that slow-motion nature of change and it feels as though the laws of nature are in on the joke when you just need to make a big change and you need to make it now. Other times, change happens in an instant. But what are the effects of a single story?
Oh, Mike listened as I told him about how my new student does all of his math homework before our session so we have more time to edit his amazing chapters. Mike listens, usually, and in one comment, he’ll flip my perspective onto its side.
Did you ever flip a nickel? They never flip a nickel in sports. There’s a reason for that. When I was nine years old, I flipped a nickel once and it landed on its edge. How many times I had to flip that nickel, I will never know, but just that once, it landed in the most spectacularly implausible way that a nickel could land. It was so unlikely that I called my brother over, but the magic devolved into an argument over whether I’d actually flipped the nickel or just said I did and stood it on its edge. But I knew the truth. Nothing my brother could say could erase the truth that I’d watched a nickel land on its edge.
That’s how Mike’s comments will sometimes hit me, like knocking down a nickel that had landed on its edge.
“This guy is probably going to become a writer, spend the rest of his life trying to rise up among the millions of writers in this world, slog daily through a job he hates, and never get his books published,” he said.”And you did that.”
Well, no. Mike didn’t say exactly that. It’s funny how I don’t quite remember what he did say, but it was about trying to rise up among the millions of writers when fewer and fewer people read books and more and more people struggle to tell their stories. I think I blocked it out, being a writer among the millions whose work is never read. I’m in denial and it’s only now and then that Mike forgets to be encouraging and the truth comes out.
I think a true story affects the universe differently that any old story does.
I admit that no matter how good a writer is, it will be really difficult to catch people’s attention. I have a Pollyanna view of being an author. I do. Good writers are supposed to rise to the top. Bad writers will never get past the iron gate that exists in the publishing business.
And yet, nickels do land on their edges now and then. They do. I am witness to that miracle. Maybe my student is a nickel.
Thank you for listening, jules