Perhaps we will inhale and exhale in accidental synchronization

June Novel

I’d like to tell you a story.

I think I must try to tell the truth, because even if I end up telling a lie there will be truth in the fact that I tried. If I try to tell the truth, and it comes out slant—perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

There is a way to write with abandon. I think the truth is where that trail starts. I think the truth is where that trail ends. I think an active imagination is a wonderful friend.

Here’s the story:

There was a young girl who became a young woman. Before she learned the alphabet, she wrote. That sounds silly. But she wrote lines of cursive Es and Ls—filled her notebooks with them. And when she was done she read her stories to all who cared to listen. Somehow the same block of Es and Ls could tell the tale of a princess one day and the adventures of a pirate the next. 

When school days finally arrived, the alphabet morphed from stranger to mysterious friend who revealed new letter combinations to her the more she read. She even uncovered new words when she wrote! Though this proved rare, her writing fire was stoked.

She continued this pattern for a decade, then two, and it was great fun, all the way to graduation at age twenty-one. The fun did not end; it took on a new form. Now she would need to write on her own—find a new story to tell—perhaps more than one.

A couple years passed and a month before 24 she felt the nerve of a novel flutter to the tips of her fingers. So she started a story and then started another. Knowing a novel was there, somewhere, she still felt the flutter.

Nine days remained until her predetermined deadline. Three false starts set her days behind —thousands of words were yet to be written. She learned dedication is a requirement of translating the imagination. Though the imagination is twisty and turney she believed in the spirit of her younger self.

Even though now her literacy reaches beyond Es and Ls, she wished she could once again swim—get lost in imagination. She often wonders how other writers believe in themselves through their first writing projects. Obscurity embalms a comforting deception. To be unknown, unread, unheard of by more than one’s friends is not something to escape, but something that makes our shape.

She drifts through her thoughts as metacognition overtakes her. And she must admit that she and I wear the same outfit.

One day I will end. I will end in the middle of living, in the middle of everything that led me to my final moment. Not the final moment, but my final moment. Perhaps I will unknowingly share that final moment with another person somewhere in the world. Perhaps we will inhale and exhale in accidental synchronization. Neither of us knowing the moment we shared.

So I think I will write more today. And more tomorrow. And more forever, whatever forever may be for me. For one day I will end, and that will be the story of me.

That’s the end of my story.

Sometimes a silly rhyme is the only way to say what’s on your mind. So I send silly rhymes from my mind to yours while I try to complete this project before me.

I hope to see you tomorrow. I hope we both continue. I hope more words are written. I hope we all feel free.