Write Where You Are

In seventh grade, with glasses, short hair (self-cut after a mass of it had been pulled out from getting too close to a power tool - another story!), acne, and a gorgeous blonde-haired-big-blue-eyed sister in the same junior high, a debilitating level of self-consciousness kept me in constant anxiety.

Up till then, being teacher’s pet had been enough, but now kids were kissing and going to parties, etc. I desperately wanted to be popular, and I had no idea how to get there.

Until I created a little “get to know you” game.

Each day I thought of a question and went around asking other kids for their answers. I’d ask on the school bus, in the halls, at lunch. I tabulated the answers and shared the “winners” the next day. (The only one I remember is “Yes or No?”, which folks often had a difficult time answering.)

The hack worked. Turns out people like​​​​ to be asked their preferences, their opinions. We want to be known in ways that feel safe, and the surveys gave us kids a little something to look forward to during the school week. Fast forward to today.

Sitting in our weekly “Ladies on Laptops” writing with Sage and Dee virtual meeting, Dee asks what I will write on, and I have no answer, so I reply, “I’ll start with asking what I will write on.” To which she replies, “That’s always a good idea! Begin with right where you are!”

Well, I love plays on the word “write,” so I took her prompt and made it into “Write Where You Are”.

I began listing things “Outside”:

• marines in downtown LA

• stories of the National Guard using tear gas on reporters

• hearing a friend state that there is a curfew in LA

  
  

Then I wrote “Outside:” again, this time shifting my attention from thoughts and others’ words to real time, physical experience of my immediate surroundings:

• the distant sound of a train

• the sight of Dee’s hair blowing softly on Facetime

• my left foot propped up next to the laptop, still bruised and swollen but healing nicely

• birdsong, so much birdsong and crow talk

• a bug on the page

• and wisps of cloud overhead both here and on Dee’s screen, clouds made from the same water on the same planet.

I thought about where other people are, figuratively and geographically, and realized that, just like in seventh grade, I can ask! That is how I landed here tod, writing to you.

With my ADHD human brain (e.g., oh, look at the kitty! And I have five right now!), I am not committing to daily questions. That said, right now I am so aware of how much care I feel for you, every one of you, wherever your were born, whomever you voted for, whether or not we've met.

I care for our connection, and for our choice and ability to connect and to know each other on some level. And​​ today I have a moment to write, and to ask; and if you’d like to answer, and you have a moment to do so, I have a question for you.:

Would you post in the Comments one thing (more, if you like) that you see, hear, taste, and/or smell in your immediate surroundings, right now?