intellectual conversations with a guy you once had a crush on

This post is part of a writing project called #30daysofessays. For more about the project, click here.

He intimidated me. Easily the best-looking, most crushed-upon guy in town. Plus he was smart. Talked about books and music and social issues. And he listened to me when I talked. *Swoon*

But seriously. We would never be a thing. Acquaintances. Game for a good conversation. Now and then, he'd let me have a free cup of hot tea at the bakery I frequented and where he worked. He was nice, you know. He smiled. Not just at me. A lot.

And I looked forward to encountering him. Mainly for the banter. Sometimes I still had trouble stringing words together. I wanted him to think I was smart. I forgot that I actually was (am) smart. I didn't have to pretend.

I've gotten past the idea that it's better to act like I know what he's talking about rather than just to admit I don't. Have you read this author? No. What's she written? This is happening here and it's amazing. Oh, really? I had no idea. Tell me more.

I'm making things up now, but conversations with him almost always brought intellectual stimulation. I felt selfish talking with him because he was giving me so much, and I didn't think I had anything to give him in return.

We'd known each other a while before we finally sat down to have lunch as actual friends to talk about this essay he was writing. It had been a while since we'd even had much of a conversation beyond hellos. Casual meetings in the street. Waves across a crowded bar or through a shop window.

But we sat for an hour and only briefly talked about his essay. Conversation careened from topic to topic. Highs and lows. You look happy, he said. I am.

Story after story after story. Mundane and exciting and covering so much ground. I wasn't hunting for words, worrying what he'd think of me if I said this or that, hoping he'd like me, over-eager to be the one he's paying attention to. I was those things once, but we were just talking, and I realized I'm not anymore.

Then it was over. Back to work for me, to the essay for him. We smiled and said good-bye. I saw him sitting in the window another day. Once upon a time I'd have ducked in to sit. Any excuse to bask in his eyes. I smiled. Waved. Kept walking.

12/9/2013

Tucson, AZ, Spring 2008

This post is part of a writing project called #30daysofessays. For more about the project, click here.

She was taking pictures of them as they stumbled from the bus, their belongings in plastic grocery bags. Tying shoelaces. Fastening belts. Herded like so many cattle back to the border. They might have called a handful of different countries home, but dropping them just that side of the dividing line put them out of our hands. America's hands.

We attending a hearing in Tucson. Not for those people. For others like them. People we call "illegal." (Because people can be "illegal"...) One man had crossed the border and been sent back thirty-seven times. Others just once, twice, half a dozen times. Those for whom the court could not provide a translator were released on time served and sent back across the border. Others would serve longer sentences before they, too, were returned to the desert. We learned many of these would attempt again to enter the country. They had nowhere else to go.

At an aid station near Nogales, Mexico, we saw the effects of prolonged exposure in the desert. Burned and calloused feet. Mouths dry with thirst. Skin parched from the dry heat. Water barrels marked by blue flags are scattered along the US-Mexico border, filled regularly by Humane Borders volunteers. Opponents of the organization's work contend that such provision encourages illegal crossings. Research refutes this idea, but research cannot stop the destruction of barrels and the waste of a life-sustaining resource.

They're breaking the law and should be treated like criminals, one side argues. This means robbing them of their humanity. Reducing them to less than livestock. Turning a blind eye to officer behavior that would not be out of place in a concentration camp. Deporting people to a place that is not their home. Naming this justice because it appeases the supposedly law-abiding masses. Because at least it looks like some effort is being made.

But to what end?

A nation built on the backs of immigrants turns its nose up at a new generation of immigrants. Their path may be different, but that doesn't make them unworthy. A person willing to trek thousands of dangerous miles across hot sand just to attempt to gain entrance into the United States seems like a person with the kind of work ethic held in such high esteem here.

That ethic is irrelevant because that person failed to obtain a visa and enter the country legally. Why? Surely, the system is perfectly formed and allows entrance to all people and doesn't put any kind of barriers in place that would limit people's opportunity based on economic status. That's an absurd suggestion. Is it? So he sits in limbo, waiting, expecting to be deported, to end up in that aid camp in Nogales. No better prospect awaits him than to try again and again and again. Until maybe one time he slips through and gets a low-paying, long hours job and hopes against hope he isn't found out.

Forced to march with dozens of other migrants across the border while a wide-eyed college student takes his picture.

12/8/2013

#30daysofessays

I was having lunch with a friend last week and telling him about this bizarre day at Rotary the week of the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. He asked if I ever thought, during an experience, that if it were happening to David Sedaris, he'd write an essay about it. I really can't say I've ever thought that. Until now.

Of course, I'm not David Sedaris. I can, however, write an essay so I figure I might as well. I've let enough time lapse since college without adequately exercising my creative writing/critical thinking/whatever brain muscles. Hopefully they haven't atrophied too much in the intervening years.

So here's the deal:

I've got this bag of writing prompts. Sort of. They're just tidbits of things I find interesting or want to write about or that strike me on a given day enough to write them down and toss them in the bag.

I'll choose a prompt from the bag each day and write about it. A page or two. Maybe less. However long it takes until I'm finished.

(I'm writing from the library now and there's this clock at the bottom of the screen telling me how much time I have left in my session. Ticking the seconds away. It's making this feel rather like a test.)

Whenever I can get to a computer, I'll upload the essays to the blog and publish them one by one. Essay one will make its debut tomorrow.

The days might not be consecutive. Here at Day 3, I'm doing all right.

If you're reading and think I should write about something specific, let me know. If you like a piece, don't like a piece, feel really middling about a piece, leave it in the comments. I like to know what you think.

You can follow this project on twitter at #30daysofessays or just subscribe here or just check back now and then to see what's new.

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Like Letters

I have a penchant for writing long-winded letters, fraught with emotion, to guys I find attractive. If you've ever been the receiving party of such a letter, I apologize. (There aren't that many of you, and you're probably not reading this anyway, but just in case. . .) You probably didn't deserve it, and I shouldn't have inflicted it upon you, but I'm certain that I meant every word I wrote at the time that I wrote it. Still, that's no excuse for actually giving it to you. I probably should have kept it to myself.

Then, I had a breakthrough of sorts. I wrote a short note and spent a day agonizing over whether or not to give it to someone. In the end, I didn't, partly because I am a little shy sometimes, partly because my gut told me not to, and partly because I was terrified someone else would find it and read it and hello awkward!

The note didn't say anything incriminating. There was a comment on his looks (sort of) and a compliment on a recent project. It shouldn't have been embarrassing to give him the note or even to say those things to his face . . . if I only thought of him as a friend.

There's the trouble, though.

I like him. I probably shouldn't, but I do. A little, anyway. Enough to make me awkward.

If I didn't, I could tell him the things that I wrote in that note, but since I do, anything I say is going to sound like I'm flirting. Which would be okay, I suppose, if I knew he also liked me. But I don't. And anyway, he shouldn't. We're really all wrong for each other. Probably.

So I'm erring on the side of caution when it comes to "Like Letters" these days.

Probably.

Why I'm Afraid to Let You Read What I'm Writing

Too much of how I feel about myself is all tied up in how you feel about me. Good or bad, important or not, I value your opinion. Even if I don’t know you, I’ll take your response personally. Even if you just evaluate the grammar, I’ll internalize it and somehow manipulate your comments into a personal attack. They’re not meant that way. My brain knows that on the most basic level, but the emotional side of my brain doesn’t believe the rational side of my brain so I will struggle to keep the writing separate from who I am.

Except that, in a way, the writing is who I am. We are one and the same. It’s my thoughts and my opinions and my imagination run amok and my contribution to the world, however insignificant in the long run. It’s what will remain when I’m gone. So if you don’t appreciate it, if you don’t like it, if you don’t respond to it, what was the point of it? Why did I bother? If what I created isn’t worth your notice, does that mean I’m not worth it, either?

Again, I know that’s not true. I know my worth extends far beyond some words on a page. My contribution to the world is so much more than a physical remnant. My most valuable impression will not be measured by its physical presence. It will be the cheer that someone feels when they remember our interaction or the smile that creeps across their face when something reminds them of me.

So I guess what I’m saying is that how you feel about my writing will affect how I feel about myself, but I hope what you remember most about me is not my writing but me. Just me. My smile and my heart and the love and laughter I shared with you. I hope my writing doesn’t get in the way of that, and if all you have of me is my writing, I suppose my writing had better be full of love and laughter.

Recently, I've Been Writing...

Okay, I've been writing more than just recently. Since elementary school probably. When I was a kid, adults showered praise on my writing, impressed with my command of grammar and vocabulary, imagery and symbolism. (Yikes, that sounds conceited, doesn't it?) It made me uncomfortable, being singled out.

So I stopped sharing things and started keeping them to myself. Eventually, I lost that youthful ability to give over my thoughts to people to read and instead hoarded them, terrified to let anyone else see or hear what was happening in my head.

In college, of course, as an English major, I had to share my thoughts, had to write them down and let professors and peer-readers evaluate them. I was successful (mostly), and my confidence grew. Reading over some of those papers now, I wonder who that writer is. Surely, I didn't write those papers. I did, though, so where is she, the person who thought those things and phrased them the way she did. Not that anything I wrote was particularly commendable or memorable, but the thoughts were interesting and the writings engaging.

So what happened?

Well, whatever happened, I'm back to writing and figure I might as well put the words out there for reading. Some of it will be fiction, some introspective, some just for laughs. I'll leave it to you to decide what's what.

I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments. I hope you'll tell me the truth, even if it might hurt. I hope you'll help me grow, and I hope you won't give up on me the way I had nearly given up on myself.

And thanks, in advance. I'm glad you're here.