I once knew a writer who brought his own coffee and snacks
to the writers’ group. He was eccentric, always smelled of cheap cigarettes,
and he talked fondly of living in a tent. He moved his tent around every day to
enjoy the beauty of the Iowan landscape. He was always dressed in camo and
heavy boots, and he had a rasp in his voice that grated on your ears at first,
but then it became comforting. He wheezed a lot, probably due to the unhealthy
amount of cigarettes he smoked every day, but he was off alcohol, man, and boy,
did it feel good! He wrote about his past, about what might have been his past,
about something in his past moved into his future. He was eccentric, but we all
liked him after a while.
There was another writer in the group—mousy, a little
socially awkward—OK, a lot socially awkward, but had good things to say. She
had a bit of a wheezy-hiccuping laugh, but it was endearing. She bit her lips a
lot and wore baggy clothing. She had a complicated history, which may have
explained her awkward tendencies, but we liked her all the same. She’d move
away within a year, and then the others that tried to replace her never could.
Our leader was a family man, a writing man, and he was a friendly
man. He worked at the English Center where students were encouraged to go and
get help from people who were better at English than they were. He had a wife
and a daughter, and he was the encouraging type. Of all of us, he was probably
the most mentally stable.
And, there’s me. That angry looking thing in the corner
that was attempting to be the cool type but was, deep down, a good girl and
would never do anything outside of her moral code. That included under-aged
drinking. A bit less awkward, definitely more quiet and had less interesting
things to say, but came faithfully every week because, damn it all, I wanted to
write and I wanted to be good at it.
I don’t know where we all are now. Eventually, we move on,
grow older, think back on those times and imagine what it’d be like if we were
together again for one last meeting. Smoking man would probably still be
smoking, eating his various canned-tuna-on-crackers or some other interesting
snack, and having more stories to tell us. He’d be real comfortable, man, and
he’d talk about all sorts of things like hunting and things that he felt were
rad, man, because they’re just so rad. Awkward girl would listen and laugh wheezily,
add a few comments, and mentally take note of what he was saying for future
because he would make a great character in a story someday. Leader would sit,
laugh, and listen, occasionally bringing Smoking man back onto the topic of the
story that we were reading before letting him spiral out into his vast brain.
And me? I don’t know what I’d be doing. Probably sitting, enjoying the small
group dynamic before going home and writing about Smoking’s stories in my
journal for possible future use.
Or maybe we wouldn’t be able to stand each other. I’d be
worse at correcting grammar after having taught English for three years abroad,
Awkward would be giving a lot more comments after having been in a Master’s
program for writing the past three years, Smoking wouldn’t have changed, and
Leader would look older, having more time with his daughter and realizing that
he’d have to deal with female puberty soon.
Perhaps it’s better having left everything the way it was.
That way we can reminisce about the past with happier thoughts.
