Renaming Concepts

Dear you,

He sat on the table across from me, barely taking his breaths and looking at me. “I’m sorry I’m late.” He said it while he placed the copies of his book on the chair next to him.

“It’s ok. I was working on my draft story anyway.” 

“What are you writing about?”

I laughed because I didn’t really know what I was writing about. I knew I was writing about someone I didn’t know existed, but I couldn’t let him know he may have been the character I am trying to plot.

“Oh, it’s not big of a plot. Just trying to write how writers’ block feels to writers.” I lied.

“That is a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it? Kind of a paradox of sorts.”

“Yeah, that’s true. It’s exactly like writing about how deafening silence can be; it cannot be written in words, but is only felt.”

He was silent for a moment, looking deeply at me. I felt as if he was trying to strip me off my words, or drown my imagination with his fixed gaze. I do not know how someone can fix their gaze at you for so long you have to look away because it feels like you’re being stripped naked.

I looked away and continued. “But perhaps there is a way out of this. Maybe we can say that, for example, writers’ block is just another step in a writer’s world, to reach for something higher, to make a comeback with stronger thoughts, wilder imagination, and deeper characters. Maybe it’s us that think it’s a boundary-- or a ‘block.’ Don’t you think we should name it differently, like writer’s quietude, a state of calmness before the storm? I mean, do you ever stop writing just because the words do not come out? You don’t. You open tens of pages and leave them unfinished. That does not seem like a block to me.”

He smiled. And, oh God, the way he understood every word I said.

“I love the word unfinished, and the way you use it. It’s a tricky use. Are we ever finished in this life?”

“No, we never are,” I said, looking at him, and ended the conversation as soon as I got the chance to, because it was scary.

How can someone understand you so much it hurts, or it scares you? I was scared that the next moment he would know what I’m thinking of and tell me the exact same thing. Am I looking in the mirror? Because it sure does feel so.

Do you know how it feels to look in the mirror and have the same thoughts in mind as the person on that other side?

I hope not.

Yours faithfully and sincerely

N.