Sometimes I wonder about this desire I have to write. There are so many writers in the world already. What would I have to say that is new? I think of an author who is so incredibly talented—say, Rebecca Solnit or Ann Lamott—and I think, I want to say a lot of the same things, but I wouldn’t be nearly as wise, nearly as funny! I will just read an Ann Lamott book, instead.
Then, on Tuesday, I was most of the way through John Green’s, Turtles All the Way Down, and I found myself staring at the Pacific and crying. It was a scene with mom as she watched her Aza struggle, trying to talk herself out of fixing it. Knowing she couldn’t fix it. I’m not even sure how Green accomplished that—the story is definitely Aza’s—but I knew exactly how that mom was feeling.
I found myself grateful all day that John Green is on the planet. He is one of those people I will never meet, but who has helped me to shape my own thoughts. He writes things I swear I’ve been trying to put into words for decades and puts them in a teenager’s voice and makes them sound obvious and true. “Maybe, the old lady and the scientist were both right…the world is billions of years old, and life is a product of nucleotide mutation and everything. But the world is also the stories we tell about it.”
There are certain authors I keep wanting to send thank you notes to for helping me to get so much more out of this beautiful and harrowing life. I feel that way about Mary Oliver and Toni Morrison and Parker Palmer and Ann Lamott and Rebecca Solnit and Naomi Shihab Nye. And John Green. I’ve spend so much time with the words of these authors that it really is hard for me to believe they don’t know me, too. I feel so connected.
And so maybe the goal of writing is not to say something new, but rather, to create the opportunity for connection, in which case, I’m in.
Laura Stavoe