A Piece of My Friend

I got a piece of my friend today. It came in the mail disguised as a book of poetry with her name on the cover. When it arrived, I ripped open the envelope with excitement. I jumped in, right into the center, like jumping off a rock into a deep pool of water.  It was probably the wrong way to begin.  I’m guessing the order of the poems was painstakingly chosen. In any creative work you give birth to, every particle of the thing matters.  But I jumped in. Her words sprung off the pages, and I could hear her voice. I was excited.  I was enveloped in her experience. Her words, so perfectly chosen, reflected her soul.   I felt like a voyeur…almost guilty for reading these thoughts placed on the page.  Am I worthy of reading this? Why should I be allowed into these moments of her life, these windows into her soul? My heart was in my throat as I absorbed each word. Each poem opened more windows. Where was I while she was living page 21?  Where was I? It is in my nature to feel guilty for being absent.  I am acutely aware of my tendency to swirl around in my own universe, leaving others outside.  It is not usually something I realize until years after, at which time I swear I will not sink that deep into my own experience again…until it happens again. Where was I?  I feel honored to be invited in now…into that space where emotions are transformed into words.  It is an amazing, magical moment when that happens…when emotion is morphed into letters strung together on a page.  How do these letters hold such power? Such emotion? They are just little letters strung together, the same letters kindergarten children learn to use. But when connected properly, they hold it all…anger, love, resentment, passion.  And it is as if each word creates a box filled with emotion and when we stack these boxes upon boxes building poetry and prose, they fall upon us as we read and we are struck with feelings the writer wants to convey.   I don’t write poetry. My words don’t come to me in that way. I am in awe of how my friend is able to craft and convey these powerful thoughts and emotions in so few words.  She whittles away like a woodworker carving a delicate statue until she is left with the essence, so heavy, so powerful, that the reader becomes wrapped in a blanket of emotion.  I feel her craft requires so much commitment…so much restraint.  The weight of the restriction would cripple me. When I am free to string together as many words as it takes to paint an image, I release my control.  I paint a picture with words…like Monet using a hundred thousand dots of color to create an image.  When the painting is complete you lose sight of the dots and are left with the whole.  I am thankful to have my friend, the poet, and to hold her soul in my hands as I turn the pages. I think only now I understand what it means to create something tangible like this, how it is not only for the writer but also for the reader and how it changes them…how an experience of one can change another, touch another, reach another, propel another into creating their own piece of art.  It reminds me to come up out of my universe and let others be the catalyst.  Allow myself to be influenced. To influence others. To make art. To build boxes. 

Thank you, Alexandra.