Published in Edition Two (2024) as part of the On Walks column

She found herself in orange sheets that made a mellow swoosh each time she moved her body - a little to the left, a little more to the right - she kept turning and turning in wrinkly, orange covers. In a room with walls that were still bare, its nakedness reminded her of home, of new beginnings and nostalgic songs. 

She laid there too long, the air stale with the smell of yesterday. When the morning began to end, and the hours became bigger, she got dressed, choosing the underwear from the laundry left behind in the corner of her room. It was far enough from the door, so she wouldn’t see it while entering the room. Shoes, hairpins (2), a bag, headphones, a book (maybe?), and a notebook (possibly). 

She was out the door and a few steps down, hearing the high-pitched noise of the heavy lock on the fence that she closed after stepping onto the street. 

A lot depended on the first few minutes of the walk. Where to go being the most important question, and what to listen to being the second most important. She decided to go right, as she knew there would be coffee that way.

She walked past a busy street: people with bags, people with other people, people with clothes on and hair put up in ponytails, and people that went fast and slow, some so slow she would breathe the air out of her nostrils a bit louder. She got out of the street and now there were only two turns - one right, and the other one also right, and then there was coffee. 

She sat down, drank the coffee, took out the book she was reading now - Exteriors
by Annie Ernaux, and read the quote from the Introduction for the 4th time now. It talked about how human experience is subjective, and should never be understood from the context of the experience - “Thus a supermarket can provide just as much meaning and human truth as [a] concert hall”. And she agreed with it again. She took the notebook out and started writing like Ernaux had told her to do: as objectively as possible, not imposing her experience onto it. 

And so she wrote: 

A baby keeps banging both of its stretched palms on a metal pole. From time to time it makes sounds, not cries, not laughter - just a sound that once will be transformed into words. It sits on the grass and uses all of its weight to move its body up. Just a second ago the dad - a handsome, young guy who looks like he works in tech (high up position) kissed the baby on the top of its head. 

She tried writing a poem, but there were not enough words, so she stood up and left after packing her bag.

As there was no more goal for this walk - she couldn’t drink two coffees - this part was usually harder. She had to think about something, and as now there were enough words, she started thinking about how they danced, waltzed, and put each other in pairs and bigger groups that looked pretty together. 

She recently had to read essays on Why I Write for school. So, she read Orwell and Zadie Smith - she agreed with Orwell who said that one of the reasons was praise, and with Zadie Smith, who had bravely said that it’s just a way to pass time. 

She played with the words she remembered and  kept walking. Taking another step - this time with her left foot - she realized that both Orwell and Smith missed something. Or maybe they didn’t experience it. She realized she wrote because she was scared that it was the only thing she was good at. Taking another step - this time with her right foot, as she was so focused on her thoughts she had to take her headphones off - the birds had started chirping. 

She had always wrote. She remembered being 7, maybe 8, on a sailing trip with her dad and four other men with their kids, and reading them her book about twins who had met a dwarf and became friends with him. She never finished reading that book - but she remembered the notebook she wrote in was pink, and had a green giraffe on it. 

Then she had a blog, which in no way was a representation of any good writing, but she enjoyed it. At the time, she had hidden it from everyone in school. She kept buying notebooks which always failed to fill themselves up, and wrote poems when she was sixteen and nihilistic and overly sad over a boy, and she remembered that they were bad, but felt good to write. Now she wrote for little magazines and got rejected from the big ones.

She stopped in front of the house with kid’s clothes hanging off of the fence door. Up for grabs, in good condition. 

What if she was actually not good at it? 

And yet, she had people telling her she was good - people that actually wrote, parents, teachers, boys she had liked, random people on the internet. Yet, it never felt like a definite yes.

Yes, I know how to write. 

She never felt that. And she felt like everyone has to have something they’re good at. Otherwise, what’s life for? 

It was a big statement, which made her think when she stopped to tie her shoe. What was life for, if not for being good at something? And everyone seemed to have something for them, or at least they pretended to do so. So, she must cling to something that makes her feel.. not mediocre at least.

But that's too many thoughts. So, as she stood up, she took her headphones out to blast some music. And promised herself that she would write tomorrow.